A rant about stolen fish.

Teach a man to fish, he’ll eat for a lifetime. Steal his conservas and he’ll rant for several hours.

I’m willing to die on this hill: a Paris-CDG TSA agent stole my sardines. Say what you will, I can already hear law-and-order-apheliacs lining up to defend the uniformed border gang’s right to seize my tins of fish. Perhaps I’m fiendishly operating a Bond villian-style cannery on a remote Mediterranean isle, packing extremely life-like (and tasty) little fishes in nitroglycerine-flavored olive oil. I’ve spent thousands of hours perfecting the design and feel of one of France’s most ubiquitous seafood conservas, to terrorize the skies with my mackerel, mussels in escabeche, and cephalopods in Tunisian sauce. It’s a spicy plot! 

We humans have lost the plot. Seizing tinned fish from travelers is absurd. They are not a liquid. They swim in a liquid, but certainly are packed in less than 100ml of huile. Taking possessions from other people because you have a thinly veiled legal pretense to do so is kinda our thing as a race, but it’s still bullshit, and I’m not over it. We’re mad. It’s maddening. Just because you saw something in a Jason Bourne film, or can imagine the worst possibility from a communal flying situation, this is not a strong enough justification for snatching a lunch. It’s untethered from logic. 

Getting through the snarled autoroutes of Paris in a rented Hyundai I-30 to board this tin can full of humans bound for Reykjavik: now that’s a statistically risky endeavor. Actually boarding the plane with groceries that documentary evidence (paper receipts and packing material) prove were purchased legally from a brand-specific retail outlet in Colmar: that is benign. Proof abundant that the pilfered contraband sardines are safe. Possibly even sustainable. Carrying them home is normal pescatarian behavior. They are called souvenirs. They pose no credible threat. Even bozos wielding X-ray machines know this much.

I suppose I could be faking the receipts, colorful bags, cardboard gift packages, and faux fish nets that sealed these tins. The complexity of my fiendish endeavor! Sealing it all up so perfectly! Why would I counterfeit conservas when Fabergé eggs command a far higher price on the dark web? Wouldn’t I dabble in caviar?  I wonder how a small business owner traveling with his family has time to run such a multifaceted side hustle. A global supervillain would surely chart a more direct route to his own demise. Maybe we also smuggled parachutes in our underwear, to escape to the safety of the Bretagne countryside, where we’d resume our cover identities as oystermen. St. James horizontally-striped sweaters, waxed twirly mustaches for the girls, a beard with girth for me, and a jaunty navy cap. My Lupin-like chameleon streak must be as fathomless as the sea facing the Royeaume Uni.

“Well, better to keep us safe than take the chance.” The apologists creed. You see, it isn’t a binary. The string tethering safety and liberty can’t be pulled so tightly to the right. It breaks intelligence, and frays our humanity. Preying on irrational fear is at the core of our culture’s sicknesses. It justifies racism, nationalism, and an industry of violence veiled as protection from violence. 

I know. A middle aged man loses his fancy fish. Big deal. I agree. To paraphrase David Graeber, it’s important to remember that we make the world this way, and we don’t have to. 

Also, they took Megan’s honey. To quote another famous American cynic, good grief. Au Revoir you froggy seafood stealers. I fart in your general direction.