Here's the catch with your approach, though. Laundry detergent, dishwasher soap and gasoline are items we use every day. The people who fail to follow the directions there are, in fact, either practically challenged or intentionally misusing the product.

That said, most American families run their dishwasher ever couple of days (I'd guess). That's, give or take, 182 exposures to dish soap a year. The average American family will all jump on an airplane once or twice a year, at most, as a leisure traveler. Now, let's look at the instructions that the leisure travelers are expected by the TSA to memorize and follow (my commentary based on experience in parentheses):

1. Pack liquids, gels and aerosols into a one-quart, clear, resealable plastic baggie.

2. Any containers over 3.4 oz. will be confiscated. (Even if it's a 4 oz. tube of toothpaste that's 3/4ths empty.)

3. Have any medically-necessary liquids out and ready to open for further inspection. (Depending on the airport, your TSO might also fancy themselves a doctor, so be prepared to either explain what the medication is and why you need it or argue with a supervisor.)

4. Take off your coat, even if it's just a windbreaker.

5. Take off your belt.

6. Take off your shoes.

7. Take your laptop out of the bag to be screened separately. (Depending on the airport, you might get yelled at for leaving your 10" netbook in the bag. You might get yelled at for taking it out. You might be angrily asked by a TSO what part of "take your laptop out" you didn't understand--as they wave the iPad they just took out of your otherwise-empty laptop bag in front of your face.)

8. Have your boarding pass and ID ready for every member of your party that requires one. (Either approach the TDC together or approach it one-by-one, depends on airport. You're liable to get barked at either way.)

9. Step into that machine you've never seen before and assume the position. (Even the people standing next to it don't know how it works beyond shouting over and over that it's not radiation.)

10. Wait on the mat for a clear. (But since most TSOs don't bother to mention that part, you're just going to get yelled at for stepping off the mat to get your belongings before the green screen comes up.)

And those are just the written/unwritten rules of the checkpoint I can think of--I haven't even touched on inside the terminal and gate checks. There are two huge problems I see there. One, the TSA expects people to memorize a laundry list of inane rules when, realistically, they might only see an airport twice a year--once on the way out, and once on the way home.

Two is simple consistency. Many airports will tell you that you don't have to take a non-metallic belt off to go through a WTMD. Many will tell you that you can keep your belt on regardless of screening type. Others will have someone standing there to shout at you for leaving your belt on even though the guy at the last airport said it was ok to do so.

The "what qualifies as a laptop" rule frequently drives me up a wall, as I often travel with a laptop, a netbook and a tablet. I always take the laptop out, but I am most certainly not going to leave $3,000+ worth of computer equipment in bins for the first interested party to walk away with while I'm being held up by a false positive on the ATD. I'll leave the netbook and iPad in my locked laptop bag, and deal with the Spanish Inquisition over why my bag is locked ("Because CNN is full of stories of people like you walking off with things like the contents of that bag.") and why I left computer equipment in there in the first place.

I'd almost agree with you here, almost, Ron, except that there's a fundamental flaw in your logic, and it occurs when you assume that the directions at an airport checkpoint, which most people encounter a handful of times a year, are as simple as the directions for using dish soap, which most people encounter every 48 hours or so.