After a considerable time looking around a local boutique, my daughter and I picked out a really wonderful, handcrafted kaleidoscope as a wedding present for our soon-to-be married California friends.  They both like art objects, live in a tiny apartment, and have absolutely no need for house stuff.  This seemed like the perfect gift—beautiful, fun, and able to travel well in my husband’s carry-on luggage.

Just one problem:  as I finished wrapping it in silver-and-white wedding paper, I realized that airport security would x-ray it and likely think that the cylindrical steel casing was a pipe bomb.  They would at least be puzzled and want to see the object in question.  So much for my wrapping job!  But then I realized that the colored bits were suspended in liquid gel.  No way to get it on the airplane.  It was going to have to be unwrapped, in checked baggage, and it still might cause trouble…

so I shipped it out to the West Coast overnight.  Probably went on a plane.  What a world.