Skin Care Cream and the War on Terror...

Maybe we've gone a tad overboard. This week I had to travel through the Big Sky State of Montana.  It's a great state with lots of scenery.  At least that's what I was told.  Smoke from nearby wildfires obscured most of the view and rendered the place looking like 1960's Los Angeles, so I couldn't see much. Even a side trip to Yellowstone left me wondering why everyone is so enamored with the place.  I did not see a single bear like the ones I grew up dreaming were everywhere in the park, perhaps thanks to this Disney video. But all of that aside, the thing that sticks in my memory was my airport experience on my way home. It seems my tube of skin care lotion was a little over the legal size.  It came in at a whopping 4 ounces, one over the legal limit.  So they TSA guy in Helena tossed it in the trash.  He told me that if it wasn't so full, he'd have let me keep it, but because it was relatively new, it had to go in the trash. Okay you might say, rules, or in this case, laws, are laws.  I get it, but if you fly as often as I do, you see exceptions made everyday.  I've seen people allowed to pass with unopened cans of soda, oversize toothpaste tubes and any number of exceptions.  It was obvious, or at least should have been, that i was just a regular Joe. But on this day, I was once again singled out, just like the time I was found to be using Chapstick in Denver.  It was soon after 9/11 and I was spotted by a bright-eyed Delta Air employee who said I had to give up my Chapstick because back then it was still illegal to travel with it. I am just wondering if anyone really thinks stopping a 50 something year old guy from traveling with some skin care cream is helping us win the war on terrorism.