Fudge and Salami

The line for the plane to China stretches like the famous Great Wall in the country we are about to make our home in for the next year. People stand in line at the airport check in line, staring blankly into space, a yawn here, a scratch there. As we made our way towards the baggage check we passed the same people four different times – the little girl with pigtails and toothy grin, the young couple that couldn’t keep their hands off each other, a young Frenchman with a surfboard neatly bagged up, heading to Hawaii for a surf competition. Each of these lives intersected with ours, for a brief moment in time, before diverging once more bound to follow the path each of our lives take us on. Why is this line so long, and so slow I wondered? Finally, we made it to the front, and were going to hand our bag to the United representative who needed another cup of coffee this particular morning as his lethargic greeting “Hi, thank you for flying United” left quite a lot to be desired. Karen and I had a total of seven bags, we were planning on checking five of them, and carrying on two. As we placed the first bag upon the scale, the check -in person glanced at the weight reading in bright green letters (59 lbs) and declared that I would need to pay a $200 fee for an overweight bag. He told me that we needed to get that bag under 50 pounds, so the process began.... I opened that bag and out came shoes, books, clothes,etc....all under the impatient eyes of the people in line behind us. Talk about pressure...most of our possessions came out of one bag and into another, as we frantically tried to get every bag under 50 pounds. When we finally transferred everything in a way that seemed to lighten each bag to under the correct weight we held our collective breath as each bag went on the scale...46...48...42....49...39...45 and finally, 48. We just made it, and with our flight leaving in an hour and a half, the rush was on to get through the carry-on check point. As our carry-on bags went through the x-ray machine, I saw the man behind the scan calling over another checker. They were looking anxiously at whatever was on the screen with a look of curiousity tinged with worry. As my bag came through, they threw it to the end of the rollers, and a woman with gloves on came over and told me she was going to open my bag. She asked me if there was anything in the bag that could have set off the alarm, and I racked my brain but couldn't think of anything. As the bag was opened, and the items emptied, it was a strange collection of items. One of Karen's high heels, moved into this bag during the frantic bag switch earlier, came out first. Then assorted items, and finally, a box of fudge. I finally realized that was what set off the detector...fudge. The woman with the gloves took out some sort of wand and waved it around the box, and cautiously opened it. It hadn't dawned on me, but the fudge must look like some sort of explosive under the x-ray. She laughed as she realized what it was, and actually allowed me to keep it, after eating a piece. At the same time this was going on, at the belt next to us, another couple was going through the same process, only to find that a bag of salami was the potential security risk. Fudge and salami...next time you are waiting in a line at the airport, remember fudge and salami.