Everyone has complaints, sob stories about the misery of flying, of overzealous and grabby security personnel forcing you to remove article after article of clothing until everyone in line learns that what set off the metal detector was your nipple ring. If I had a nickel for every time that happened… but I digress. Ever since the regulations barring liquids and gels from carryon luggage were handed down, I had been fretting about the transfer of precious leftovers through airports and security checkpoints. This morning I found out that this fear was entirely justified.

 

Unless you’re hosting a seder, it seems to me no one cooks on Pesach. Best case scenario is an eight-day stint at the Eden Roc or any of the dozens of resort destinations catering to those who need separate swim times for each respective gender, not including the late-night skinny dipping that never EVER goes on at such places. Most of us, though, have to slum it, going to our parents or in-laws for first days, and making due for the last few days of the constipated glory that is Pesach. Just kidding, parents and in-laws – in fact, it’s just the opposite. Who can deny the bliss that is Mom’s rib roast, or Grandma’s meringue cookies that almost taste like real cookies, and not at all like Styrofoam?

 

This is why leftovers are so vital on this holiday above all others. Before the current glut of kosher-for-Passover options a storied tradition of family recipes was compiled and perfected which effectively became the wheat-free glue holding parents and children together. This practice is the primary reason I go home for holidays (and also family and caring and all that other stuff). And when I got married it became the saving grace of my time with my in-laws (aside for shalom bayis and “they’re your family now, too” and blah blah blah). More to the relevant point: when I tasted my mother-in-law’s kugel – actually a glorious combination of potato kugel, sweet potatoes, and lots and lots of beef – I knew I’d never go hungry again during Pesach.

 

And then those @$%&#$% terrorists had to go and screw it up. “Let’s make bombs out of liquids and gels,” they said, probably in a foreign accent, and followed by a sinister high-pitched giggle, or full-throated chortle, or maybe some hand rubbing. Leftovers were in jeopardy; more than that, my desire to see either my wife’s or my own family.

 

When my sister-in-law went to the airport, she had no problem getting through with chicken soup. I picture her now, mocking my loss over a bowl of steaming chicken and matzah balls, not bothering with salt because of the perfect spice combination with which the soup is infused. G-d damn you, sister-in-law, and G-d damn your fantastic bowl of soup.

 

So this morning, when I filled my carryon with soup, and brisket, and mom-in-law’s kugel, I felt no trepidation. I was confident, staring down the horrified stares of my fellow passengers in line. Yes, I boasted to them in my head, I am carrying liquids, and what could be qualified as gels. I will bring them onto the plane, and from there I shall take them off and bring them home with me, where I shall again avoid the terrible burden of cooking on Pesach, and feast like a son-in-law should. Their minds reeled from my telepathic proclamation, and, abashed, they averted their gaze from the delicacies I carried.

 

I crossed all my t’s in that line this morning. I put the contents of my pants pockets in my briefcase; I removed my shoes and placed them directly onto the conveyor, and not into a plastic bin. Had I a belt I would have dethreaded it from the designated loops, and laid it carefully with my other carryon possessions. I stepped through the metal detector with nary a beep or a second glance from the unibrowed security individual. And this, this is where the wheels came off.

 

A confused look passed across the x-ray reviewer’s face. Not the usual one, where they think an I-Pod looks exactly like a submachine gun. This was an expression I hadn’t seen on an airplane security official in years: he was about to properly do his job, and he was scared of the implications for his coworkers. Would the standards be raised for everyone, or would they simply envy his newly attained status as liquid and gel expert?

 

“This is a liquid, you can’t take this through.” He held the – my – soup, the fantastic chicken soup I enjoyed not once but twice over yom tov. He was throwing out not just chicken soup, but honest-to-goodness Bubbe’s chicken soup (my mother-in-law being the archetype by which all other bubbes may be compared); in a certain light that glorified mall-cop was trashing an idea, the very concept of indulgent and benevolent grandparenthood manifested in that Tupperware container.

 

But I let it slide. I’m no anarchist; I merely hoped against hope that, recognizing epicurean perfection, he would look the other way. But rules are rules, and I accepted the ruling. Into the garbage it went.

 

But kugel. KUGEL? This is a threat? Not a liquid by any stretch; its solidity allowed it, in the motherland, to be used as caulk. Whole houses were constructed using it as sturdy foundation. Gel? This is not a haircare product. It’s not baked in a mold, nor refrigerated into translucent jiggly-ness. It’s all earth-tones, for G-d’s sake! No garish unnatural colors, no pastels to be found in kugel! I offered to taste it, to dip my finger in its mass and curl out a delicious portion; not the worst breakfast by any standard. But he would have none of it. I entreated him to reconsider, I even reluctantly offered to share it with my fellow passengers, in case he was worried there wouldn’t be enough for everyone (I was irrational at this point; somehow I had mistaken the security line at the Pittsburgh airport for kindergarten). He chucked it.

 

Terrorists, I address you directly: no amount of contrition will assuage my wrath. I will comb the desert, I will search the ends of the earth for you, I will rid this sorry planet of any and every vestige of your existence. No torture has yet been invented that could match the true physical anguish I felt watching what would have amounted to several already-made meals get tossed unceremoniously into the garbage. I briefly considered taking it out and eating it right there, just so the taste would carry me through to next year. But it wasn’t fully cooked, and I totally would have gotten food poisoning. I cursed the unfeeling, heartless security folk with suppurating lesions about the head, neck, chest and breasts: when I find you, that is the heaven for which you will pray. Forget virgins, or Valhalla, or even pinochle with Jesus. Somehow I have to concoct decent meals for the next four days without resorting to matzah pizza more than five or six times. And all I have to do it with is some matzah, three-year-old Pesadich pancake mix, and four dozen eggs.

 

Damn you, terrorists. DAMN YOU!!!