BLINKERED THINKER

My wife and I are currently in France—-a special heads-up to all cat burglars in our area—-having flown to Paris on Northwest Airlines. Our redeye flight was largely uneventful: cramped, boring, and long. The wines, a cabernet sauvignon and pinot grigio, were both from Chile, ironic when one considers that this flight was headed to the country that is the world’s biggest producer of wine. Oh well.

Upon landing at Charles de Gaulle—-undergoing a massive building expansion, by the way—-my wife and I decided to refrain from joining the stampede of bleary-eyed, cranky, and somewhat claustrophobic passengers queued at the doors of the aircraft. Instead, we waited until most passengers had exited—-deplaned, in airline-speak—-to retrieve our carry-on baggage and join the sardines in the incredibly cramped bus that would take us to the terminal (a 20 minute ride, by the way). While we waited, I noticed that a man seated in the same row as ours also linger in getting up. This passenger traveled alone and sat in a window seat; while everyone else in a window seat kept their shade lowered until the lights came on when the wretched petit-dejeuner was being distributed, this guy kept his shade up causing the dawn’s light to beam into my wife’s face.

The hinky-looking fellow in question looked around and then got up. He reached into an overhead compartment and pulled out an over-stuffed, full-length garment bag that took up the entire useable space in that bin, since the only way that it could possibly fit overhead was to leave it unfolded. He then struggled to fold the garment bag in half and latch it that way, but there were far too many contents inside of it. So he removed a couple of bulky items and then, using all of his upper body weight, finally succeeded in doubling-over his “carry-on.” This item was now the size of a high-R-factor roll of fiberglass insulation. He then had to fiddle with his other things: a heavy coat, a large briefcase, and the two bulky items that he had just removed from his still-pregnant garment bag. One of the items was in a plastic bag, the type that a shopper gets nowadays at any supermarket or WalMart. He thrust his hand inside the plastic bag and began fumbling with its contents. After doing this for about 15 seconds, I noticed a red blinking light flashing through the translucent shopping bag and heard a mechanical whirring of some sort. Then the man began looking agitated.

My immediate thought was, “My God, this guy’s got a bomb!” Without mentioning to my wife what I was witnessing, I determined to get us off the plane pronto. Just as I was about to push pass this bizarre creature, he impatiently ripped open the shopping bag and pulled out a toy pickup truck—-about the size of a RF-controlled unit—-that had a red light flashing atop it.

We hustled down the ramp stairs and over to the waiting sardine can. Sure enough, the same dude chose to ride in the same section of the transit bus that we were on. We watched him shove his 50+ pound garment bag and the other items ahead of him as he struggled to get on the bus.

I’ve been married long enough to know when I should (and shouldn’t) tell my wife all that I observe around me, especially when it comes to blinking red lights on aircraft.