Sometimes, it seems justice is neither swift nor just. However, occasionally a case reaches climax quickly if not justly. Therefore with great surprise, I read an AP (09/14/06) follow-up to a story I blogged at the end of August. A man had been charged with felony disorderly conduct for allegedly claiming that a penis pump in his hand luggage was really a bomb, all because he worried his conservative mom would overhear his confession to a security officer at the airport.

You might wonder how you’d get yourself out of that one. I guess someone, either the accused or his defense attorney, probably had played a lot of that game called “telephone” when he, the defendant or she, his lawyer, was young.

You know the one. You whisper something to someone, he or she whispers it in the ear of the next person and by the time, it reaches the end of a long chain of listeners, whatever was initially said ends up coming out completely convoluted and misunderstood by the last person.

It usually demonstrates to participants that gossiping is bad but this time, it was used to claim what’s to say a fevered confession to airport security wasn’t misheard. Mr. Amin claimed before a Cook County court that he whispered the word “pump” while Eileen O’Neill-Burke claims the security agent heard “bomb” instead. His words led him to be treated as a terrorist instead of someone merely embarrassed, although you can see how the two words do sound the same.

Lucky for him, a representative for the Cook County state attorney’s office has stated that prosecutors have decided to follow the lead of the Transportation Safety Administration that had already concluded that the matter did not warrant prosecution. He could have faced up to three years in prison.

Nevertheless, let’s hope that the O’Hare International Airport employee involved in the incident doesn’t become lax in response after this kafuffle. It is one thing to let an embarrassed pump carrying traveler off and quite another to let a bomb carrying passenger on, simply because he suggests there’s too much wax in your ear to hear what he’s whispering.