No Pie For You!

When most people don't eat, they get cranky, tired, easily distracted, or just plain unhappy.

And that's what I look for in my air traffic controllers.

At the Denver airport, they are not allowed to leave the tower on their lunch break. Okay, that's annoying, but you can always deal with it by bringing your lunch, right?

Wrong. Because even though we trust these people to not order planes to run into one another, TSA doesn't think they can be trusted with food.

This is from the DenverPost.com:

Jim spencer staff columnist
TSA socks controllers in the gut
By Jim Spencer
Denver Post Staff Columnist
Article Last Updated:11/14/2006 09:37:45 PM MST


A can of Hormel chili. A piece of pumpkin pie. These are the kinds of deadly items Transportation Security Administration screeners have seized from air-traffic controllers at Denver International Airport.

Need a definition of bureaucratic insanity? First, the Federal Aviation Administration refuses to let controllers leave the DIA control tower to eat lunch. Then, because of rules restricting liquids and gels on airplanes, the TSA confiscates parts of lunches that some controllers try to bring through security checkpoints.

Not all lunch items are seized, a TSA spokeswoman assured me - just stuff like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, cans of soup and yogurt.

And, the spokeswoman added, controllers can bring cereal through the TSA checkpoint, then buy milk from a restaurant inside the secure area.

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