Scrabble Babble and the TSA

Greeting from Indianapolis, which apparently still only owns two snowplows.

In the past 18 months, I've triggered a bag search with swabs for explosive residue at Mitchell International Airport with the following items:

• pork chops (that kills me)
  
• Play-Doh (that was dumb)
  
• cheddar cheese shaped like a cow (that I bought at the airport)
  

Yesterday my new digital countdown device--with no shut off--breezed right through security without a second glance from anyone. Huh.

There was an informal session of pickup games last night at the church where the tournament is today; my first games against live humans in 14 months. Bloodbath. :P In the third game, I played against an older and elegantly dressed woman. About 3/4 through, I had ?AEILOT (the ? is a blank tile) and all I could see was ELATION, but there was no place on the board to hook it in. But there was an F with a lot of spaces behind it, and FELLATIO got 61 points. My opponent challenged, since she was unfamiliar with the word, so we got the tournament director, who is the friend I'm staying with, who insists he's never met me before as he looks it up in the official word list (and of course, the commotion draws attention from people nearby who have finished up their games).

The word is on the list, of course--all the dirty words are allowed in tournaments. And you can hook an N onto the end.

I'm so embarrassed. But hey, 61 points.