What is it about iPods and toilets? This site has previously documented a connection via peripherals, but now brace yourself now for a story that involves iPods, toilets and everyone's favourite bogeymen - potential terrorists.

Last month, on a flight from United aeroplane flight from Chicago to Ottawa, everyone's worst nightmare happened. The toilet got blocked. The stewardesses called out in panic "There's something in the toilet that's preventing it from flushing. Run some water!". That last desperate attempt didn't work, so she stuck her face and hands into the bucket of people-filth for a more manual attempt. It failed.

Poor Tim (self-given nickname "Stupid"), the last user of said toilet went red with embarrassment, figuring his mega-dump / seat cover had clogged the u-bend. Fervently looking the other way, he went to put his iPod on to drown out the commotion that his emissions had caused. But, alas, the iPod could not be found. Ding ding! Readers can probably guess where it was.

Simultaneously, as Tim was also working it out, the stewardesses ran past holding a special green handbook, a blue box, making a call. He immediately confessed to the stewardesses that most likely it was his iPod, not any material of a biological nature, which had inadvertently slipped into the toiletry and caused the blockage. But by now, it was too late. The anti-terrorism wheels had been set in motion.

On came the pilot. "Folks, this is the captain. I don't want to alarm you, but we've found a suspicious device in the front lavatory" he said, in a way that in all honesty can have done nothing but alarmed the 'folks'. The Ottawa airport authorities had been alerted, and ordered the plane to land right away, make an immediate stop in an isolated area and for the passengers to be kept inside until an evacuation procedure could be put into place. Unlike the standard getting-off-an-aeroplane procedure, this took a humongous 40 minutes to sort out, during which time the Poorhouse is pleased to say no bombs went off.

Eventually armed police turned up with dogs et al. and escorted the people off the plane without any of their possessions or documentation into a holding area. The cops and immigration officials grilled each passenger about their existence and reason for being there.

Three or four hours later, most were let go. Of course, young laddo with the now presumably urine-stained iPod was not so lucky. Being hauled aside by police detectives, customs officers and the bomb squad following his on-plane confession of the unfortunate accident he underwent a small interrogation.

Of course this included his travelling reason. This turned out to be meeting some lady-friend he met in the famous roleplaying game World of Warcraft. This not being the usual explanation of cross-border travelling, it puzzled the officers and the following amusing exchange took place.

They asked me why I was visiting Canada. I was to visit a friend I met on World of Warcraft, Cara. They took down her name and what I could remember of her address. They asked me how we met.

"In an online game."
"What online game?"
"Umm ... World of Warcraft," I responded meekly.
"What kind of game is this?"
"It's a fantasy game ... it takes place online."
"Fantasy ... like it's got wizards and warlocks?"
"Well, it's got warlocks."

It's not every day you get to say "warlocks" to a detective and survive mostly unscathed. Estranged as they were with the concept of such thing, they nonetheless demonstrated their knowledge of other forms of roleplay whilst asking young Tim about his relationship with Cara.

"Do you have a romantic relationship with Cara?"
"No."
"Do you want a romantic relationship with Cara?"
"No."
"OK, so ... if you and Cara were drunk together, and she turned to you and said, 'Tim, let's go--'"

Perhaps the highlight of the conversation came upon the detection 101 set of questions that differentiates those naughty exploding people from you and I. The police quizzed Tim:

Now the questions became really pointed. What do you think about 9/11? What are your views on the Iran issue? Do you think government is too big, too powerful? Would you ever "make a point?"

He asked me if I knew how to make a bomb.

Now then fair reader, let's have a quick game of "make up a sensible response". Yours probably involved something with the word "no" in? Not our Time. Rather, he answered in the affirmative: "I have a degree in physics, and I’m not an idiot."

Oopsy.

Amazingly he didn't go to jail for such insolence (what with not being in America one supposes). However he did go through further trial-by-fire trick questions, interrogating about the British liquid-on-plane-bombs scare and having his laptop searched for "contraband" ("I get to decide what goes in this country. Do you have a problem with that?" saith the customs officer upon revealing he has no idea what is actually illegal to bring into Canada).

In case you're wondering, lucky Tim not only got the ire of his fellow passengers, the attention of huge amounts of top flight police and the fame of almost being deemed a terrorist, but even got his iPod back.

Along the way I passed the detective who had first interviewed me. He was carrying a green paper bag. He called me over.

"I just got it back from the bomb squad. It's an iPod. Do you want it back?"
"It's been in the toilet."
"Yeah, it's messy." Then he walked right up to my ear. "Tim, you're not in any trouble anymore. Nothing you say now is going to be on record. I want you to answer a question honestly, just for me, not for my agency."
"OK?"
He whispered into my ear. "Did you ... did you take a dump, and then drop your iPod in the toilet on accident?"
"No!" I yelled a little too loudly. "Like I said ... I didn't notice it was missing until after!"
"OK, OK. I believe you. You did great, Tim."

He truly did.

Read the whole iPod-brings-down-a-plane story in the WoW forums (or a backup link here).

(Accompanying illustration "borrowed" from The Unofficial Apple Weblog - how to make an iPod Bomb, in which an iPod rather excitingly does indeed explode causing injuries of such a nature that medical treatment was required.)