The Bomb Bag

The Bomb Bag

The travel curse comes in small, medium and large sizes. And on some occasions, super-sized. I’m never quite sure when I travel, which travel happy meal I’ve ordered, and it’s not typically until I’m at home and can finally reflect on my trips, that I can classify what falls where.

Only super-duper, “you’ve got to be kidding me” curses fall under the Super Sized category. Like when I actually, truthfully, got on the wrong airplane and flew to Madison, WI instead of Houston, TX. Imagine my surprise when we landed only 45 minutes after take-off! Or how about the time when I got stuck on a runway for four hours, to turn around, go back to gate and subsequently find out they gave another passenger my first class seat…on the same flight apparently to no where. And when I complained, “Missy – one more word out of you and I’m calling security!” Or finding out on my way to Florida that we were being denied boarding because Delaney was on the no-fly list.

Which brings me to a recent trip to Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love, or more importantly one of two cursed hubs that I fly between. It all started out relatively calm. Well, I suppose I should know better. My flight landed on time, my first set of meetings went without a hitch, which only meant the travel gods had a good one in store for me.

After leaving the confines of the Sofitel and catching a cab in Philly to the train station, it appears that I had picked up the cab driver who either was sidelining as a suicide driver, or was gunning for the world record of how long he could stay awake. I should have gotten out of the cab when he almost, literally, hit a pedestrian crossing the street. Both the man he almost hit, and myself managed to lock eyes with a look of, “Help!” But no, it was too early, I was too tired and the train station was only 5 blocks from the hotel.

As we’re pulling up to the train station, I reach down into my purse (also known as the black hole of every scrap of paper less than 3” square) to find the small fortune it costs to go a mere few blocks. And after the squeal of screeching tires, foreign language cursing and shattered glass, I found myself in a small heap in the seat well of the taxi. It’s true, my taxi driver had chosen apparently to maximize every last mile on the trip and step on the gas, instead of slowing down and stopping at the train station. I made quite the entry, and unfortunately, there were no red carpets, lights or camera for my grand entrance. I believe I literally said as I hobbled out of the car to find a policeman, “And I’m not paying for that ride!” Ah, such clarity of thought, huh?

Well, in normal circumstances, a taxi ride accident would only qualify as a large-sized travel curse. The combination of the taxi ride, and my subsequent return flight home, more than qualifies as “super-size” material, and definitely ranks as one of the top five travel curses of all time.

I have to do a side story here for a minute. My husband Dave and I are both independent, stubborn, and occasionally share things. For example, we both have the same eye prescription and share contacts and glasses. We share a glass of wine when the kids are in bed. We share the same work title, the same birthday month, the same kids. We used to even share the same car when we were a one car family. And the one oddity that we share – yes, we share one rollerbag. It’s strange, it’s weird, I don’t even understand it. The theory, being of course, is that we should never both be out of town at the same time, why get two rollerbags? And so it goes, that while we both travel extensively for our jobs, we rotate the one black rollerbag between us.

Back to our regularly scheduled program, and on with my story. After limping along after my taxi ride from hell, getting to Harrisburg, PA in one piece, returning back to Philly to catch a flight home, I landed the equivalent of the TSA lottery – the dreaded SSSS, which stands for “Secondary Security Screening Selection.” In other words, bend over, strip down, let the magic wand, paper wipes and TSA agent feel you, your bag, and other belongings in front of dozens of other happy travelers.

Myself and another gentleman were having our bags scanned. Have you ever had them wipe the inside of your bag with the “baby wipe held with tongs” to be processed on an itty-bitty machine? I often wondered if that machine actually picked up something, or if it was really a teleprompter for the TSA agents, “Don’t touch your bag.” “Hands up, palms down.” “I’m going to pat your front, is that okay?” (Umm…do I actually have a choice?”) You get my drift. Well, wouldn’t you know it, the poor guy next to me clearly had all the bells and whistles go off. The blinking red lights, the silent alarm, the knowing glance of the agents, “Oh, one of those.” And as I was looking the poor soul up and down, in the corner of my eye, I see multiple agents gathered around my bag inspecting every last item in there. Why are they holding up my underwear and scanning it? Those TSA’s are perverts, I knew it! Crap – it wasn’t the old guy’s bag next to me, it was my bag!

No sooner did my internal panic button go off, than I noticed some very official looking men headed my direction with clipboard, pen and stern faces. Ugh, I’m screwed. I had vague recollections of Dave using the roller briefcase (yes, one more thing we share), and filling it with the contents of his desk including a box cutter, glue stick and string. That was an experience in Florida at the security line. Or how about when the TSA agent literally ran after me in the Philly corridor because they failed to fill out the proper paperwork for me? (I forgot my license at home).

“M’am, we’d like to ask you a couple of questions.” Great – they’re calling me M’am, just like the 16-year old bag boy at Jewel. I feel older than 39, but like a kid caught with my hand in the cookie jar. “Can you tell me the last place you’ve used this bag?” Crap…where did Dave go, where did he go? Crap – I don’t remember. Ah, let me just tell them the truth. “Well, it’s not really my bag.” S***. Wrong answer. Lesson #1 – Never tell a TSA agent that it’s not your bag, when it has all of your stuff in it. That will get you nowhere. “Excuse me, it’s not your bag? Did you know that this bag has not passed the bomb inspection?” Clearly now, they have moved over the “If they answer B, go to questions C through Z” which meant another 45 minutes of questioning. Lesson #2 – Sometimes, it’s okay to have the small white lie and not air your dirty laundry about sharing a rollerbag with your husband. “Let me get this straight, you and your husband share the same suitcase? Do you happen to know where your husband traveled last?” “Umm, not really, I think maybe he went to California last week…or was it Detroit. I don’t really know.” Lesson #3 – back to that white lie thing, just make something up. Now it looks like Dave and I don’t talk – which is true some of the time, but the reality is, neither of us rarely remembers where the other flew to. Hard to believe, but true. “I’m thinking California because there’s a Pebble Beach golf hat in the front pocket.” Hah – I’m on a roll now! “Do you think he went golfing?” “Duh, didn’t I say he left his golf hat in the front pocket of the suitcase?” And so it was, the TSA believed that not only did Dave leave his golf hat in the front pocket, but also a piece of Pebble Beach with him in the bag. To the best of our knowledge, Dave wore his golf shoes, picked up some fertilizer with his shoes, packed the shoes in the bag, took the shoes out, but managed to leave the fertilizer in the bag, thus creating, “The Bomb Bag.”

So it goes that I’m now on the hunt for the most girly looking travel bag that Dave would be horrified to use, ending the decade long sharing theory behind the single travel bag. And this my friends, would indeed be classified as a Super-Sized, I can’t believe it, travel curse.