After carefully going through my briefcase, the woman in charge held up the small (about two inches long) laser pointer I’d used during my presentation. “You can’t carry this on the plane,” she politely informed me.

“Why not?” I asked, expecting something about shining it in someone’s eye.

To my surprise, she responded, “It looks like a bullet.”

“Excuse me?”

“It looks like a bullet. They don’t want anyone carrying anything on the plane that looks like a bullet.”

She proceeded to unscrew the cap on the front end of the pointer. “See? It works just fine without this, and it doesn’t look like a bullet now.”

Well, okay. And I guess it did look like a bullet. But so what? I’ve never owned a firearm of any kind, but I always thought you needed some kind of gun to fire a bullet. I bit my tongue, but couldn’t help wondering how “they” thought a terrorist could hijack a plane with something that looked like a bullet. Threaten to throw it at someone?

I fly 80,000 to 100,000 miles a year. The laser pointer only costs about $12; worth it for a good story to tell friends and associates. The trouble is that my experience confirms the suspicion many frequent flyers already have—that today’s airport “security” is 90 percent eyewash and 10 percent security. The reality is that business travel is down, not because people are afraid, but because the majority of businessmen and women resent having to deal with stupidity like this.