For the two or three individuals who have been in the company Rip van Winkle since the events of last Thursday (10 August), you should leave your tube of greasy kid stuff at home (or put it in your checked luggage). A vignette to demonstrate my point:

As Ruth and I were passing through what we hoped would be the last of several inspections leading up to our boarding of Sunday’s flight to Deutschland, I heard the plaintive cry of several young ladies as they begged (yes, I mean begged) the TSA officers not to make them throw away bottles, tubes, and Jeroboams (look it up… that is what places such as Bartleby.com are for) of lip gloss, perfume, and wrinkle-reducing formulations (okay, so some of the ladies weren’t all that young).

In spite of the hue and cry (louder than I have heard during any trip abroad since the fateful events of 9/11, if such a thing were possible), we made it to the gate in plenty of time. Of course, our best buddy (Betsy Stone, Hi, Betsy!) had driven us from our home in New Joisy to Newark’s Freedom International Airport four hours before our flight was due to depart. We McCormicks are not slackers when it comes to leaving plenty of time as conditions require it.

“And the lesson is what, Padre?” asks one of the bright lads seated in the back row. The lesson, yon sapling, for those dear readers who will be headed for airports in their own bailiwicks in the days ahead, is this: Leave plenty of time within which to traverse the maze created by the well-meaning folks (read “TSA and Homeland Security”) who are trying to keep our hides intact. No matter what the spin doctors who work for the airlines may manage to squeeze into print or convince the talking heads who read us the evening news to say, it WILL take longer than anyone imagines to clear the hurdles between the parking lot and the departure gate of your aerodrome.

If you have the stamina to hear chorus two of this not-so-sage scrivener’s advice, it is the same as the first (much, much worse). The boys and girls who staff the TSA posts at all US airports are serious about our not bringing liquids or gels onboard aircraft in carryon luggage. If you are too young to have latched onto my idiom in the first sentence of today’s contribution concerning “greasy kid stuff,” then good for you! It means you are young enough to pay into Social Security for many years to come so that I and others of my generation can almost afford to retire. But I digress.* Suffice it to say that even tubes of Brylcreem (which the advertisements touted as far superior to the greasy kid stuff my brother smeared onto his follicles) will be frowned upon by the uniformed Cerberus who guards the gate.

To recap: Get to the airport early. Pack your cosmetics, your eye drops, your contact lens solution, your tube of tooth paste (are you one of those annoying individuals who squeeze from the middle of the tube? Boy, am I glad I didn’t marry YOU!), anything that comes out of a tube or a bottle in dribs and in drabs, in the luggage that you intend to check. THEN you will arrive in Aachen on time, prepared to immerse yourself in what could be the best iteration of the World Equestrian Games thus far (although, in my not-always-humble opinion, they will have to go some distance to top 2002 in Jerez!).

When you get here I’ll meet you at the Aachen Soers show grounds with a frothy one in hand. Stop me before I digress again.

*One of my favorite-est people on the face of planet Earth, Michael Jackson (NO, not THAT Michael Jackson…this one wears two gloves when the weather requires it and he much prefers older, roundish women to the company of little boys!), the premier writer on all matters related to beer, whiskey, and all malt-based beverages) offers you and me this advice: “You have seen those labels on the sides of beer bottles, haven’t you? The ones that say, ‘Drinking beer will make you pregnant,’ or some such drivel? Well what those labels really should say is this, ‘Drinking beer will make you digress.’ We live in a world where far too many people go through each day looking driven and haggard. They have goals in their minds that – if they do not achieve them – will not permit them to lay their heads upon their goose down pillows that night and have a decent night’s sleep. What those people need – and what you and I need, as well – is to digress. Have a beer. Have several beers. Digress.