Airport Security Gone Wild.

No, this isn't about one of those staged girly videos shot at the airport. Did I say 'shot' at the airport? I meant to say 'videotaped' at the airport, please don't hurt me! My attempt at humor is not without some merit. My mother-in-law likes to travel and she has her keepsakes she likes to take with her, just in case. Everyone has a few items they always feel they may need and feel the need to retain them most of the time, like a nail clipper, comb, gum, breath spray, you know. Well, she has this thing about opening letters and keeping the envelopes from getting dog eared when they're ripped open. To accomplish this she has a miniature sword with a mildy semi-sharp edge on it. Semi sharp meaning that it barely makes a straight cut on paper and has never inflicted a skin cut in decades, accidental or otherwise. Unfortunately, she likes to take it when she travels. I don't know who she expects mail from while she's away but she needs it anyways. This particular day was the wrong day to feel the need to bring old 'Excalibur' with her getting on a domestic flight. Homeland Security didn't see the need for it either, especially when questioning her in the 'room'. You know the machine went off while crossing the electronic airport frontier going to the gates and that's how she happened to go to the 'room'. We were allowed to be in the room with her because of her age and they asked the usual questions such as the do you have any other weapons besides the knife like a razor, box cutter, pen knife, pocket knife. Do you have any flammable materials, unlabeled liquids in the suitcase, matches, lighters, guns, bombs, etc. I couldn't fault them, they were doing their job and they weren't being offensive, they were just doing what is expected of them. After a short while she was allowed to leave but under one condition, the sword had to be retained and would be turned over to us to bring home, which I thought was far less than what they could have done. She was still able to make her plane. I make sure she gets to the airport 2 hours ahead to be safe, she made the flight by 5 mins. She'll still think she was in the right the rest of us know better. I still haven't decided if the sword will disappear since she doesn't know I have it. I had to sit in traffic I could have avoided because of that sword. That will weigh heavily in my decision.