4) The TSA agent’s question to me after he searched my carry-on. . .

He found four bags of stone-ground grits, two packages of pumpkin seeds, and a medicine bottle full of Madagascar vanilla, and then he said “You’ve got some strange stuff in here; what do you plan to do with all of it?" His question caught me a bit off guard because I don't consider grits, pumpkin seeds, or vanilla the most versatile of materials . . . you can cook with them, you can eat them, and I think that's about it. But who knows what those mad scientists (culinary geniuses?) have thought up while in safe haven on the cavernous border of Pakistan and Afghanistan.