The yoghurt incident

Followers of this exceptional (albeit rarely updated) blog might remember my fil- and yoghurt experimentation, and how important it is to not x-ray the culture if wanting to grow it. The following scenario took place at the Trudeau airport in Montreal, after an excellent Sinterklaas weekend south of the city, visiting David's aunt and her family. They have a farm, with many cows, and the milk is simply divine. With such milk, you can also produce excellent yoghurt. They also have free-roaming, tame and completely adorable hens, here demonstrated by David:

Sound effects should be obvious... (or click the image to be brought to said sound effects...)

My mission was clear: Transport a small amount of the yoghurt back home to Winnipeg, and try to make more in my nowadays well-used yoghurt maker. Easy! I just needed a small container. Astrid had just the one - 1 dl. Or so I thought...

To add some spice to the story, I was also transporting 2 packages of energy-saving lightbulbs from ikea for my supervisor. I did check a suitcase, but it was of the soft kind, and I didn't want to have broken lightbulbs and poisonous gas over all my stuff. However, these lightbulbs not only look dangerous, I'm sure you can do dangerous things with them, if you have those kinds of inclinations. So I thought it best to ask security before I checked my bag. The security personnel turned the bulbs over and over while the creases in their foreheads turned deeper and deeper. Finally they had to call for a supervisor, who immediately said it was ok. Wow. I was impressed. Checked the bag, went back to security, showed my see-through ziplock bag with hand santizer and yoghurt. Uhoh. That container might just be too big. The girl at security looked very troubled, trying to find an indication of the size of the container. She eventually found a miniature text indicating a size of 120 ml. Well, that's out of the question. Gah! My Yoghurt! Desperate times!

"But I only neeed about 3 table spoons, can't we just take out half of it?" No, that doesn't work, it's the container that's the issue, not how much liquid is inside.

"Can I put 3 tablespoons of it in one of your ziplock bags then?" No, it had to be IN a container. David now enters the conversation - he has a red pass, which will grant him access to all Canadian airports. And pilots can bring as much liquid as they please. Would that be ok? No, only if he wears his uniform.

At this point David gets a little irritated too, and mutters something about picking up a uniform at the nearest masquerade store if that is what it takes. The lucrative store nearby sells a package of airline approved sizes, for the bargain price of 11 dollars. Grr. What to do? David comes up with the excellent idea to empty the hand sanitizer bottle and squeeze the yoghurt into it. Yey! So the next 15 minutes, I spend at the washroom cleaning and squeezing.

(yoghurt into a hand santizer bottle, that is). Good thing we had a lot of time.

Approved! Going through detectors. But then they find some suspicious coiled rectangular shapes in my backpack. Backpack is searched, lightbulbs found, turned over and over while creases in foreheads turn deeper and deeper. The superior is being paged again. But this time it's another one, who also develops forehead creases. But for crying out loud, people! I already asked. I agree, I would probably be cautious about poisonous lightbulbs myself, but what else could I have done? Well, they eventually approve them and I'm through.

Now, I'm all for following regulations. But are these regulations completely sane? I could have brought with me 3 times as much yoghurt, as long as it was divided up into 3 containers of 1 dl or less each. Personally, I'd have turned down the lightbulbs and let the yoghurt pass. I really would like to find out now - just how much harm can you do with 120 ml yoghurt (urhm, or really, with the container thereof)? It's certainly an adventure to fly, with all the excitement taking place on the ground...

Tomorrow it's time again. A trip, which at time of booking consisted of 2 quick legs to AMS (leaving at lunch time), but after no less than 4 changes (!!) now goes via both Chicago and Washington with a departure at 6 am. Granted, American customs have improved the last yeara, but I really expect anything to happen.