The Cookie Tin ... of Doom.

It's not a sewing kit!

NightCafe, as usual.

I suppose it’s the mark of an … unconventional … childhood that it surprises me not at all to get a phone call in the wee hours from a friend I haven’t heard from in yoinks, asking if I could come pick them up from the aeroport¹; or saying that they’re on the way though, and could they borrow the couch for a couple of hours? Or grab a cup of coffee?

It occurs less frequently these days, but often these friends would get off of the plane, and not have any luggage. Usually due to having unarsed the previous location with a certain alacrity.

I was raised with the expectation that a gentleman would provide some basic courtesies to friends in that situation: A gun, a meal, a safe place to lay their head and catch a couple of hours sleep.

Of course, in these modern days it doesn’t take fleeing a coup in a Third World country to wind up unarmed in a strange city — last year a dear friend flew into DFW to meet me and Rita at a con, and when we walked her to the Uber afterwards, I noticed with some shock that she was going to be sitting in a … less advantageous² seat for the ride away from the hotel.

“Don’t sit there,” I hissed, “It’s harder to shoot the driver from there³.”

She patted me on the shoulder, and murmured, “I’m not carrying a gun.”

I was gob-smacked. Not only had my very sharp, very switched-on friend not wanted to put up with the legal hassle of flying with a firearm, she hadn’t allowed us — as her hosts — to provide her with one.

Which brings me to the Cookie Tin of Doom.

This is a simple, rather elegant, concept that Gunsmith Joe and I cyphered out one evening over beers. You take one of those round, blue metal tins that purport to contain cookies, but usually has sewing stuff in it, and you put thin layer of foam padding⁴ in the bottom of it.

You take a skinny pistol, in a skeleton holster⁵, and a reload, and place them on the padding. You put another layer of padding in, and on that you place an inexpensive locking blade folding knife and a lighter⁶; more padding, and the lid.

“Ian,” I hear you say, “Why not just get a Pelican case?”

Because those pistol cases scream, “Hey! There’s a gun in here!”

If I walk through the lobby of the Marriott carrying a sewing kit blue cookie tin, nobody is going to give it a second glance. Not the front desk people, and not the critter sitting in the lobby casing the guests for a good payoff for a smash and grab later⁷.

If I’m parked by the kerb at Arrivals, nobody is going to pitch a sparkplug through the rear window to snatch a tin of butter cookies Granma’s Sewing Kit and do a legger through the parking garage to the getaway car. For a Pelican case? Oh, hell yes.

If I’m sitting at Starschmucks with a Pelican pistol case on the table⁸, waiting for my buddy to arrive, Karen gets vocal. Managers get nervous. Critters start Getting Thoughts.

If I have a tin of buttery cookie goodness sitting there … no one cares. Certainly no-one is going to snatch it.

And if my buddy retreats to the bathroom after getting the blue tin — dude, it’s Danish butter cookies. No judging.

Someone going to the bathroom with a pistol case, though, tends to draw attention.

Yes, a pistol case can be locked, where a cookie tin can’t be. And if the pistol case is snatched, the critter will have plenty of time after getting away with it to take a bolt cutter to the lock.

It may not be a good system in your circumstances, but it gave me something to write about on a Monday morning.

Ian

1. For some reason my recent midnight runs have all been to the aeroport in Lawton, Oklahoma. Odd, that.

2. Shivworks ECQC course. Worth it.

3. Yes, there are 3rd world taxi drivers who have lucrative part-time jobs with local kidnap gangs. They’ll get here sooner or later. Probably sooner rather than later.

4. More for noise-proofing than anything else.

5. Not the best, but beggars can’t be choosers.

6. Gunsmith Joe adds a AAA flashlight.

7. Let’s be honest — that’s kind of old-fashioned thinking. These days it’s more liable to be hotel staff doing the casing.

8. Yes, I realize it’s traditional to go out to the car, and huddle around the trunk to pass the gun. Everyone — especially cops and critters — knows what you’re doing out in the parking lot clustered around the trunk of a car.