The names have been changed to protect the innocent. In fact, I'm not using any names!  

Any resemblance to anyone living or dead is just a coincidence.  

With that done, let me tell you this story.  

It's Christmas Day. We'd had turkey and all the traditional goodies the evening before. Now we're getting ready to have a quiet dinner with a couple of family members.  

A call comes in explaining that because of weather conditions, other relatives we hadn't planned on seeing, have had to make new flight arrangements and will unexpectedly stop at the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport for a three-hour layover. That would be at around 5 p.m., just the time we were going to sit down for our lasagna dinner.  

One of our family members got the great idea to bring our Christmas dinner out to the airport and surprise their relatives while they wait for their outward bound flight.  

We got the main dish, Jell-O, French bread and Christmas cookies packed. We had plastic forks and paper plates and napkins in a paper bag.  

One member of the family fortunately thought to exchange the metal spatula we would use for serving with a plastic one so we wouldn't get stuck in the x-ray machines going through the security system.  

Pretty smart, huh?  

Read on!  

A rush of passengers reached the security check point at the same time we did.  

In the mix-up I forgot to take off my "fanny pack" as I walked through. My dangling keys didn't seem to set off any alarms but I had to go back and put my purse through the x-ray.  

No problem.  

Now we had to search to find the delayed relatives. But we found that they had gotten in early... and were already eating in a restaurant!  

Well. We hadn't eaten our Christmas dinner yet. But the only place we could find was a bare space on the floor among all the holiday travelers.  

Everything looked good. Until I tried to get a slice of French bread. It was warm from the oven, but it hadn't been sliced!  

That's when a certain member of the family said, just use the knife.  

Knife? You brought a knife through security?  

This is the same person who wouldn't bring a metal spatula along because it might cause security to wonder.  

The knife was eight inches long. It had a 4 1/2 inch blade.  

It cut the bread very nicely.  

Maybe I've got my ideas on weapons mixed up. Maybe a knife isn't so dangerous.  

Maybe the real danger is... "a spatula!"  

I can just see a movie where the gangster warns, "Don't move, I've got a SPATULA!"  

Also, I got to thinking that since I had been carrying the open paper bag with the knife as we went through security, I could have ended up sitting in jail that Christmas! But another family member reminded me that right before we got to the x-ray machine I had handed the bag to him.  

Oh yeah. So I'm clear, right?  

Remember, this is just a story. And you didn't hear it from me!