John Answers Glenn Beck's Questions, take one.

From yesterday's Glenn Beck show on CNN:

BECK: I want to know that in the report that I saw that they said that the reasons for carrying items like ice packs with the gel taken out and replaced
with a claylike substance then duct tape with wire and batteries and pipes, they
said some of the explanations were suspicious. Leading you to believe that they
had a reasonable explanation for that. Can you think of a single explanation on
what would make a device like that reasonable?

Easy. The traveller suffers from an eating disorder due to a nutritional deficiency that makes him crave unusual things to eat, much like Montel eating Brillo pads in his sleep. In this case, he's craving the silicon and salts in the clay. He's brought the clay to snack on during the flight.

Why's it in ice pack bags? How else are you going to keep it from going everywhere? It has to be inside something or it'll spill all over the place? Why not ice pack bags?

The wire? He plans on passing the time on the flight fashioning himself a copper medicinal bracelet, which he believes will help him with his eating disorder.

The pipe can be used lengthwise as a rolling pin to flatten out the clay, and the ends can be used as a cookie cutter to make himself some little appetizing clay biscuits.

The duct tape is to keep it all together in one place.

And the batteries are to power his Ipod, on which he has a self-improvement program coaching him how to get through the flight without feeling the urge to binge.

See? PERRRFECTLY REEEEEASONABLE!

Not.