From a friend:
Thought you’d all appreciate the attached photo. It’s of a middle-aged woman, across from me, in seat 1C, knitting what appears to be the beginnings of, I dunno… Perhaps a sweater or something.
Anyhow, security was really, really tight this morning, on my flight from Newark to Phoenix. After declaring on my future child that I had no liquid beverages with me, and being subjected to explosive detection screening on my laptop, (yet, of course, my parachute went through security and didn’t raise as much as an eyebrow, sigh…) I finally got onto the plane and settled in. About an hour and a half into my flight, I awoke to some commotion…
Apparently, the Air Marshall on the flight had noticed the woman in the photo was knitting – He went up to her and told her to put the needles down. She asked why – He again, with much more force, demanded that she put the needles down! She again asked why, as it was just yarn, the needles were short, etc…
And then – to my and everyone else’s surprise, he took his gun from his holster, and knocked the woman out COLD with the butt of the gun. Now, if you look at the photo, this woman is in her 40’s, perhaps even 50’s – I didn’t think she was a threat.
He tied her hands while she was unconscious, and kept her tied up until we landed, without further incident, in Phoenix.
As we all deplaned, I had a moment to ask the Air Marshall why he felt the need to knock this poor woman unconscious! I mean, she was KNITTING!
The Marshall looked at me with a dead serious face, and said, “Son, we live in a time of war. We don’t know who our friends are, and who our enemies are. Sure, she looked like she might have been knitting a sweater. But think back to where those terrorists who were arrested yesterday were all trained.”
I told him I didn’t understand what one had to do with the other.
He said, “Son, think about it:
SHE COULD HAVE BEEN KNITTING AN AFGHAN!”
raincoaster 
Hilarious!
Very interesting.
Lame, that is so old. Just to be surly, not all Afghanis are terrorists.
You’re going to have to come up with more proof than this of this “incident” having occured.
Any news reports? Testimony from other passengers? Anything?
And the most telling evidence of a possible fraud? For someone that was quick to take this photo prior to (and why would you not knowing what was to occur in the future) her being “knocked unconscious” your camera/cellphone was strangely absent during or just after the alleged incident.
I smell a RAT!
LOL~! Ok, I admit you had me going right up until I began to wonder how in the world they would have even allowed knitting needles on a flight. Then the whole knocking the woman out thing…..heh.
Made me laugh though.
I’m not sure which is funnier, the deeply earnest story or the even more deeply earnest comments!
For the record, I was shocked and appalled at the whole thing all the way to the punch line. Thanks for the laugh!
Shirley Temple walks into a bar, and the bartender says, “Hey, theres a drink named after you!” And she says, “Oh, that’s nice.”
Look people, I shot a crocheter once. You just can’t be too careful. Doesn’t this go some way to explaining why they put Martha in prison? They obviously know about terror links we don’t…
Marc:
PUN: (Pun)
Noun
S: (n) pun, punning, wordplay, paronomasia (a humorous play on words) “I do it for the pun of it”; “his constant punning irritated her”
Actually, knitting needles are very much allowed on planes nowadays… See: http://www.tsa.gov/travelers/airtravel/assistant/editorial_1252.shtm
You Americans: all about the Living Dangerously. A friend of mine had hers confiscated.
I love BoingBoing’s note that they’re dumping all the liquids into big bins. Wasn’t the problem that they exploded when you combined them? Forget planes; I am walking everywhere from now on!
Damn good thing too. If I had to sit next to some deranged tart with her click fucking click knitting needles on a flight I would probably knock her out.
And unless I missed my guess, she should have purled instead of knitted on line 5 stitch 22. It is this kind of incompetence that brings America a bad name. Had I been the air marshall I would have probably shot her for that.
No Vicus, it’s a code!