A small story about the density of honey at airports.
There I was standing in front of a stainless steel table, belongings strewn about, a sweater spilling out of my half-unzipped duffel bag. A stranger was rummaging through my stuff. I had no shoes on. I had arrived three hours early — probably too early — mostly out of anxiety surrounding the unpredictability of moments like this.
Then the airport security agent pulled a small jar of honey from my bag, as if it were an emerald excavated from an ancient tomb in some long-forgotten jungle.
“Sir, you can’t take this on board.”
“Why’s that?”
“No liquids over 100 mL,” pointing to the label on the jar that said 113 g.
There are times in our lives when we must decide if a fight is worth the energy, inconvenience, and consequences. I probably should have just acknowledged my sins and moved on. But I work in a bureaucracy every day, and sometimes I just have to rebel against the system. Airports are rarely a constructive place to do this, however.
My jar of honey was 113 g — a standard unit used for certain types of merchandise, tracing back to the avoirdupois measurement system.
I politely responded, “That’s actually in grams — a unit of mass. The volume of the jar of honey is less than 100 mL. I think it’s O.K.”
Now I had the undivided attention of two agents, both with puffed-up chests at this point. One pulled out their iPhone and Googled (I assume) something along the lines of “convert 100mL to grams.” He then turned the screen of his iPhone to me and presented the first result: “100 mL = 1 g.”
My look of confusion was probably not for the reasons they thought. The two agents looked quite satisfied with themselves.
I started, “That’s assuming the density of water. This is honey and it’s significantly denser than water, more than enough to account for the …”
This wasn’t going well.
“Sir, I have the conversation right here.”
I would later confirm honey is roughly 1.3–1.4 times as dense as water. What I was trying to say—which I didn’t end up finishing—was that, since honey is denser than water, this conversation isn’t the same. In fact, 100 mL of honey is probably 130–140 g, so I should be well under the limit. My position would have been strengthened by the fact that I purchased the honey at a shop in the airport… a shop that marketed its products as last-minute, preflight souvenir options.
But they had the authority, and that was what mattered.
So my honey was seized by the state.
What did I learn from this experience?
Nothing, really.
And so I surrendered this small jar of honey as a sacrifice to the gods, trusting it might buy me a successful connection.
Epilogue
Since this experience, I have done a bit more research into the relevant regulations. Presumably, the agent was referring to the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority (CATSA) rule for carry-on luggage as follows:
“Containers of liquids, non-solid food and personal items in your carry-on must be 100 ml/100 g (3.4 oz) or less. All containers must fit in one clear, resealable plastic bag no more than 1L in capacity. The bag must be transparent so screening officers can easily see the contents.”
Note that there is some ambiguity, suggesting 100 mL and 100 g are the same thing. Given the parenthesized amplification of 3.4 fluid ounces and later reference to volumetric capacity in litres, I think — on the balance of probabilities — the intent of this rule is to constrain items by volume, with the conversion to mass approximating all liquids or non-solid items to be equal in density to water. The agent’s reference to volume almost certainly confirms this as their interpretation.
There is, I admit, a not invalid assumption that 100 g could also be inferred as a second upper bound on any liquid or non-solid, in addition to the 100 mL limitation. If this is the case then, fine, I would have been wrong. I will leave it to the reader to determine if this was indeed the agent’s deeper understanding at play.