Check Your Carryons Before You Travel

Before you travel, go over that checklist with a fine tooth comb.

Pay attention to what goes in your carryon bag, especially you ladies.

You may know the obvious such as tweezers, shavers, scissors, knitting needles, lighters, and nail polish.

But there’s one item I’ll bet you never even thought of.

Take it from experience, examine everything carefully.

While waiting in the security line at Las Vegas Mccarran airport last month, I did what everyone else does, I put my personal items including cell phone and shoes through the xray machine.

I thought I was finished and I went through the metal detector to take the monorail to get to my plane.

I wasn’t.

I was stopped by a TSA agent, who looked very serious.

“Is this your bag, Miss?”, he asked, pointing to my black and gold cosmetic case.

“Yes, “I replied, wondering what trouble I was in now.

Being an airline employee, you know your’e going to be searched a lot more than say a business or a leisure traveller.

But even I wasn’t ready for this and I travel a lot.

“Could you step this way, please.” the agent said, pointing to the table.

My bag was getting ready to be opened by another agent, who waited until I got there to open it in front of me.

He too, looked very serious.

This wasn’t a good thing.

I was really sweating now, and it had nothing to do with the “dry” Las Vegas heat.

Al sorts of things were now going through my mind-call it an overactive imagination.

Had my passport expired, and I wasn’t aware of it?

Had they discovered all the free soaps and shampoos I had swiped from the Motel Six?

Or did they want to know why this American lady had so many stamps in her passport that said “Malaysia”?

It was none of those things.

By this time both of the TSA agents were looking at each other really worried.

Not a good sign for me.

Thank God, it was early enough in the morning that not too many passengers were coming through, wondering what was going on.

Finally, the agent spoke.

“Miss, we found a “hit” in your bag.”

“Hun?”, was my reaction.

Being a baseball fan, I know what a hit is.

But this wasn’t the kind of hit they were talking about.

He was talking about “hits” pf the exploding kind.

There was something in my bag which could have possibly do some damage to a plane.

“We know you aren’t carrying any dynamite in your bag, but your hand lotion-“

The culprit was my bottle of rose scented hand lotion which contained glycerin.

Glycerin, the same ingridient that’s found in dynamite.

Most lotions have it, but mine really had a high level of it that it showed up on the xray machine not as the innocent bottle of hand lotion, but a lethal device.

I thought the agents were being overly cautious, but in this age of color coded alerts, they weren’t.

And for that, I’m very glad.

The next time your’re in your hotel room or coming back from a trip, check your clothes for stains.

Chances are something in your bag has “exploded”.

It’s because of the glycerin.

I no lon ger carry that particular bottle of hand lotion with me when I travel.

I’ve learned my lesson-be careful what you pack in your carryon.