I was in San Francisco Thursday and Friday…..but less than 24 hours. I had planned on it being a super sophisticated trip since I was all by myself and staying in the Clift hotel…..but apparently sophistication follows me nowhere.

The Douche

Palm Springs is a really small airport. There were only a handful of people in the security line. Piece of cake. I knew I had nothing metal on me…..but as I went through the round full body scanner I was stopped. The woman said the machine had flagged my hair as unusual.  I told her they WAY overpaid for that new machine.  Then she launched into a lengthy lecture about the algorithms of the machine and why my hair would be deemed as unusual and maybe I could hide a weapon in it and it wasn’t anything against my hair…..blah blah blah.  Huh?  And then she confiscated my toothpaste.  That made my blood boil……because she let me keep my huge container of contact lens solution…..so it didn’t seem fair to the toothpaste.  But mostly my blood was boiling because I’d just read an article on the rampant theft in airports by TSA and I felt like this was toothpaste robbery in a way.  And I was also thinking about the government intervention into school lunches and it was all too much and I was starting to feel like Aaron Stampler in Primal Fear.  I asked her if she was going to throw away my brand new tube of toothpaste and she said yes.  I told her how I felt about the wasteful nature of the toothpaste confiscation. I asked how many tubes of toothpaste she confiscates on a daily basis.  A lot. She said the homeless go through the trash anyways.  Fantastic…..the homeless will eventually get my toothpaste…..after it’s made the rounds in dumpster sludge.

And you would think this was the end of the story…..but it’s not…. [Read more…]