Going Out in....Style?

I really did have every intention of exiting the fair city of Victoria in a mature, dignified and composed fashion. Mistakes were made.

Despite my very good intentions, a near-fiasco ensued, starring yours truly. God, why am I ever let out alone? And now, for your reading enjoyment, I will walk you through the unfortunate events that now cloud my memories of a lovely weekend.

I arrived at Vic airport with enough time to do my stuff, but not endless extra. I checked in at the Air Canada desk, chatted reasonably with the check-in lady, and saw my luggage go off on the belt. Right to security go I, and so far, so good. But no, no, not for long. As I am dumping my stuff on the coveyor belt to go through the security camera-thingy, I set a shopping bag down, containing a few little extras. My dear Victoria friend, Tryntje, always always sends me home with pies, so there were two of those. My other friend Ida had given me a miniature daffodil plant for the girls, so that was in the bag, too. Add one "magic"pencil toy, made by the delightful Dave, husband of Ida, and one jar of Aunt Carmen's homemade blackberry jam, and my shopping bag was full up. One word here: jam. JAM! Jam is, apparently a liquid or a gel. Yes, friends, apparently there was a significant risk of my blowing up the aircraft using none other than Aunt Carmen's blackberry jam. The fact that the Victoria-Vancouver flight is only 14 minutes long didn't seem to count. Man, if I was going to get up to nefarious business with my jam, I'd have to act mighty quick. The security person said that I could run back to the check-in desk and see if my suitcase had disappeared, and if not, the dangerous and potentially explosive jam could be stowed safely away, its terrifying potential locked away from human hands.

I shot out of security, handbag, coat and shopping bag flying, over to the check-in desk. No dice. I hurriedly and sorrowfully gifted the check-in lady with my jam (it is SO good, too. I almost shed a tear. I really did.) and scrambled back to security. They looked pityingly upon me, and motioned me to begin the process again. I go through the metal detecting gate (and, as anybody who knows me knows, I sport a lot of metal to be detected.) and go through the laborious process of being checked out. I am waved through, and am met in front of the xray machine by a woman who asks if she may go through my handbag. As if one can say no..... She begins rifling, and in no short order, produces my precious little folding knife that was given to me by my good friend Jason. It is rather sentimentally valuable, and a smokin' little knife, to boot. My heart sinks when I am faced with evidence of my failure to pack it away, as I always do when I travel by plane. The woman basically gives me a look that says "Nice try, Stabby", and tells me that she has to confiscate the knife. At my wail, she suggests that I might try and return to the check-in desk, where it could be put into my suitcase. I clutch my head, roll my eyes, and explain that I have already tried that with my Terrorist Road Kit Item #1, the ever-risky jam, and that the suitcase was long gone.

She condescendingly offers the other two options. One, my knife never leaves Victoria, and much as I never want to leave when I'm there, I think that my knife is not keen on long term residency without me. Two, if I have time, I can run back out of the secure area, to the gift shop, purchase a padded envelope and stamps and mail it to myself. Jesus Crap. So back I go, to the snickers of the security staff, out to the poxy gift shop (git shop is more like it) to mail the knife to myself. Time is now really of the essence, so naturally, when I blast into the gift shop, there is an old lady ahead of me in line, buying mints. Who knew that mint purchasing could be such a protracted, painful and labourious process? I usually have the greatest of sympathy and understanding for the aged, knowing that I'm not far off that place myself, but this time, I honestly could have punched her to the ground and beat her about the face with the change purse which seemed to cause her so much trouble. Finally, Mint Lady tottered off, and I well nigh THREW MYSELF at the desk, begging for an envelope and stamps. Never has a knife been shoved into an envelope, never has that envelope been addressed with the haste of that moment. I bought a few stamps, smacked them onto the envelope, and turned to go. The gift shop lady called out "Don't you want to mail your envelope?" I said that I had assumed the gift shop had the mailbox, too. "Oh no", she unhelpfully tells me. "The post box is back outside the airport."

Now sweating tears of blood at a potentially missed flight, I blow out of the shop at high speed, bag of pies flying, handbag flying, and exit the airport, find the box and mail the damned knife. I turn and re-enter the airport at speed. Just to top it all off, just to make sure nobody at the airport forgets crazy jam & knife lady EVER, I wipe out spectacularly right in front of security. Tank. Full-on to the ground. Class A bail. My daffodil hurtles from the bag like a guided missile, and I come to rest lying on my face. I briefly considered just remaining there on the floor, waiting for death to claim me, but it was not to be. A passerby assisted me up, and began to try to reassemble my belongings. I cram the wretched daffodil back in the pot, scrape up as much dirt as I can and stuff everything back into my shopping bag. Draping myself in the tattered shreds of my dignity, like so much dirty-water-soaked cardboard, I hold my head high, whilst withering inside, and sweep back into security, sans jam, sans knife and sans respect from any employee of the Victoria International Airport for the rest of my natural life. The lady with the metal detecting wand is not even trying to hide her laughter, and my stony face does no good. I am done here.

I make it to the waiting lounge with about 5 minutes to spare before boarding. I can only hope that my drawn-out, miserable spectacle was not witnessed by any of my fellow passengers. The flight proceeded uneventfully, and on the Vancouver-Calgary leg, I had the pleasure of sitting next to a really amazing guy, with whom I had a great conversation. The incidents at the Vic airport were not far from my consciousness, and at least some excellent conversation helped banish the lurking spirits of calamity. God. You know the James Bond movie song, "Nobody Does It Better"? Well, there's a special Fiona version called "Nobody Does it Worse"......