Karla took me to Branson to catch my flight. We thought we would never get to the actual airport, seemed like that road to it wound around and around forever. But, finally, there it was! It was small but quaint. I checked my luggage, then we ate at Famous Daves.
We said goodbye and I went to board the plane. I made it through the security scan, but unfortunately my purse didn't. Apparently, they found a knife in my purse. What!! No way! However, as they were going through my "stuff", the guy held up my make-up bag and, suddenly it occurred to me. Oh yeah, I told him I do have a little "tool" that has a nail file, cleaner, and knife. The whole thing is about 1 1/2 inches long....tiny little thing. So he opened up my bag and found one, and another one and another one. I had THREE of them in there. What in the world! I didn't know what to say. I was so embarrassed. Well, of course, then they had to go through my carry on and check it for dangerous weapons. All I can say is that those knives have been in there for years and I have been through many other security checks and no one has ever said anything about them. So, I complimented the security agents on their thoroughness, hoping they would show me some grace and not arrest me. They were very nice and told me to take it back to the check in counter and see if someone would take it out and put it in my check in bag. So I did and one of the girls took it out there and came back and told me she had put it in a zippered compartment. Thank the Lord for a small, quaint airport!
So, I had to go back through the security scan, but this time I set the alarm off, so, here came the TSA Agents to dump my carry on bag...again. He told me it was just a random check.
All I could think of as I got on the plane was....Okay but it there is a terrorist on our flight, they will be sorry, because I could have saved everyone with my knife.
So that part of the trip was kind of funny, however, the trip back was not so funny. Doug and Wendy let me out at Hobby Airport for my return flight, and I went to the check in counter to check my bag. The clerk there pulled out her tape measure to measure my bag! What! I have traveled with that bag many times and no one has ever measured it! She said it was 63 inches and the max it can be is 62 inches, therefore I had to pay $40 extra....above the $20 I already paid to have a check-in bag. I was livid! Clearly, I was not demonstrating godliness in my words and actions. I stood there arguing with her and she just looked at me so smug. I turned around to look at the people behind me and they were sympathetic with me. Finally, I gave up and paid the $40 and then had to run to get on board my plane.
I sat and fumed most of the way back...until.....we got to Branson and couldn't land. That's right, the pilot said weather conditions would not allow us to land so we would fly to Kansas City! What!! Gary is waiting for me and I couldn't call him to tell him. Hopefully they would tell him at the airport.
So we flew to Kansas City, landed and sat there for about 40 minutes. The pilot said that we were going to TRY it again. What, so if we can't land again, we'll fly back to Kansas City? Well, we got back to Branson and landed. Gary said the monitor at the airport said the plane had landed the first time, so he wondered what was taking so long to deboard.
Still miffed about having to pay $40 in Houston, I took my bag over to the check-in counter and since no one else was there, I told the girl there what had happened, so she measured my bag and said that it was well under the limit and there was no reason that should have happened. She pulled up my information and wrote a note on there about it and gave me a number to call on Monday. I called that number and spoke to a very nice lady who, after reading what the Branson girl wrote, said that they would credit my card for the $40 and apologized for the inconvenience. YES!
Okay, I'm okay. My blood pressure is back to normal. And really, for a $59 flight, I really got more than my money's worth in a story. Sorry no pictures...just images in my mind.
Flying has never been my favorite thing to do, anyway.
Donna
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