beam me up © Lilly Schwartz 2012

Once during the many times that I travelled between England and Germany I had this item in my hand luggage. The security officer checking the luggage muttered “What the f*** is that?!” and then pulled my bag out to search it. He took this strange item out, turned it this way and that, but still couldn’t figure out what it was. I said “It’s a USB stick!” and he said “No way!”

“May I?” I asked. After he was sufficiently convinced that it wasn’t a weapon, he handed me the thing. I pulled the cap off and indeed, it was a USB stick. They sold the newest Star Trek movie on it a few years back and when I saw a friend with this thing, I just had to have it. Call me geeky if you like, but in general it’s just a really nice object, very heavy and solid and it’s a really unusual shape for a USB stick as well.