Move over, bald eagles and oversized sodas. America has a new cultural ambassador, and it comes in a creamy, herb-flecked bottle that airport security is now officially tired of confiscating.
The TSA — an agency more accustomed to fishing suspicious shoes off conveyor belts — has been forced to issue a formal warning to international World Cup fans who have apparently discovered ranch dressing and promptly lost their minds about it. Tourists from around the globe, having made the pilgrimage to the United States for the beautiful game, stumbled upon America’s most beloved condiment and decided they absolutely could not board a plane home without stockpiling several industrial-sized bottles of the stuff.
The problem, of course, is that ranch dressing is a liquid. And the TSA has feelings about liquids. Strong, well-documented, three-ounce-limit feelings.
Scenes at airports have reportedly included bewildered international travelers clutching family-sized Hidden Valley bottles like precious relics, genuinely baffled that the country that invented both ranch dressing AND the freedom to eat it would have the audacity to confiscate their new obsession at the security checkpoint.
It’s a uniquely American tragedy, really. You spend two weeks here, you watch some football (the round-ball kind), you try ranch on a pizza — yes, that’s a thing we do — and suddenly you’re a convert. A true believer. A person willing to argue with a TSA agent in three languages about why your 32-ounce bottle of creamy dill goodness absolutely qualifies as an essential personal item.
For the uninitiated: ranch dressing was invented in the 1950s by a plumber named Steve Henson. A PLUMBER. And somehow it became the most consumed salad dressing in America, which tells you everything you need to know about this country’s relationship with vegetables.
The good news for smitten international visitors: ranch dressing can be shipped internationally, purchased in smaller TSA-compliant containers, or — and we cannot stress this enough — simply accepted as a reason to return to America someday soon.
Welcome to the ranch, everyone. We’ve been waiting for you.
*Source: The Independent / Reddit r/offbeat*
Original story via Reddit Offbeat
