I have no problem with airport security. Everyone involved knows the entire process exists to create a false sense of safety. Airlines cannot afford fear in their passengers, and passengers won’t fly if they think they’ll be blown to kingdom come. Of course, any idiot[1] can work out at least a dozen ways to blow up a plane that haven’t been tried yet, and will therefore not be detected by said security. Interestingly, the rate of Creative Solutions to Modern Aviation increases exponentially the longer passengers wait in security lines.

Security, or attempting it, is not the problem.

The problem is sunscreen.

For those of you who haven’t been blinded by my skin lately, I’m an extremely white person. In Sicily, my host was amazed when, after nearly a week in the sun, my color was upgraded from Traffic Safety Reflector up to a more sedate White.

The reason I wasn’t lobster red after fifteen minutes was thanks to the modern miracle that is sunscreen. Which, over here, costs more than, say, half a tank of unleaded.  It seems like the wonderful off-brand stuff just isn’t available. I have to buy from L’Oreal or whatever just to avoid blisters. All this adds up to hoarding. When I find any kind of sale, I buy a ton of the stuff.

And we all know about the airlines’ one quart-sized ziplock bag per person rule, right? ‘Cause you can’t, apparently, blow up a plane with a mere quart of liquid. And we all know that terrorists never team up and, say, combine their liquids once on board.

Nah.

So I’ve had to get really creative, and figure out how to sneak the stuff on the plane.

To begin the story, it wasn’t always so easy.

My first trip out of the Frankfurt-Hahn airport ended with the security dude having facial twitches and doing his best to approximate Man Having Baby. Apparently a liter-sized bottle of sunscreen causes seizures in certain Germans.

But that was before I had The Method.

First of all, I’m traveling on the cheap. And the cheapest airline in Europe, Ryanair, charges for anything extra. Checking a bag costs an equivalent of thirty dollars, so I have to take everything on board with me.

Second of all, I’m white, and a girl. So I have more leeway than, say, a black male chemistry teacher.

Here’s what you do.[2] Take everything that’ll actually fit in that quart sized bag, and put it in. You’ll be left with about a gallon of miscellaneous leftover liquids. If possible, try and keep the leftover stuff in the gel/wax/cream family. Most of the detector devices can’t see these. I checked.

Then wrap these up in something innocuous, like a sweater. They just have to be inconspicuous. The next step is what the Chinese refer to as a paper tiger. Fill a plastic water bottle about halfway with water. Put it in your travel bag in the same area as your Illegal Liquids[3]. Make sure it’s not all the way full. You want this puppy to slosh.

When you go through security, hand over your quart sized bag. The whole concept here is to appear like a completely placid idiot[4]. Then take a deep breath. When your bag goes through, the alarm will go off. The bored, illiterate security dude will ask you to open your bag.

Do it.

“Discover” the bottle of water.

“How on earth did that get there?” You twitter, batting your eyes and giving the distinct impression that your brain has fallen out.

He’ll give you an ingratiating little smile, try to feel you up, and you’re on your way.

I think my favorite part of this whole procedure is how well it works. On my way out of Sicily, disturbingly, the whole thing got though, water bottle and all. I was tempted to tell them to wait, run off, and come back with a five-gallon bucket of chicken blood, just to check.

And in Stanstead, a London airport, the security guy performed one of the most thorough bag checks I’ve ever been subject to. He found everything. But what he failed to notice was that my little quart sized bag was sitting underneath my laptop in the plastic bin. So, having found everything down to my nail polish and carefully disposed of my sunscreen[5], he politely ran off and provided me with another plastic ziplock bag.

Apparently, he said, I didn’t know how security works.

[2] If you’re a white, unemployed, nomadic girl.

[3] Like, say, conditioner.

[4] Ahem.

[5] Which involved a bomb squad, five cops, and a Loyalty Oath