Airport security posed no problem for Istvan Balazs, even though his name begs for a random search, and it wasn't a problem for C.J. Kringle either. It was only a problem for Mike Fleming, since I was stupid enough to leave a god damn screwdriver in my carry on bag. The ensuing shakedown was reasonably brief, about average compared to the dozens that followed before I returned to the U.S. three months later. It seems that Mr. "You're gonna get profiled" fits a pretty good profile himself.

 

We took a window seat in the bar to wait for our flight. We spent quite a while there, a good, long while. In fact, Steve and I had tried to get moving toward the gate at one point but Chris was sure we still had plenty of time. When we finally did get to our gate the lounge was almost empty, spurring Chris to belittle our worry as he walked off to the bathroom. As Steve and I told the airline man who we were, though, the man's eyes bugged out. They'd been looking for us, he said, and calling our names over the airport PA, and the flight had been moved to a gate about a half-mile down the hall, and there were only ten minutes left before it took off. He begged us to run as fast as we could while he called the other gate to tell them to wait.

 

Steve and I caught Chris while bolting down the hall, and on arriving at the new gate the airline people practically carried us onto the plane. A flight attendant was broadcasting our names over the airplane PA as we boarded, repeating our names to all the other passengers who hate passengers like us who make their airplanes late. As an angry pilot popped the clutch on our Airbus, the 2002 European Tour began.