Call me fussy, but I like to brush my teeth every now and then. Unfortunately, thanks to the terrorists, that simple task is becoming more difficult whenever I fly.
You can take toothpaste in a checked bag, but the baggage claim process adds an hour to your travel and vastly increases the odds that your possessions will never again know the joy of being with you.
Theoretically, you can buy toothpaste at the hotel gift shop. But if you guessed that they will not stock enough toothpaste to meet the sudden explosion (no pun intended) of demand, you would be right. And half the time I arrive late at night when the gift shop is closed.
The nicer hotels offer free toothpaste if you’re willing to wait a few hours until they get around to delivering it. But if you have a busy schedule, that means going to your first meeting smelling like airline peanuts. When that happens, I spend the entire time trying to maintain a 6-foot peanut-free breath perimeter. You don’t want your first impression to be “He was short and bald and smelled of cashews.” I want to be remembered as short and bald and minty fresh.
So, like millions of other travelers (I assume) I plan to become a smuggler. I figure I can take one small tube of travel-sized toothpaste in my pants pocket and make it through security without being busted. I rationalize that there is no danger to the public in doing this because I use a brand of toothpaste that rarely explodes.
But I wonder what would happen in the unlikely event that I get caught? Would they simply confiscate my Crest and send me on my way or would they shut down the airport and give me a strip search? Maybe they would detain me and try to figure out if “the Dilbert guy” is actually working for al-Qaeda. The worst case scenario is that they read my blog and, like many people with an IQ in the dozens range, come to believe I hate America. That’s the sort of thing that won’t help me get to Phoenix.
I have long wondered what would happen if the terrorists ever stopped killing people that I don’t personally know and started pissing me off personally. This toothpaste situation is getting perilously close to that condition. I pity the terrorists who someday make me travel without my laptop. That’s the day I go all Cheney on their bearded asses.