Try taking a 15" ristra on board as a carry-on! Twice! I had to do that last November. I bought a nice heart-shaped ristra at the Chile Addict store in Albuquerque, NM. Carried it all the way back in a rental car to Midland, TX. Caught a Southwest flight to Dallas Love and then a connecting flight from Dallas to Little Rock, AR. I think they ran that thing thru the x-ray machine like five times so they could fiqure out what they were looking at. I can't imagine what was going thru their minds. I think the problem was that the ristra was all tied together with metal wire. After I got it home I opened it up and it was kinda smashed to pieces. Donnie Date: Fri, 03 May 2002 10:15:31 -0400 From: "chile head" <chilehedz@hotmail.com> Subject: Re: [CH] Chiles and Ariports (was Open Fields and the USGP) > ><3> wear the pack as my carry-on luggage and risk having to cause a >national scene by whoooping the arse of the NGs/security who say >"sorry, we have to confiscate those chiles...they could be used as >weapons". > Actually, you aren't as far off the mark as most of us would hope. Last month, going through LAX, I had half a dozen carefully wrapped 10-oz bottles of Tapatio in my carry-on. Made the guy on the X-ray machine sorta excited. I had to unwrap a couple bottles, get thoroughly wanded, and listen to a lot of stupid discussion. One of the 'guards' had a little trouble with the pepper spray/hot sauce distinction. The other two explained to him, as nicely as possible, that he was an idiot. A good time was had by all. - --d//didn't I see this scene in Midnight Express?