I haven’t flown for a while. I have no idea what regulations have been loosened and what new ones have sprung up like mosquitoes in May. I’m pretty sure we’re allowed to bring measles on board now. Maybe we can leave our shoes on in TSA if we show our titties. For all I know, corduroy trousers are prohibited unless you have enough of a thigh gap that you can’t start a fire by walking down the aisle. It’s hard to keep up.
Specifically, I wanted to know if I could bring sunscreen on board, and if so, how much.
So I googled it and found a Transportation Security Administration site with every damn thing listed. The search bar was not helpful and it looked like I was going to have to plow through page by page…fifty of them.
The first item that leapt out at me was Antlers. I was startled. I shouldn’t have been; I should have expected the list to be alphabetical.
Still, the whole concept of packing antlers in my luggage is mildly upsetting. I only just learned how to roll my pants into little burritos and stack them in the carry-on, and was feeling pretty proud of myself, and now this. Antlers aren’t even squishy when they’re new. A little fuzzy, tops. Best I could do in a luggage situation is make some precision holes for the pointy bits, and except for the fact that it would make your stuff real recognizable on the carousel, there wasn’t much upside. And in any case the proper placement of antlers is on the front of the duffle bag, the way you’d put them on the grille of a truck.
But may you bring antlers in your carry-on? Yes you may. You can forget about your bowling balls and pins though. Modern airplane security is no match for a terrorist who can pick up the 7-10 split. Cowboy spurs are fine (window seat only) but cattle prods are not. Apparently it’s been tried. Similarly, guns are frowned on. Seems obvious, but three years ago someone tried to smuggle one on board inside a raw chicken. Raw chickens, incidentally, do not make the list, even though they could easily contain more than 3.4 ounces of liquid during a long enough flight. The armed poultry perp was a Florida man, so the presence of the raw chicken itself did not send up flares.
Harry Potter wands are fine, but you cannot bring a foam toy sword on board, or a Magic 8-Ball. You can’t bring anything with more than 3.4 oz liquid and the 8-Ball clocks in at 3.6. Hand sanitizer (yes), hand warmer (yes), handcuffs (yes), hand grenades—dang, we were on a roll, there, but it’s a big Nope on the grenades. Cell phones are fine unless they’re the exploding kind. Recreational oxygen is not allowed. I didn’t even know oxygen could be recreational. Tamales and tampons both pass muster, even though, in my experience, half the population can be effectively terrorized by a woman brandishing a tampon in a post-insertion condition.
There’s something freakishly specific about the 3.4 ounces. I do not know if it’s scientific and corresponds to an exact number of moles in a solution with aggressive tendencies, or if it is a deal worked out with the manufacturers of travel-size plastic containers.
At last! Sunscreen. Sunscreen is fine as long as it is (guess what) under 3.4 ounces, which is enough to cover my neck frontage. Such a tiny amount of sunscreen. Do I look like someone who would know how to make a bomb out of a dab of SP-70? No I do not. Do I look like someone who was first in her Chemistry class? No I do not. I was, though.
Doesn’t mean I know how to make a bomb.
I haven’t been on a plane since 2001. I’m not much of a traveler. Going by plane is expensive and I’m poor, so I usually only fly if someone else is paying. Then Covid came along and I really don’t want to be in a metal tube breathing everyone’s recycled breath.
I was offered a paid for flight during the Covid lockdown and said hell no. Opted to drive back to NJ from Utah instead.
Also I was in a plane in 1984 that was struck my lightning. Knocked out power long enough for the plane to start to nose down. Someone was just starting to scream Jesus! when the power kicked back in. It’s amazing how quiet a plane without power is. No recirculating fans. All I could hear was the engines winding down, the screamer and then the WHOMP when the power came back on.
So I’ve never been involved in the over the top travel regulations or the pay downs. Though I did experience the difference between Canadian customs (before Trump made enemies out of our closest neighbors) and US customs. I flew into Canada with a dinosaur skeleton in a copy paper box without the proper paperwork. The Canadian I was meeting told the customs guy that he’d send over the paperwork. He said okey dokey and we were out the door.
On the return trip the pockets of my trench coat were stuffed with dinosaur bones. The metal detector went off and I said stupidly, “Huh, I didn’t think that would register as metal.” Got some weird looks when I pulled the fossils out of my pockets, but that wasn’t the metal. Turns out it was my trench coat’s zipper. Didn’t have to strip beyond the first layer and did get to keep the fossils.
Bruce, If Murr ever decides to take time off I hope you’ll fill in for her.
Jackie M
Thanks! Is there interest in near death experiences, natural history musings, hallucinations and misadventures with humans?
Jackie, you can always come here for the Bruce report. I’m paying him the same amount I pay myself.
I’m a model railroad enthusiast. I also like other kinds of models and have been quite happy (and sometimes very well paid) making models for decades.
There once was a model railroader named John Allen, who built a very large railroad in his basement which is still the subject of books and magazine articles 52 years after John died and the railroad was destroyed in a fire a short time later.
A guy named Jim Findley helped out with the construction and is particularly known for his skill in making model buildings.
One day John overheard a guest trying to convince Jim to come and work on his model railroad. He offered to pay Jim twice what John was paying him. John replied, “Twice nothing is still nothing.”
There are other compensations than money.
I happen to know that well! I had a friend who was somewhere over the spectrum (include your own musical score for that lyric) and spent an adult lifetime making a model railroad/town/etc in his basement. It was beyond remarkable: streetlights and the works. He did not survive his little town, and I still wonder who discombobulated it. Life is all about sand castles sometimes.
When I saw that photo at the top, I thought we were going to read all about the day you & your counterculture scientist pals invented LSD–anyway, still a fun read and I laughed out loud over the “yes to measles, no to Magic 8 balls”! Unlike Bruce, I have one lousy flying story. I was dating this girl (Renee) in 1999, we bought one of those shoddy “Apple Vacation Trips” to the Bahamas. There was no inspection of our luggage, nothing. On the flight there, I said “I wonder if they’re going to wheel one of those giant staircases to the plane door when we land?” and she said “You don’t get out much, do you… they stopped using those when the Beatles landed in America”. So we land in the Bahamas and THEY WHEELED ONE OF THOSE GIANT STAIRCASES TO OUR PLANE. Take that Renee! PS. I hated the Bahamas and would never go back. The poverty was unreal (unless you were at one of those bourgeois gambling resorts where you were told it was dangerous to stray from). The End!
I loved your rolling staircase story! Of course the way I read it came up as giant rolling suitcase first.
I’ve been in some really tiny airports, but all of them had the usual loading ramps.
Presidents use those staircases though.
Until about 3 years ago, Regan National Airport in Arlington VA used roll up stairs for flights from at least one gate (35X – which went to places like Bangor) – then they completed a huge remodel and the roll up stairs gate disappeared and now its all those tube hallways that stick on to the side of the plane (note technical aviation language). But lots of airports in Africa have roll up stairs, and at least once we had to slide down an inflatable slide when the stairs weren’t available.
Ceci
Ceci
Ceci
I was trying to come up with the proper name for the boarding ramps and apparently flyway isn’t it. Glad I’m not the only one scratching their noggin over this.
Tubes sticking to the side of the plane sounds like parasitic insect action.
Hilarious post! Loved the corduroy trousers and raw chicken bits. I’ve flown a LOT over the past 25 years, so I’ve accumulated quite a few flight and luggage stories. But none as good as a routine by a Welsch comedian, Rhod Gilbert about lost luggage. Just search on YouTube and you’ll find his extremely funny ~4 minute routine–you won’t regret it.
Must have been a metric bureaucrat that came up with 3.4 oz because it’s 100 ml, but I suspect you knew that and exercised “comedic license” to great effect (=moles of solution with aggressive tendencies).
Oh Will. You think so much more highly of me than I deserve. I do know my moles.
I haven’t flown since 2013, but I’m about to in a few weeks since I came into some unexpected cash a few months ago. I can’t wait to obsess over what liquids and drugs I can bring on board in small quantities. The good thing is that it’s a European airline and I’ll feel safer once I leave U.S. airspace. I like unusual rocks. I wonder if I can bring some back or if they will set off alarms? Will I be deported? So many questions to figure out!
One solution is to ship them back.
Good idea!
But also–if whatever you do would have you kept out of the country, is it a country that deserves you?
My husband is Australian and he is a rock hound of greatest degree. When he goes back to OZ he brings an extra suitcase and fills it with rocks to bring home (mostly petrified wood). Other than paying for the extra bag, he has never been challenged at customs over the rocks. He does usually wash them first to remove any accumulated dirt. So I don’t think rocks would be a problem.
That’s one way to get erratic boulders.
About a month ago my husband and I flew back from FL with 2 carry on bags each, filled with approx $2 million of jewelry.
We had spent a few days with an elderly client who was sliding surprisingly quickly into dementia and had started wearing “serious jewelry” and then getting lost in the city, and often giving pieces away to strangers. Her children were greedily concerned, but not enough to do something. (But I editorialize). We did, and spent time going through it all so she could choose to “keep, give, or sell” each piece. Then we took much of it to dispose of the way she wanted, minus the handing it out on the sidewalks of Atlanta.
Standing in the TSA line, I first worried about lifting the bags into the overhead bins. Then, I started to sweat; imagining the news blurb: “unassuming, elderly couple found absconding with $2 million worth of jewels. Owner says she has no idea who they are”.
TSA shunted all 4 bags to the side as the screen showed this mass of ballbearings (rings and earrings), and intestines (necklaces) all mushed together. Two men donned gloves and tested our hands for gunpowder residue. In low tones, my husband told them what was in there. Didn’t want to get mugged at the gate!
My heart was pounding. They opened each bag, fished around in the baggies and boxes, gave them back to us and waved us through.
Apparently, as long as you are not planning a hijacking, any other possible crime in progress is fine.
I would have pooped my pants.
I have a favorite airport sign: Milwaukee, WI’s ” Recombobulation Area”. After you finish getting scanned and patted and swabbed and you have to collect your stuff from multiple trays you can actually sit down -on – a few benches… Makes me laugh every time- and I’ve been thru there 10’s of times!
Hey, they stole that from me!
Dastardly deed, indeed
Still, if one is not discombobulated, are they combobulated, or just plain bobulated? Asking for a friend.