Mary and Pearl Go to Florida; or First, Let’s See if They Make it Through Security

If there’s anything better than a ride to the airport – one that is accompanied by a delicious and utterly free coffee drink – then I don’t know what it is.

Electric socks in the winter, perhaps.  Or a personal hair-brusher on someone else’s dime. 

I don’t know – I’m just speculating.

Nevertheless, it is early Friday morning and I am doing some light shoveling when Nancy and Mary pull up to the door.  Nancy, a delightfully energetic soul, has volunteered to drive us to the airport. 

“Ready for Florida?”

Am I ready?  I haven’t been able to feel my toes since early October.  Lead on, my good woman!

Nancy is exuberant.  “I wish I was going with you!  It’s going to be so much fun!”  Mary leans over from the passenger seat, grins at me in the rear view mirror. 

“I hear,” she says, “that there are people in the South who are not wearing long underwear.”

“I’m not sure I believe that,” I say. 

And in less than 20 minutes we are hoisting our bags out of Nancy’s trunk.  There are hugs all around, and in no time Mary and I find ourselves in line at Security.

Mary has probably flown twice, perhaps in her lifetime, and I fill her in as we go: 3.1 ounces of liquid, plastic bags, taking our shoes off.

“Are they serious?” she says.  “How often do they clean the floor around here, and with what?”

I shrug.  “I have a friend who has a friend who caught hoof-and-mouth disease in First Class a few years ago.”

She laughs.  “I don’t know how I feel about hooves,” she says, “But you know I’ve always wanted a tail, right?”

I do indeed.  We both do, although for different reasons:  Mary wants to show the world how happy she is – I just want to make a killing as a stripper with a tail.

At the head of the line, the TSA agent is ready for us.  He has been listening for a while, it appears.  I smile at him and hand him my boarding pass, my ID.  He takes this opportunity to level a pudgy, blunt index finger at me. 

“Don’t think you’re going to be making any jokes about bombs,” he says.  “We’ll take you out of line.”

I turn to look at Mary, who frowns at me. 

I turn back.  “What?” I say.  “What are you talking about?”

“We don’t take bomb threats lightly,” he says. 

“Good thing no one mentioned anything about that,” I say.

“Well just remember that,” he says. 

How did he know we would be trouble?  How was I to know what Mary had up her sleeves – or, more importantly, in her suitcase?

I guess you’ll have to come back tomorrow!