While being herded like cattle onto a cattle car at BWI Airport's "security" line yesterday the thirty-something woman in front of me was stopped and searched by the teenage-looking bureaucrat at the conveyer belt. "What's in the knapsack?" she barked. The woman said, "Well, actually, it's an urn with the cremated remains of my son, and I'd rather not take it out."

"Take it out out of the bag! I have to look at it! the adolescent-looking bureaucrat shouted. The poor grieving mother pathetically took the urn out of the bag, after which it was grabbed by the bureaucrat who shook it and then stared at the writing on it.

Then the bureaucrat put the urn down on the table, turned to another youngster in a "Homeland Security" uniform and yelled, "You got a quarter? I need another quarter to buy some gum." "No, I don't got no quarter," the other little Homeland Security Nazi shouted back. "Come on, you gotta have a quarter." "Nope, sorry, I don't."

The grieving mother then said "Can we please move on with this; I'm very uncomfortable with this urn sitting here like this." After which the bureaucrat grabbed the urn, pushed it back into the knapsack, and hurled the whole thing onto the conveyer belt without saying a word.