Tiny terrors in the name of homeland security

BY S. JENNIFER HUNTER

My
friend phoned me long distance sounding really ticked off. "They took
away my Lancome Bienfait Multi-Vital moisturizer," she said with a
disgusted clip in her voice.

I began to visualize the wrinkles already popping out on her skin, the
age spots browning her cheeks, the crows' feet deepening around her
eyes. The horror.

The shakedown artists who grabbed my friend's moisturizer were none
other than the Homeland Security agents at the X-ray machine in O'Hare
Airport. They have been instructed by their august superiors in
Washington to nab all suspicious-looking liquid or gel items,
including, apparently, Bienfait Multi-Vital moisturizer, a cream
generally used by women of a certain age. These were their orders after
men were arrested in London trying to carry liquid explosives aboard a
plane last summer.

Darn thing is my friend had the moisturizer in her carry-on when she
came to visit me, and the guards at Toronto International Airport,
where she boarded, kept their paws off her moisturizer........