COMMENTARY
WEDNESDAY, MAY 10, 2017
HERMISTONHERALD.COM • A7
When flying the friendly skies, the airport grounds me
A
lthough not even not at restaurants, nada.
close to the fiasco
One particular trip, I
a recent United decided to remedy that
Airlines
passenger by bringing a pair of
experienced,
I
was Tillamook cheese baby
thinking back about some loafs. I’m not sure why
I thought I need-
of my travel woes
ed four pounds of
over the years.
cheese for 15 days,
I’ve
observed
but that’s what I
escalations of pas-
packed.
sengers on several
To
ensure
it
flights, but my most
would be in decent
memorable
expe-
shape by the time
riences have taken
Tammy
we landed in the hot
place in airports.
Malgesini
and humid climate,
John and I used INSIDE MY
I froze them. I also
to own a timeshare SHOES
decided to wrap
in Mazatlan, so we
often traveled to Mexi- each package in alumi-
co. After making several num foil.
I didn’t think that
trips, it became apparent
how addicted I am to Til- through very well.
Yup, it pretty much
lamook cheese. Seriously,
I went through withdraw- looked like I was smug-
al. I would have settled gling drugs. Oh, and to
for any cheddar cheese, really add to the appear-
but you couldn’t find it ance of international
anywhere — not in stores, drug smugglers, my hus-
band brought a couple of
pounds of ground coffee.
For the uninformed, cof-
fee is often used to mask
odors to throw off drug
detection dogs.
My realization of how
this all appeared flooded
my brain as we headed
to customs at the Mazat-
lan airport. John dropped
his bag of coffee while
rifling through his back-
pack. Trying not to pan-
ic, as sweat poured off
my brow, I thought may-
be they wouldn’t make
a thorough search of our
bags.
This was the late-1980s
and when you stepped to
the front of the line, you
pressed a button. If you
got a green light, they
waved you through. And,
a red light meant more in-
depth searches.
The odds were against
us. Each previous visit,
we had gotten the green
light. We were due to be
detained.
I had packed the foil-
wrapped cheese in the
center amongst clothes —
lots of clothes. Luckily,
they merely did a curso-
ry search and we were on
our way.
During another trip to
Mexico, we were heading
home and John’s carry-on
baggage caught the at-
tention of security. Soon,
there were several agents
standing around talking
in hushed tones — not
that I could have under-
stood what they were say-
ing as my Spanish is muy
poquito.
Finally, one of them
pulled out the ques-
tionable item — a Cos-
to-sized package of dou-
ble-AA batteries. The best
we could figure is they
thought it was a package
of bullets when viewing
it through the baggage
scanner.
Another time we ar-
rived in the United States
and were going through
customs in Los Angeles.
Once again, the x-ray ma-
chine seemed to alert on
something in John’s bag.
The agent asked what was
in a side zipper compart-
ment.
Trying to save her the
odoriferous
encounter
of the running clothes
he wore that morning —
which, by then, were ripe
after stewing in a plastic
bag for hours — John
said, “You don’t want to
open that.”
Well, of course she did
after a statement like that.
I have sinus issues and
my sense of smell isn’t
that great, but I’m gag-
ging now just thinking
about it.
All of these experienc-
es have added addition-
al considerations when
I’m packing. However,
I still periodically raise
the eyebrows of securi-
ty agents as they come
across weird items in my
bag. Although, none have
blinked an eye about my
TENS machine during
several post 9-11 flights
when security is suppos-
edly heightened — that’s
a whole other column in
itself.
———
Tammy Malgesini is
the community editor. Her
column, Inside my Shoes,
includes general musings
about life. Contact her
at tmalgesini@eastore-
gonian.com or 541-564-
4539.
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