To Catch a Smuggler

We dedicate the Spring Break 2024 blog entries to Nana and Woody, our only loyal blog readers.

We are off, but barely.

We are feeling luckier than usual to be on a plane to New York this morning. Knowing Spring Break airport wait times are typically double the usual, we started an early trip to the airport. Joel calmly informed me on that journey that our car tire would likely be flat by the time we got back from NYC. Our tire sensors showed one tire with a lower pressure than the rest. We made the call to turn around and switch cars, eating up our extra margin. After significant triage on Joel’s part, we were able to quickly find parking in the long term garage, a feat the other travelers that came in behind us certainly weren’t close to accomplishing as we walked out of the garage. Thinking the worst was behind us, we arrived one hour before our flight into a madhouse of an airport. Dozens of families waited in two non-moving lines to check bags on United. We waited long enough to start sweating it when an employee randomly asked us if we were going to New York.  When I confirmed that we were, she pulled us out of line in front of a circus of people and walked us straight up to the counter to check us in. We couldn’t believe our luck!  Pre-check was still an efficiency at TSA, where we fairly quickly got to the X-ray.  I had visions of a small time margin to grab breakfast before boarding. Those hopes were overinflated. I had packed a bag of cooking supplies that included an open canister of Benefiber. TSA thought that was cocaine or some kind of amphetamine apparently, because we had to wait for a couple of full chemistry experiments as they confirmed. We were so thrilled to be on our own episode of “To Catch a Smuggler!”  Joel and I both wanted to take pictures for Woody, but our humorless TSA agent didn’t look like he would tolerate it. Jane and I looked like we had won the TSA lottery. Anyway, we didn’t get any food but did board our plane as soon as we walked up to the gate. As our final stroke of good luck, I realized I had a jumbo orange in our suitcase of food!  Improbably, we are off to New York!  Logging off now because our captain Ruth Chris (seriously, that’s his name) is about to push off from the gate.


Exhibit 1.  Sustenance.  


Exhibit 2.  The precious. 


Exhibit 3.  A starving Victorian child receives a small ration from United Airlines. 






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