We were flying into Seattle. They served pancakes or toast or something on the plane, with little individual bottles of jam.

We didn't all use ours, and my mom has always been a waste not want not kind of person--to obsessive-compulsive extremes. So she took the extra bottle of jam and stuffed it in my carry on. Why mine instead of hers? Who knows. But none of us saw her do it.

In the airport we're moving along, finding our way, etc. There's what looked to me like a cop with, from my perspective, a monstrous German shepherd on a leash, walking around, sniffing at things.

I thought this was really cool. Until he made a line straight for me, stuck his nose in my bag, and wouldn't budge. My mom had forgotten all about the jam, so she insisted for a long time that no, of course there was nothing in her boy's bag, no we weren't transporting any substances, agricultural products, etc.

She only remembered the jam when they finally fished it out of my bag.

No fines or anything. I didn't get hauled off to an interrogation room. I just had to live with the knowledge that my mother had a problem, and it was bad enough that she was willing to use her child as a mule.