September 16, 2006
To seasoned travelers, frenzied Friday night air travel and luggage issues are routine.
Most travelers take in stride bothersome delayed flights and hectic, crowded airports.
Ah, yes, but what about these new luggage guidelines?
No more getting bonked in the head as travelers try to squeeze a carry-on the size of gym locker into the overhead bin.
No more lengthy waits to deboard while folks stall 20 rows of impatient travelers as they hunt for luggage in the above-head compartments.
Airlines are on schedule because boarding and deboarding is quicker without all the muddle of things people transport on their trips.
My friend Ann says she is thankful for new luggage restrictions, but she still misses her bottle of water and lip gloss.
Ann, who travels weekly, experienced the new guidelines firsthand when her forgotten bottle of water boarded unnoticed with her on a recent Friday night.
Ann travels weekly from the Midwest to wherever her company sends her.
She is nearly 60 and manages to keep up with young business travelers just fine.
On a recent Friday, Ann got home about mid-night, once again without her luggage.
Arriving home sans luggage is routine for Ann.
On a normal Friday night, Ann negotiates the usual heap of commuter woes with perfection.
On this particular Friday night, she did the best she could.
Rain slowed traffic on the way to the airport. Said traffic came to a halt. The rental car return was impossibly slow. She missed her regularly schedule flight and learned that the standby one was delayed two hours.
Normal for a Friday night.
She displayed her driver’s license and boarding pass quite correctly when a stern lady pointed at her and said, “You, come with me.”
“Ok,” she thought, “I’m dead.”
This no-nonsense woman who was undeniably in charge motioned Ann through the short line with two stewardesses.
“I swear I was not dressed like a flight attendant, but I guess she thought I was,” Ann recalled.
For some reason, she wanted Ann to be scanned with the flight attendants.
“I went on like a good little traveler and got to the gate just in time to learn that my standby flight was delayed even longer. No problem. I expected that.”
At that point, she vaguely remembered wondering about her luggage and if those in authority still thought she was a flight attendant.
She considered the notion--which plane would her bag be on, the standby or the regular flight?
Ann continued her story, “Well, we were down to 15 minutes before I would have to make a decision between the next regularly scheduled flight and the standby. My name was called from the standby list, so I bolted (if a 60-year-old woman can be said to bolt) to the check-in counter.”
“I rushed onto the plane forgetting I had my bottle of water in my computer case. I got to the middle seat where I tossed my purse and began to lift the computer case to the overhead bin. I noticed the bottle of water. Should I act like I did not know it was there or confess?”
“I took the high road and marched back to the attendant to bare my soul and fork over the water. I fully expected to have the air marshal escort me off the plane in handcuffs.”
Instead, Ann reported, the flight attendant merely took the bottle and threw it in a trash can with other such contraband.
Ann thought for sure she would be scolded with a “what were you thinking” remark.
She had her reply ready. She would say, “Absolutely nothing!”
Since there was no chastisement forthcoming, she walked dutifully back to her seat.
The large woman in the aisle seat glared and refused to get up.
Ann grinned and climbed over her.
She saw her purse on the seat, obviously left unattended while on her turn-in-the-bottle mission.
She recalled, “My purse was still there, and I was not under arrest. Life was good.”
The flight was uneventful thereafter with only one hurdle to be crossed—luggage.
Could she be so lucky to have her luggage arrive on the same plane?
As Ann noted, “You do not have to be a Philadelphia lawyer to guess that my luggage took a side trip of its own.”
It arrived sometime the following day.
When Ann recalls the story, she just laughs because she understands well information Bob Hope once gave about air travel.
Hope must have been a visionary when he quipped, “I love flying. I have been to almost as many places as my luggage!”
So has she.
And on Friday nights, she simply grins and bears it.
