delta scares me
And not just because of the ghetto planes!
I flew delta today, from Fayetteville, Arkansas to San Jose, CA by way of Atlanta, GA, Delta’s nationwide hub. After boarding the pane in Atlanta in preparation for the 5+ hour journey to San Jose, the stewardess made an announcement about a set of lost keys found by a baggage handler. She said the handler found them and assumed that they had fallen out of a bag that was on our flight. It was the usual “describe to claim” situation, but I didn’t give it a second thought.
When she passed by just before takeoff, I remembered sticking my keys in my checked baggage’s outermost pocket just before sending it to whatever abyss lays beyond the flaps of the conveyor belt. I have a swiss-tech multi tool on my key ring, which includes a blade about an inch and a half long; I didn’t want to chance getting stopped at security with it and never seeing it again, so I threw it in at the last minute without a thought.
I flagged the stewardess down, and asked casually if the homeless keys had a caribeaner attached to them. She mustn’t have known what that was, because she asked back “you mean a D-clip?” I made the connection and sat up a little bit. “Yeah! It’s black, with a LED flashlight and a couple keys…” She moved forward to the head of the plane, and another stewardess came back and asked for the description of the keys again. I told her, and viola, out came my keys!
While this is an amazing story for the mere fact that everyone involved was quite honest and kind, but what worries me is that the stewardess handed me – albeit unknowingly – a serrated edge knife aboard a cross-country flight just before takeoff. In fact, as I write this, I’m 38,000 feet above the ground holding my precious multi-tool at the back of the plane. Quite unnerving to say the least.
All caution aside, I am returning from a 5-day visit with Michael of bodyvisual fame. We had a blast hanging out and talking geek for a few days, as well as gaping in horror at Apocalypto, marveling at the wonders of Wal*Mart and spelunking, among other things. I am very sad to have to return after such a short visit, but with any luck, he’ll be moving out west soon anyway :)
*** Post-flight ***
I’m in San Jose now, and going to MacWorld tomorrow, after I get some sleep tonight. I’m sure I’ll have my $0.02 about the iPhone and ?tv and all that tomorrow.