Reply #18: forty years ago, a buddy and I made a bomb joke and ended delaying a flight

[onenote]

Many DUers are probably too young to remember, but air marshals were first used back in the late 60s and early 70s in response to a series of hijackings of planes to Cuba. During my senior year in high school, a friend of mine and I were flying to North Carolina from DC during spring break and after we went through the search of our bags, my friend (being stupid) turned to me and said, "they didn't even look for the bomb". Now, one might argue that no one with a bomb would say such a thing. But the response was swift and, frankly, unsurprising. A couple of marshals stepped out of the shadows and asked us to follow them. We were questioned and our bags (we didn't have any checked luggage) were thoroughly -- and I mean thoroughly -- searched. We were certain that we were going to miss our plane but amazingly, it was delayed. We were the last passengers to board and, thankfully, no one knew why the plane was delayed so no one was as pissed at us as they had every right to be.

Given what has happened since then, I don't have any problem with the reaction to this idiot's "joke."