I spent the night before I hit Dallas in a smaller city. I was carrying a block of Book 2 in my second bag. The books are thick, heavy and shrinkwrapped into a big bundle of five. It’s a massive block of paper, basically. I was very surprised to discover – unpacking my bags in Dallas – that the second bag not only had that TSA “we searched your stuff” notification, but that the shrinkwrap on the books was torn open. It wasn’t a “shifting around in the bag” rip, it was completely open and the top book had certainly been riffled through. This happened after flying out of the smaller city to Dallas.

The questions I’ll never get answered: was is simple suspicion of an explosive? Or real interest once they saw the book? Or were the books looked at by an unfriendly?