I find the best survival item for hotels is a credit card. It has negligable weight and takes up little space. In fact it will easily fit in an altoid tin. As a back up I like to EDC a half dozen or so $20 bills.

In numerous hotel survival situations over the years I have found that a credit card backed up by cash works well for foraging for food, keeping warm, and obtaining shelter.

TSA should either allow all knives or no knives. Permitting small knives would make lines longer because the policy would force TSA personnel to analyze rather than simply reject/allow.

There was no holdup in the times preceding 9/11. Small knives were allowed then, and the current modification essentially returns us to that prior condition.

I am looking forward to flying with my leatherman PS4, hardly a WMD.

Hmm... credit card arrow head and fletching made from dollar bills? Cool! LOL!

Well ... Here i am in my own real life hotel survival epic.

My family got caught in a major storm in the Midwest. Airports shut down. We just managed to get a room at a local hotel in St Louis after driving around there for am hour. All hotels jammed full of travelers.

Outside air temp is. Minus one degree Fahrenheit. Wind chill is severe. I say that from experience ... I was out there walking in this stuff last night. Roads were shut down. Snow ploughs not coping. The only two things moving out there late last night were an ambulance (going somewhere) and me on foot going to a local 24-hour pharmacy. By the way, grab an extra T-shirt and use it as a face mask if you are out like this. Otherwise your face will be frozen off. The wind was at least 30-40 mph last night. Brrrr!

Anyway, in the middle of this ... My wife developed severe dental pain. It was a small problem that rapidly got much worse. Ice and Motrin helped a tiny bit ... But NOT much. Getting to an emergency dental clinic ... Forget it. Not happening.

Stuff happens. The "system" we have set up to handle emergencies in our society does not always work. Bad combo's of problems can arise. If you keep some sort of EDC kit, consider having a couple of meds for severe pain. It could be a lifesaver. I did not say this was legal. I'm just saying that things are not always predictable and the system does not have all the answers. :-)

Pete

One useful (and legal) trick is to take tylenol (acetaminophen) and motrin (ibuprophen) together. Take no more than a normal recommended over the counter dose of each. They relieve pain by different mechanisms, and together provide better pain relief than either alone.

Be very carefull to only take the maximum recommended dose of acetominophen! Note that many other over the counter medications also contain acetominophen (for example many cold and sinus meds). Make sure your cumulative dose of acetominophen (tylenol) from all the meds you take is not too high. Overdosing on acetominophen (tylenol) will destroy your liver. I've been told it is not a pleaseant way to die.

I am not a doctor, nor do I play one on TV. You should discuss this strategy with your own personal physician, who is familiar with your own medical conditions, before you need to do it. Based on your specific medical conditions, and other meds you might use, your doctor may have better recommendations.

aSKAR ... Relax. I dont sue people for giving good advice. :-)

I found out this morning from the doc at the ER that Ibuprofen comes in a prescription-only form that is four times stronger than the OTC stuff. Thats interesting.

None of this stuff is doing anything to eliminate my wifes pain. Not even the coedeine. I expected that .severe dental pain is one of the worst kinds ... Direct connection to the brain.

No emergency dentists available today.
Sad, bordering on pathetic.

Pete

I'm not worried about you suing me. I just don't want your wife to be injured by not giving complete advice. People sometimes think that OTC meds are risk free. They are not.

Its OK. We understand the risks with Tylenol.

Cheers, Pete

+1
About 20 years ago I had an operation that left me in significant post-op pain. The opiate based meds gave me a really bad reaction. My Doctor switched me to the Ibuprophen and Acetaminophren combo, at the max OTC rates (see the bottles), with the same cautions about the Acetominphren. It worked well for me as the pain was reduced to a reasonable and tolerable level, without the (for me) bad side effects of the opiate based pain relievers.