{"id":83823,"date":"2015-03-19T14:39:33","date_gmt":"2015-03-19T18:39:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=83823"},"modified":"2015-03-19T14:39:33","modified_gmt":"2015-03-19T18:39:33","slug":"hypotheticals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/03\/19\/hypotheticals\/","title":{"rendered":"Hypotheticals"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"etd-test-732220\"<\/a>

A cheese-ball scanner, one of many found at a typical airport.<\/p><\/div>\n

I\u2019m not saying I smuggled a cheese ball through security and onto a domestic flight. That would be illegal, and I would never encourage anyone to break the law, by word or deed. Besides, only a total sociopath would have the hubris to boast of having pulled off such a feat.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But let\u2019s say I had. Let\u2019s say the cheese ball in question contained not just cheddar, blue cheese, and cream cheese, but also mustard and many seasonings. Let\u2019s say, for the sake of argument, that it had been rolled in finely chopped nuts.\u00a0Let\u2019s say I\u2019d thought,\u00a0These cheese balls are so good, and I\u2019ve made such a large batch, that I believe I shall bring one to my parents. <\/p>\n

Now, to pull this off, one would want to freeze the cheese ball solid\u2014to maintain its texture and suppress its smell. One would probably then wish to place it in a ziplock bag, and to wrap said bag in a pair of pajama bottoms for extra padding.\u00a0<\/p>\n

To avert any suspicion, one might wear lipstick and heels. Perhaps one would even pay a few extra dollars for priority access in the vague hope that this would impart a veneer of extra respectability. One would be extra compliant during the security screening, removing one\u2019s coat with alacrity, preemptively removing the transparent cosmetics bag from one\u2019s suitcase, for once, and attempting to communicate both friendly confidence and insouciance.<\/p>\n

At such a moment, one\u2019s glance might dart, somewhat nervously, to the TSA\u2019s list of banned substances. One might note that cheese ball<\/em> was nowhere on that list. One might, nonetheless, feel a little nervous as one passed through the scanner.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And one might begin to panic outright as she heard an agent call for a bag check. One might suddenly imagine the large, round object buried in the bowels of the bag as it would appear on the X-ray screen, wondering whether the box of Ritz crackers would be damning or exonerating \u2026\u00a0<\/p>\n

And then? The euphoria of realizing that the questionable bag belonged to the man behind; of seeing one\u2019s bag sail through the machine with one\u2019s shoes and coat; of knowing, as if for the first time, the thrill of the outlaw.<\/p>\n

Sadie Stein is contributing editor of <\/em>The Paris Review, and the <\/em>Daily\u2019s correspondent.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m not saying I smuggled a cheese ball through security and onto a domestic flight. That would be illegal, and I would never encourage anyone to break the law, by word or deed. Besides, only a total sociopath would have the hubris to boast of having pulled off such a feat.\u00a0 But let\u2019s say I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":178,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13115],"tags":[17485,15225,14707,11354,17480,17481,115,411,17483,17482,2805,17484,15199],"class_list":["post-83823","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-our-daily-correspondent","tag-absurdity","tag-airports","tag-baking","tag-cheese","tag-cheese-balls","tag-contraband","tag-food","tag-humor","tag-hypotheticals","tag-scanners","tag-security","tag-smuggling","tag-traveling"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nHow to (Hypothetically) Smuggle a Cheese Ball Through Airport Security<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Sadie Stein experiences (in her head) the (purely imagined) thrill of an outlaw.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/03\/19\/hypotheticals\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Hypotheticals by Sadie Stein\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"March 19, 2015 \u2013 I\u2019m not saying I smuggled a cheese ball through security and onto a domestic flight. 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