Travel yuks: How to tell you're sitting next to a Sky Marshal Print

Cowboy in white hat

We air travelers have become complacent in recent years, and we don’t often enough appreciate that the government regularly assigns plain-clothes policemen on flights. The U.S. Marshals are supposed to blend in with other passengers, so they can be on constant look-out for potential dangers.

Well, we’ve come up with sure-fire ways to identify these sentinels of the air. So, next time you fly, you’ll know you’re sitting next to a Sky Marshal if he:

1. Says airport security check-in is the O.K. Corral
2. Struts to his seat, sits down and adusts his gun belt, just as John Wayne would do it

3. Wears his special Roy Rogers red fringed cowboy suit and 10-gallon white hat
4. Keeps rubbing the place where you know he he's hidden his pistol
5. Tells the pilot to pull over for going too fast and gives him a ticket
6. Keeps asking the flight attendant for free doughnuts
7. Tasers passenger for staying in the airplane outhouse too long
8. Checks Trigger, his faithful horse into the airplane’s baggage section
9. Calls all the flight attendants Miss Kitty, and the copilot Festus
10. Wears a big metal badge on his coat that reads: SECRET SKY MARSHAL