The TSA Should Be Banned

Navigating airport security with a toddler:

1) Grit teeth.
2) Take shoes off two-year-old.
3) Explain to distraught two-year-old that she will get her shoes back, provided that they don’t turn out to be flowery size-6T bombs.
4) Go through security gate to wait for our unsecured valuables.
5) Watch helplessly as husband–shoeless, beltless, and holding toddler–is instructed to take stroller to the farthest outskirts of civilization for special processing.
6) Observe x-ray technician letting our carry-ons through without even glancing at the screen.
7) Suppress the urge to put the carry-ons back through security just so someone will notice my excellent Ziploc-bagging skills.
8) Attempt to re-pack liquids and/or gels, laptops, teddy bears, and boarding passes while putting on shoes, belt, and four backpacks before next person in line manages to clear security gate. (Keep in mind that husband and child are still trekking back from the nether regions of Stroller Security Land.) Hope that next person in line will require a strip search.
9) Feel guilty.
10) Reunite with husband, daughter, and–eventually–stroller, once it has been deemed innocent of international terrorism. What a relief.

(We have, in fact, arrived in Italia. More updates once I snap out of the hazy world of Jet Lag.)