'French Airport Police Lose Explosives'

Huh?

I don't read the Onion and all the funny-type stuff, either online or in real life, 'cause reality's much better.

So when I saw the headline in this past Monday's USA Today:

French Lose Explosives At Airport

I thought for sure I must've picked up somebody else's paper.

But there it was online, too, all over the world.

The gist of the story: French police train their bomb-sniffing dogs by concealing plastic explosives in unknowing passengers luggage, then see if the dogs can find it before it makes it onto the plane.

Whoa.

Turns out the dogs still need work: one slab of plastic explosive, weighing about 1/3 of a pound, described by French security officials as "no more dangerous than a bar of chocolate," made it onto one of 90 possible flights last Friday night.

Security officials said that there was no chance the explosives could go off because they were not connected to detonators.

Gee, that's reassuring.

French police had no idea which plane loaded the bag so they notified all the involved airlines and destination airports.

The police said the unwitting traveler might not even have noticed their acquisition.

They described it as "a small blue case, between 50 and 60 centimeters [20-24 inches] long."

So far, though officials in Los Angeles and New York have searched all flights to their airports that could've carried the explosive, the item has not been found.

Can you imagine the fate of the traveler whose bag was found to contain the secretly placed explosive?

No matter how innocent she or he might be, they'd be forever on every watch list on the planet.

And once you're on one, you never, ever get off.

It's kind of like a nightmare 21st century version of "Hotel California."

French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin and French police said that this training exercise would no longer be used.

Doh.

As if there weren't already plenty of reasons not to fly....