Recently, some close friends visited California. One of the stops they made was the Blue Diamond Almond Company in Sacramento, where they picked up some almond butter. My friend H was very excited about this souvenir, and couldn’t wait to take it back to Texas and enjoy it. Being followers of this blog, and frequent travelers themselves, they of course carried their suitcases on. As they were going through security, they took out their plastic bag of toiletries and laptops, and took off their shoes like they are supposed to. So you can imagine their surprise when the TSA agents called for a bag check, and pulled out the…….almond butter? Really? They were given the option of tossing it or mailing it to themselves. As their plane was to start boarding soon, they elected to toss it. Lame.

On the TSA website, they do state that peanut butter (so almond butter too, I would assume) needs to go in checked luggage. Okay, thanks for putting that out there. But is almond butter a liquid? They say it’s “spreadable”, so along with cheese spreads it can’t be carried on. It definitely is spreadable, so if that is what defines a liquid then it’s a liquid. I just never would equate peanut butter with, say, water. Or lotion. Or even lipstick, which would be a liquid if it melted. But then again, regular cheese would be a liquid if melted too, and I have taken cheddar cheese through security on many occasions. Okay I just confused myself into a circle. For now, TSA holds the cards so we have to do what they say. Even if it doesn’t necessarily make sense…..