“This country is not worth dying for. If we’re attacked, we would all go out. We’d all take whatever we had. I’d take my rolling pin and I’d beat the attackers over the head with it." 
Posted on 8/18/2005, 9:54:37 PM by Diana in Wisconsin
In these days of rampant terrorism, it's comforting to know that cookie-baking implements are being seized at our airports.
There was a report last week that the mountains of dangerous items confiscated from air travelers in Wisconsin might be sold back to us on eBay. It's stuff like box cutters, scissors, saw blades, a rolling pin.
Wait, a rolling pin? Isn't this more of a dying art than a killing tool? Bakers are guilty only of making us fat.
I'm picturing a grandmotherly woman, faint smudges of flour on her face, on her way to a bakeoff.
"Ma'am, I'm going to have to ask you to drop the rolling pin and step away from the airplane. Don't argue with me, ma'am. I don't care if you make the flakiest pie crusts in the whole county."
I called the federal Transportation Security Administration to see if it was seized by accident. We live in tense times, and maybe a screener went a little overboard.
Nope, no mistake.
"Anything that's clublike or used as a weapon is not allowed," said Lara Uselding, a spokeswoman.
The rolling pin may be transported in a checked bag. But then, so can a meat cleaver.
The stereotype about the rolling pin, back when women wielded them more often than at Christmas cookie baking time, was that it could be used to keep one's husband in line. Frying pans also worked for this.
But the leap from there to hijacking airliners is a big one. Midwest Airlines would be out of business if it weren't for rolling pins.
If you see rolling pin buy-back programs, you'll know it's officially gone too far.
And watch for the new video game coming out soon - "Grand Theft Auto: Betty Crocker," featuring innocent people being flattened by bakers run amok.
This story cries out for a comment from the Wisconsin Bakers Association, which has been awfully quiet about this kind of occupational profiling at airports, probably because they're so busy making cream puffs at the fair.
My guess was that they would like to see the feds get their just deserts, or better yet no dessert at all. I guessed wrong.
People who bake for a living are not as attached to their rolling pins as you might think. I talked to Kitty Colligan, who is on the board of the bakers group and co-owner along with her husband of Colligan's Bakery in Plover.
She said they still use rolling pins for the elephant ears but use a computerized machine called a sheeter for most everything else. You put the dough in one end, set the thickness you want, and, voila, instant flatness.
"I wouldn't ever think of a rolling pin as a weapon," she said. "But nowadays it's unbelievable what some people will do."
All things considered, she said she feels safer knowing her fellow passengers are not packing pins. Terrorists are clever, she said. They could disguise themselves as matronly bakers. Money is no object. These guys are rolling in dough.
Colligan herself had a story about airport security. After she returned from a baking convention, she was notified that her checked-in bag had been opened. Suspicions were raised by containers holding pastry fillings.
Watch out, bakers, the feds are all over you folks these days. Just ask Martha Stewart. Under the Patriot Act, next they'll be coming for your Mixmasters.
FWIW, I love my rolling pin. It's one of those big, heavy marble ones...don't mess with me, LOL!
"Eat! EAT, damn you, or the co-pilot gets it!"
Gee, does that include prosthetic limbs? How about big boots, or big pocket books? How about the serving trays? My fist is a club like weapon if needed.
These people are just clueless.
“This country is not worth dying for. If we’re attacked, we would all go out. We’d all take whatever we had. I’d take my rolling pin and I’d beat the attackers over the head with it."
I have seen lots of Looney Tunes, and I can say for a surety that rolling pins can be lethal.
Good grief.
Will a rolling pin that heavy give you Popeye Syndrome?
BTTT
Casey kept on shoutin', 'til one-eyed Paddy Flynn
bopped him on the whiskers with a great big rollin' pin...
it knocked poor Casey senseless, sure it was an awful clout,
But as he lay there unconscious Casey kept on shoutin' out
(Everybody, now!)
Who threw the overalls in Mrs. Murphy's chowder?
Nobody spoke so he shouted all the louder,
It's an Irish trick, it's true, and I'll lick the Mick that threw
The overalls in Mrs. Muprhy's chowder!
blunt objects kill more people than 'assault weapons'
Has anyone else been reading Brenda Starr lately. The current episode features a rolling pin bashing momma.
Sir SuziQ bought me one of those for Mother's Day many years ago. Later he remarked, "What the hell was I thinking?" ;o) It is a heavy sucker, and could do some real damage, if I was of a mind to use it as a weapon!
"Will a rolling pin that heavy give you Popeye Syndrome?"
Let's just say I do my "best cookin'" in the kitchen, Honey, and leave it at that, LOL!
Actually, I was considering buying a Bow-Flex, but I just started baking lots of pies with homemade crusts instead. ;)
Thanks, Fiddlstix, I needed that!
:^)
"...blunt objects kill more people than 'assault weapons'"
And yet somehow the MSM never picks up on that FACT. Go figger!
One of my boys broke the other one's nose with a log from the woodpile way back when. I STILL have bloody nightmares about that spat. And so does the PERP every time he looks at his brother's slightly crooked nose.
Some days I wonder how any of us survive. ;)
I love ALL my rolling pins! My favorite is my lefse rolling pin. I had so many clogging up my drawers (kitchen drawers, not the panty kind) that I actually built myself a rolling pin rack that hangs on the wall.
I named three of them after the men in my life. Hubby, and two sons. Seriously though, I do use them.....in the kitchen. duh.
They took away my elderly little Grandma's knitting needles. They were afraid she'd knit an afghan. [rimshot]
Well, thank you, flashbunny. I will sure keep an eye on my rolling pins from now on. I always had a feeling they were looking at me with a hint of malice. teehee
Gee, where are you from? A pocket book? Haven't heard that since my own grandma used one.
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