Airport Mishaps :)

[DAWGPOUNDAJ]

Since I've been reading so much about mishaps at airports, I thought I would make everyone feel better about themselves and post my own, because I assure you, yours won't seem so bad afterwards if you've had them.

So for those of you plagued by the viscious, "Airport Mishap" bug, heres some consolation.

So my college sent a group of us off to a National Student Leadership conference on October 11th (thats right, a month exactly after the tragic attacks) and it was not a time to be making mistakes at the airport. So please, do try and see all of this with an "OMG What did I just do!?! eye if you please. But as I am standing in the airport terminal, searching for our correct airline (since they thought I was the most organized and had me take care of the flight arragnements, which meant I had our E-tickets) I am fishing around in my jacket pocket for some gum and notice something cold, hard, and strangely metallic.

Now me being my savy self do not take this out but keep feeling it until I notice a sharp edge.

Then the first mark of stupidity dawns on me.

You see, my friend Nik carries around a pocket knife. Nik cannot take said knife to his gymnastics class. (Hey a guys got to do what he can for a gym credit right?) Nik was not coming on this trip and was not at the airport, and Nik usually would give me his pocket knife (it's rather large, hardly can be called pocket, more like switchblade, but at least it's reasonably compact) ritually each day he had his class, because he felt I was the only one who could be trusted with one. Well apparently I cannot be trusted because in my excitement of our trip I had FORGOTTEN to give it back to him and it was STILL in my coat pocket!!!!

If any of you, on October 11th, 2001, saw a blonde girl running down the Hopkins airport drop off sidewalk chasing a brown van, that was me, trying to catch the van that had dropped us off, so I could give it to them it before I got arrested.

If any of you were the ones I subsequently bumped into in my mad rush, I am sincerely sorry.

And please Mr. Officer, I was in need of exercise, theres no need to hold me here by my arm asking why I am off like a bat out of Hades. I NEED to catch that van!

So off Mr. Airport Security man and I are, chasing the van, because he took mercy upon me.

Lets not try to explain what our student body president's face was like when I practically jumped in front of their moving vehicle, hopped in when they stopped (I'm glad they liked me becasue they did indeed stop), and handed them that doosey!

Lets also be thankful that Mr. Police Officer thought I was trying to pick up my airport ticket.

*grins sheepishly*

If your that Police Officer reading, I really am sorry for playing you for a sap sir. I need to disarm myself. Surely you can understand the rationale for that?

Add to this airport visit the fact that one of the girls going had a fetish for metal links on her thongs and well...

"Please unbutton your pants mam..."



Poor poor (Name removed to protect the innocent, the innocent not being me I swear, for I am not that sort I swear. )

And the pictures are still hidden, in that lovely Student Senate office at the college that shall remain unnamed to protect the innocent, the innocent not being me, nor anyone with similiarly colored hair, or stature.

Honest, you can trust me, I swear.

Add in to the fact that my shoe was lost...

Yes, you heard me right. How, may you ask, can one lose a shoe at an airport?

While being searched with their pants being unbuttoned in front of their 8 fellow student senators who are laughing at their friend's misfortune.

So when my shoes came off and were scanned with something I did not mind. When only one shoe came back to me I did mind.

Apparently I had a metal nail stuck in my shoe, and it was setting the thing off. I am so confused about this one. But we were late, about to miss our flight, and this lady was standing their with her little wand waving it by my shoe, trying to decipher if there was a hidden weapon in there besides the nail (that I must have gotten when I was running down the sidewalk like a bat out of Hades) sticking out the bottom.

So at this point I look at my foot and notice, ah, it is bleeding slightly, woohoo! I haven't had an updated tetnus shot!

We won't discuss the tetnus shot I got later that night. That is not important.

What was important is that they could not give me my shoe back until it was thoroughly checked.

I told them to keep it, I had a plane to catch.

Fortunately I had other shoes, and the said shoe they kept was old, falling apart anyways, and only $20 at Payless.

My other pair of shoes were in a carry on, thank goodness, but I wound up wearing my slightly dressier shoes (which are not all that dressy) every day. Fun fun.

It was also great fun that I had somehow mischecked my bags. I'm not entirely sure this is my fault, but I did wind up with a bag, with my luggage tag on it, that looked JUST like my bag (my tag must have fallen off so indeed it must have been my fault for not putting it on properly, yet how it got back on there...) for a Mr. (name deleted to protect the innocently victimized).

Mr. XXXXXX I am really sorry for opening your unlocked bag and discovering your stash of horse racing magazines, and horse shaped souvenirs. I'm not quite sure why a HUGE bag would be filled of nothing but those, but I swear I'll never tell a soul.

See now don't you feel better?

 

[Wish I lived in Fl]

DH2b and I were flying home to NY near Christmas to arrange our wedding. At airport i notice our baggage tickets are labeled PHL. I tell DH2b that doesn't seem right.
DH2b tells me not to bother the gate agent, they know what they are doing.
Our luggage went to Philadelphia, we saw the priest in jeans and sneakers, went to Midnight Mass in Jeans and sneakers. Met with the Restaurant manager in Jeans and sneakers. etc.etc.

 

[philaround]

From last December. About a week after we got home we started getting calls from AirTran baggage at LaGuardia that we had left one of our bags there. It took them calling us 6 times and us telling them six times that we had all our luggage at home and in fact we had all our luggage with us when we had left the airport before they finally gave up. I sure hope that bag got back to it's rightful owner.