Hurry

A few days back when I was flying back to Los Angeles, I had an incident. My dear uncle Allen had sent a gift for Christmas, and you'll believe me when I say that it was not at all out of character that this year my gift from Allen was a pocket knife. I'm looking at it as I write this, and it's nice. I will undoubtedly get considerable use from it in the new year, but its first contribution towards the easing of my life was not the best.

It's really my fault. I had remembered, as I do fairly well now, that there is a little knife on my keychain Leatherman which security personnel are typically sensitive to. I remember now to remove that from the other keys and to leave it at home or put it in checked luggage as I did in this case. I felt therefore quite secure with the minutes waning as I walked away from the ticket counter with my garment bag towards the gate. You may ask why I would check one bag and not two, which is a good question. On I went to security.

An uncommonly kind TSA agent advised me that what appeared to be a knife was somewhere in the garment bag. My shoulders slumped and I exclaimed, "Oh.. boy". There seemed no sense in keeping it to myself and hoping it would not be detected. The guy directed me on how I ought to proceed and was generally sympathetic to my impending flight. He "escorted" me back prior to the checkpoint, and was good enough to not make anything of the fact that he had to regard me as a threat to burst past him and attempt to board my plane with the knife.

My second time around at the ticket counter was less pleasant, as everything is with less time to lavish on it. I was informed that 45 minutes are ideal to transfer a bag from that location to the plane, and that what remained was 25. It proved to be insufficient, and the bag joined me in Los Angeles only in the morning. I did have enough time to make the plane myself, which was in question. I approached the man at an adjacent skywalk, if that's what you call it, in a state of some fatigue and anxiety.

I did my best to conceal it. He assured me that his counterpart responsible for my plane would return, and I could see that the plane remained, so I relaxed enough to catch my breath in the meantime. The gentleman came back promptly as promised (unlike some we think of during the holidays), and I boarded my plane. It was somewhat more full and I took a seat between the two thinnest passengers I could see (though just as I was committed to this I saw a row further back with just one guy). Everything worked out, though I'm sure I cost myself a few days of life on the back end.