Years ago, I wrote a column on how the TSA had effectively made up a crime of telling a joke at an airport. It appears that TSA is not the only humor-challenged airport staff. Southwest Airlines passenger Peter Uzelac told a relatively innocent joke after being delayed for several hours due to a maintenance issue. A flight attendant did not think it was funny and had the plane return to the gate and Uzelac thrown off of the flight over the vehement objections of the other passengers. Rather than pledge to deal with the flight attendant, Southwest simply expressed regret for a “less-than-positive experience.”

Most of us have experienced that embarrassment of forgetting about the large bottle of shampoo in our carry on when going through airport security. However, one passenger at Bradley Airport in Connecticut appears to have overlooked the two-foot machete in his carry on. It is certainly true that all of those signs before the scanner discuss “knives” and “guns” and not specifically your machete.