How to Avoid Flying Filth: Keeping clean at the airport

Photo credit: VanDammeMaarten.be (Flickr)

Trust me, I am not a neat freak.

Nor am I particularly, um, organized in a way most people would understand. However, I feel compelled to share something with you.  Something that makes me crazy.

Something so frequently done, yet so illogical that I want to scream every time I see it happening.

I just don’t think the TSA would approve. They would agree with me, but the screaming thing would get me into trouble.

Ready? Here goes:

You’re going on a trip. In fact, you’re flying to a fabulous destination...

You’ve meticulously packed your carry-on so that you don’t have to check a bag.  You’ve learned the “roll your clothes” method along with the “stuff your underwear and socks in your shoes” trick.

Heck, you even know to take all of your old underwear & T-shirts and just throw them away while you’re on vacation - thus freeing up room for new purchases...

Your 3 oz containers of liquid necessities are also methodically wrapped in a quart-sized ziploc bag that is so tight you’re afraid it might burst open before you hit the screening area. You have planned out everything.

And then you do something so incredibly stupid during the security screening area.

Lord knows you are praying that you don’t get called out of line for a pat-down; you’re just keeping your head down, and doing exactly what everyone else in front of you is doing.

It’s almost your turn. You get a couple of bins from the stack. You put your laptop or iPAD in one of them. The next one you put your purse or wallet in along with your quart-sized toiletry bag, and then....YOUR SHOES! NO! Don’t do it! The shoes DON’T go in the bin! They go directly on the conveyor belt.

People. I beg you. Please hear me on this one.

When your shoes get put in that bin and touch all of your other belongings, you might as well eat off the floor. And not a clean floor. The nastiest floor you walked on that day. Or yesterday. Or ever.

Think about it. You walk through Lord-Knows-What everyday. Then you put your shoes in a bin with your coat/wallet/purse, etc. The most disgusting thing you walked through recently is now on the collar of your coat, or on your toiletry bag, or your purse.

But here’s the thing: Even if you’re thinking that you didn’t walk through anything gross - how about the 1,000 other people that used that exact bin this week?

I actually asked one of the TSA agents during a recent trip about this particular point. This gentleman made a face and told me that I would not BELIEVE the nastiness people call footwear and put into those bins. It’s bad enough we have to walk in socks or barefoot on that floor.

Now that nastiness is all over your clothes, purse, etc. And your hands. And everything else you touch. Yuck!

Photo credit: Redjar (Flickr)

Let’s just all agree not to put our shoes in the bins, ok?