thetravelblab.com

I was pretty much fed up with flying even before the crotch bomber. The final straw was when a TSA agent confiscated my hair styling mousse last month as I was getting ready to hop a flight to Florida where I would be boarding a cruise ship to Mexico.

“I’ll have to take your hairspray,” the young security agent said almost apologetically as she removed the tall silver can of Redken Guts 05 from my carry-on bag.

I couldn’t believe I had a) overlooked the item in my carry-on bag, and b) that it was the second time a TSA agent had snarfed the exact same product from me this year.

D’oh!

I know, I know -- what was I doing with a big ol’ can o’ mousse in my carry-on anyway? Especially when I’d been busted with the stuff once before and should have learned my lesson.? I guess you could say I’m still adjusting to traveling without my toiletries case now that airlines have started charging for every checked bag, and I now try to cram everything, including all of my toiletries, into my suitcase and sometimes it doesn’t all fit. So I when I’m finished packing, after I jump up and down on the suitcase a few times, I wind up removing some of the larger, last-to-go-in items that prevent the suitcase from zipping and throw them in my carry-on tote. Problem solved. Until I hit security anyway.

“That’s not hairspray,” I say, hoping that the young woman will suddenly realize that styling mousse is chemically different from hairspray and, in fact, not even a liquid. Indeed, it is mostly air and white stuff that literally disappears in your hands before you even get a chance to put it in your hair. I longed to grab the can away from her and spray a generous blob into my hand like I do every morning and show her: “See? Look…there is no way this could be used as a bomb ingredient,” I would demonstrate.

Oh, how I hate to be without my mousse. Without it, my hair is as flat and lifeless as a post crotch bomber’s sex life.

But does she care? I could see she didn’t, as she coldly disposed of my $15.95 container of glamour-in-a can into the not-so-glamorous garbage can. My dreams of standing on my stateroom balcony with my poofy hair blowing in the sea breeze vanished in the tense terminal air. Instead I envisioned posing for photographs in Cozumel wearing a sombrero balanced atop my mountain of frizzies.

Such a small thing, a container of styling mousse, but what a big difference it can make especially when you will be on a ship for a week and will have no opportunity to buy a replacement while visiting a climate with humidity in the high 200’s.

Alas, as an American who is willing to do her part to protect the safety of the flying public, I quietly surrendered my mousse without incident. After all, everyone else flying in and out of this country was no doubt subjected to the same mousse scrutiny, and therefore there would be no mousse bombs detonated and we would all arrive to our destinations safely.

If bad hair is the sacrifice I have to make so that no terrorist gets away with smuggling, let’s say, explosive powder in, let’s say, their underwear, I’ll do it.

Oh wait -- about a week after my mousse was confiscated, someone did!

If I find out the guy got to keep his styling mousse, too, I’m going to be very angry.