l'eau de twat

So I worked five whole days – in a row – for eight hours. Wow. How do you people DO that???? But then again, I don’t get a reliable nap when I get home and I have to keep on going until 8-9pm and then get up and do it all again 5 hours later. “Hit by a mack truck, several times over” is how I would describe my Sunday afternoon. And to top it all off, I woke this morning to a very angry wrist. It’s not swollen or anything, but it is definitely insulted. It is wrapped nicely and I’ll heat it this evening. I’m going to wager that it was l’Eau de Twat’s stupid green rolling carryon that did it. Oh, yes. Story time with kater.

It is a crack to noon. Almost quittin’ time.

“Bag check.”

That’s me: kater, bag-checker extraordinare. Upon the screen, I see many many many glass bottles. 20, maybe 30 of them. With little sprayers. It is a full-size carryon. No friggin way. The three of us working this lane shake our heads in disbelief. I begin to laugh. “Someone needs to take a trip back to the ticket counter. Who belongs to this lovely green bag?” I ask the room at large. Aah. The well-dressed gentleman hasn’t gotten through yet. “Hold the mag, please. That gentleman and I need to have a little talk.” I am not even going to open this bag.

“Bag check.”

That’s not me, because I’m still busy with l’Eau de Twat over here. “Sir, you’re not going to be able to take this bag with you on board the aircraft.” He smacks himself in the forehead. I smile tightly. “You know why, don’t you?”

“Oooooah,” he groans, “it is the perfume....” he continues groaning to himself. He stands there looking dazed and chewing on his lip.

My bag-checker-in-arms approaches me. “Hmm,” she says. “Sir, is this your bag as well?” He nods sheepishly. She looks at me and shakes her head again. “Hmph. Let him in. We got a mess to deal with in here.”

I heft the bag again and we head to our table at the end of the lane to wait for l’Eau to get through. The metal detector beeps wildly and several bowls parade down the conveyor belt holding his belongings: change, wallet, keys, a pen, chewing gum, chewing tobacco, two cell phones (each in it’s own bowl), a belt. Finally he has divested himself completely and he shuffles to collect his flotilla of pocket-stuffings and shoes.

“You knew,” she begins, pulling out her momma-voice, “you knew you couldn’t take alla this on the aircraft with you. How many bags have you checked? Two? Looka here. You need to take this big green bag back to the ticket counter. The airlines charge a fee for checking extra bags.” She begins unloading liquids out of his black backpack. Hair cream, two bottles of juice, lotion, hair spray, toothpaste, more lotion. He gestures to all of them.

“They cannot go?”

“No, sir. They can’t. This is a liquid. This is a cream. This is a paste. This is an aerosol. Liquids, creams, aerosols, gels and pastes have been restricted on flights since 2006. But you knew that as soon as we pulled out your bags.”

“But I will miss my flight?” he flounders.

She glanced at his ticket and briefly at her watch. “Yessir. You might,” she tells him, matter-of-factly.

I’m just standing here, next to my girl, hands on the suitcase, forcing my smirk into the back of my mouth. If I talked to the man this way, I’d be sacked. But her momma-voice is something to behold: firm, full of respect, and no-nonsense.

At this point I tell him, “You can put all of these items from your backpack into this suitcase and only have to check the one bag, but I’m telling you right now, this suitcase is stuffed so full, I am not going to open it, or try to close it back up again.” My girl starts stuffing the prohibited items into the backpack.

“But I can’t throw them here?”

“Nosirree. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven,” she taps the items as she puts them away. “They are right here on top. You’re gonna take this here bag out to your ticket counter. You’re gonna pay that fee. Or you’re gonna dump these items in the trash can. You get those items into one bag if you can; you dump the things you can’t fit and can live without. I don’t care what you do and how you do it, so long as these liquids don’t come back through my checkpoint, y’hear?”

“Yes’m.” He tips his head to her, mumbling to his feet.

I zip his backpack shut and throw it onto my shoulder, pulling the handle out of the carryon and setting it on the floor to pull behind me. “I’m doing a walk-out,” I call to my lead, as I escort l’Eau de Twat to the exit. When I get to the drop-off point and hand his bags back to him, his eyes get wide.

“I have to come back through security???” he asks in horror.

“Yes sir. We’ll see you soon.” And as I turn to walk back to my lane, he breaks into a full run to his ticket counter.

Can you imagine the smell in there if we’d dumped all that perfume? That stuff is flammable, so we would have to classify it as hazardous. Our haz-mat bucket is not nearly big enough to hold all those bottles. Again I shake my head and ask, aloud this time, “What the hell was he thinking?? Who needs all that??? I don’t think I’ve owned that much stinkin-pretty in my entire life.”

We keep an eye out for him. Sometimes people go out and then try to sneak back in without getting rid of anything. They just go to a different lane, thinking they won’t get caught by someone else. As I’m leaving the break room to go clock out, here he comes, puffing down the pier to his plane, still at a full run. I’m pretty sure he made it, with only moments to spare. And I sincerely hope he’s not going to try to do that again.