Our war on sophomoric gags

(HT The Agitator)
I guess those Bryn Mawr girls are regular Martha Stewarts -- comes exam time, it is a regular rite of passage for freshmen to make silly squeeze toys by filling condoms with flour. Everything's funny when you're a freshman, and Janet Lee must have found the ad-hoc stress-relievers so amusing she decided to take them home to California with her. On the plane. That was when things got a lot less funny.

Just before she was to board the plane, someone called her name on the public-address system, and she reported to the ticket counter.

An officer told her that she had something in her luggage that shouldn't be there.

"I was like, 'Is it my curling iron? Because it's metal?' He was like, 'No, something else.' "

The officer asked about the white powder in the condoms. [snip]

"I tried to explain that it was a joke, a gag gift for friends. It's a girl thing. I said, 'You squeeze them to reduce stress.' "

Police stared skeptically. They took her to the Southwest Detective Division, where they tested the powder. Lee figured it would be sorted out soon.

"Mostly, I was worried because I had missed my flight, and now I had to make up an excuse to tell my parents."

When the detective returned, he said the powder tested positive for opium. Police returned her to her cell. "I started hyperventilating," Lee recalled. "The detective was very nice, and said he would test again."

The result was the same. [snip]

Lee acted tough to protect herself. She did modern-dance moves to keep limber. Inmates saw this and gossiped: "Everyone thought I knew karate because I'm Asian." She certainly didn't discourage the stereotype.

Alls well that ends well for the Valley Girl comp-lit major who got mistaken for a drug runner. After three weeks in jail facing charges that could lead to 20 years in the clink, her attorney got new test done that proved the powdery substance in question was indeed flour. But the police have got a lot of explaining to do -- how did not one, but two field tests come back positive?

By the way, the Bryn Mawr ritual in which the whole-trouble-causing stress relievers in question were made is called "Hall Tea". Really. You can't make this stuff up.