Blah-ditty-blah

my long trip home. . .

it all started with a drive from boston to the providence airport. neill and i had plenty of time. . . . gobs of time. . . until there was an accident. . . not me, but a large one about 5 miles or so ahead of us. all traffic stopped for close to 3 hours. so i missed the first flight. neill and i finally made it into providence and i switched my flight to the absolute next one, at 6:20am the next morning. so i decided to stay in town till the next morning so there would be no chance of me getting stuck in traffic.

next morning, i showed up about 45 minutes before the flight, which was apparently not early enough. the woman behind the counter said that if i wanted to make the flight i shouldn't check any luggage. so i dragged my bag and carry-on toward security, where i knew there would be trouble when my gerber multi-tool showed up on their x-ray machines. all the signs along the way said to put 'all electronic devices in you carry-on bag.' so i did. . . even though everywhere else i've seen people take their lap-tops out.

so i make it to the x-ray machine. my carry-on gets pulled, and i get told that i should've taken my lap-top out, and that i'd be ushered to security school part 2. . . . but then they found the gerber. my bag was taken apart. . . everything was inspected. . . . the look on their faces when they found my green tea in a baggie was pretty precious. meanwhile, time is ticking away. so after a tedious inspection and a difficult repacking. . . . we move to security school part 2.

there are cloths that are wiped across everything i own and placed in a device that reads them for any sort of explosive material. (keep in mind, most of my bags hae MANY pockets. . . and all of these have to be emptied and wiped) somewhere along the way, one of the cloths set off an alarm. it's 6:17, flight leaves at 6:20. . . i give up, and sit down. an expert is brought over to inspect my bag more throroughly. i'm asked my exact address and my phone number. several minutes later, i'm allowed to pass through. . . . except for the gerber that is confiscated. (thankfully i was able to keep my wonderful and rather pricey surefire flashlight)

i walk down to the gate, and wait for someone to show up, since everyone has left along with the plane. finally someone shows, i explain the situation, and get moved to the 9:30 flight.

i missed TWO FLIGHTS! and now i'm gerberless. . . . sure, it could be worse. . . .but all in all, it's pretty lame. me, the poster child for terrorism. . . what they didn't realize is that i was sick. . . .and it wasn't a bomb that i was carrying that would hurt passengers, but a nasty headcold. i was a bioterrorist. . . . and i'm sure i coughed enough germs into the air to at least make a few people uncomfortable for a few days. . . .muhahahahahaha. . .

anyway, there's my lame story. . . .