Airport "Security"

I flew back from London Gatwick this morning. I hadn’t worried about liquids because everything was packed and I was checking my bag. But standing in the line for security I remembered the 500 ml of Islington tap water in my carry-on, so I drank it and threw the bottle away. Then the man in front of me took out a tiny pot of lip salve and asked the man who checks boarding passes if he could take it through. The man said ‘no’ so the first man put some of the salve on his lips and gave the pot to the boarding pass man to throw away. It was then that I remembered the expensive Dior lip gloss in my handbag and realised that I would be pissed off if they made me throw that away. But I was not going to be stupid enough to ask and thereby draw attention to it.

I put my carry-on bag (with my handbag inside), my leather coat and my shoes through the x-ray. I walked through the metal detector. The security lady waved me on and I went to retrieve my things. No one asked me any questions and no one wanted to look in my bag.

I hung about in the departure lounge, did some shopping, got breakfast and waited for them to announce the gate for my flight. When I got to the gate, I decided to take inventory and find out how much in the way of lip balms, creams and liquids I had actually got through security.

I checked the pocket of my coat: one tube of lip gloss and a stick of lip balm.

I checked the pocket of my carry-on bag: one tube of lip gloss.

I checked the small cosmetics case inside my handbag: one lip balm, one lipstick, one small tube of hand cream, one travel size liquid spray deodorant.

And finally, I checked the outside pocket of my handbag: one tube of lip gloss, one tube of lip re-hydrator, one lipstick and the Dior lip gloss.

Total: 11 forbidden items. And, yes, in fact, I do feel rather proud of myself.