Part 1 (The One with the Crazy Delta Lady)

Post Series: Not Your Mama’s Spaghetti and Meatballs

Part 1 (The One with the Crazy Delta Lady)
Part 2 (The One with George Clooney)
Part 3 (The One with the Grande Caffe)
Part 4 (The One with the Assassin and the Accordion)
Part 5 (The One that Stole My Heart)

So…

Our honeymoon in Italy was fantastic! Of course, you knew that. How could it not be? Art, culture, food, wine, countryside, ancient ruins, beautiful beaches, picturesque little villages and cafes, and fantastic views.

What’s not to love?

No matter what I say here, it will sound like I’m bragging. And maybe I am a little bit, but I really want to share my experiences with you. The good, the interesting, and the crazy.

Let’s start at the beginning, shall we?

We were running super late for the airport. It couldn’t be helped, really, considering the wedding reception ended a little after 11 p.m. the night before, and we had to be up at 7 a.m. in order to be ready to (separately) drive the two hours back from our destination wedding. Then we had to move toiletries and such from our wedding bags to our honeymoon bags that were waiting on us. This became far more complicated than we anticipated. So we got to the airport later than we planned, but we always aim to be there as close as possible to three hours before the flight is scheduled to leave. We were looking at a little under two hours this time, I believe.

Did we miss our flight? No, but we did have what I would call a very odd experience. As we stood at the check-in desk having our luggage weighed, another check-in employee walked over from her counter and asked to “borrow” one of our passports.

Yeah. That’s what we said.

Apparently, her machine was having issues reading a passport (or something of that nature) during a training session, and she needed someone’s passport to scan at her check-in desk.

Oh, hell no.

You want to take my passport (a federal document that I guard with my life and has the power to identify me in a hundred different ways), walk away, scan it into your computer for purposes completely unrelated to our travel, and I’m supposed to be okay with this vague set of circumstances? Just because you have a name tag?

Now, do I think her intentions were impure? Probably not. But how do you know? You cannot walk up to someone and expect them to turn over their passport for an unauthorized reason! We declined. She insisted. We declined again, stating the above reason. She insisted again. Would NOT move on to another unsuspecting victim down the row.

Seriously.

I’m pretty sure we said “NO” at least six times before she finally walked off. By the end, it was becoming impossible not to snap at her. I mean, what in the world? (We’re pretty sure the employee checking us in was trying not to either laugh or say something to the other lady.)

In a culture where the intricacies and hoops involved with international travel amount to an in-depth (and uncomfortable) physical examination that prepares you for entrance into “general population,” where the TSA is in your face at every possible moment, where the slightest hiccup could get you strip-searched…why, oh why, would anyone think it was okay to ask something like that? And, more importantly, why would anyone agree to it?

Would you? I mean, honestly, doesn’t the very idea of this leave your skin crawling?

I do, however, always enjoy the nice thorough massage they give me every time I opt out of the body scanners. They even grab all my stuff and carry it for me. The valet service rocks.

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