You just take it to Seattle..
No. I am not making that up. The MIL is in Seattle now, spending time with her new Daughter in law, and of course her son.
Unfortunately, neither of them blog and the unique MIL-DIL bonding relationship which is something as primordial as a man woman relationship, will not be chronicled! We are guessing that many SUN TV episodes worth of material may have been created by now. As usual, I digress..
This has been an extra long two weeks at work for me and a real hard time for San, who took the brunt of the kids boredom attacks, but we have "Prevailed"!
Now for the title of the post. When the MIL went to Seattle, not only did she take some lemons from here, which had to be moved around the bags, but she decided to take a "thenkuzhal maker" (refer this post.. the thing on the bottom right in the photo).
After opening her hand bag, the screening dudes were shocked. They had never seen an assorted item list like this. The MIL freaked out and she waved for me and the little one to stay a little longer outside the screening area. A team of people were now working on her with hand held gizmos that beeped all over the place. They checked her bangles, her thali, aranakayar, etc. etc. and finally after making sure that she is just another heavily jeweled middle aged desi woman, moved her aside.
We breathed a sigh of relief and started to wave goodbye, and she gave us the "Stop" sign with her palm, again! Now a lady started to wear gloves and walked towards the MIL. While we were worried that they were going to put her through hell, we saw a sigh of relief from the MIL. They were just wearing gloves to go through her baggage. That is when they pulled up the "thenkuzhal maker", for everyone to see!
To the untrained non-desi eye, it looks like some instrument that would be more at ease on a shelf in a physics lab, and the inspector (who looked like he was of Korean origin) was absolutely clueless. Somehow he let her go after a brief conversation.
Once in Seattle, we asked the MIL, "So what did you tell him?"
"I told him it is a mini pasta maker and he was convinced!" was the answer.
Mini pasta maker, indeed.
Note to self : Screen MIL's baggage at home when traveling with her the next time.
.
