# 29
   .  .  .   and beyond

London

By the time we touched down in London the wine had evaporated and I no longer smelled of alcohol.  Good thing too!  It proved to be a very trying morning.  We had to go up and down three or four escalators, take a train ride to the other side of the terminal then take another few sets of escalators and yet another train ride back toward where we started from, but not quite the same spot.  It was confusing to say the least.  It's a good thing we had a couple of hours before our connecting flight left for Rome.  We had to go through British security even though we had just come off a plane that didn't stop anywhere on it's flight from Toronto.  We never left the terminal in England, but had to go through the ques and roped lines yet again.

Bit of background is needed here.  A couple of years ago I had some major dental work done.  Ever since then I've suffered with dry mouth.  This is nothing harmful, just uncomfortable.  Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night with my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth.  Getting it unstuck is actually painful and it feels as though little bits of tongue tissue are left behind when I do pry it loose.  To help with this problem I use a mouth moisture spray.  It comes in bottles that are 120 ml. Because that amount of liquid is TOO MUCH for flights, I made sure the bottle was only about three quarters full before I packed for our trip.

Well . . .  British security flagged me, took swabs of my hands and shoes,  asked me to step aside and wait, which I did.  They took away the not full bottle of mouth spray and threw it in the garbage.  I told them it wasn't full, but she didn't care.  It was too big and I wasn't going to take it into her country.  I said we were not going to England, but just transferring to a flight to Rome.  She said it didn't matter, it wasn't allowed.  I said I needed it for my mouth, and didn't know if I could find it where we were headed.   Her response was, "That's not my problem."   Wow,  I've been to England twice before and I've never been treated with such a bad attitude.  Now I never want to go there again.