{"id":57,"date":"2009-01-18T20:57:00","date_gmt":"2009-01-19T00:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rmcguirephoto.com\/wordpress\/?p=57"},"modified":"2010-02-06T18:35:00","modified_gmt":"2010-02-06T23:35:00","slug":"your-airline-has-asked-that-you-be-given-a-secondary-inspection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rmcguirephoto.com\/wordpress\/2009\/01\/18\/your-airline-has-asked-that-you-be-given-a-secondary-inspection\/","title":{"rendered":"Your airline has asked that you be given a secondary inspection"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Travel tends to change one. Of course it’s always hard to return from a trip and pick up where you left off.<\/div>\n
As I began to unwind from a stressful fall, I began to let my hair down, so to speak. In order to shave, I need a mirror and hot water, and most of my hotels were missing one or both of those, so I decided to grow a beard. And, I picked up a set of natty dreadlocks.<\/div>\n
Should I be surprised that when preparing to board my connecting flight in Chicago, the security people took me aside and told me my airline had requested that I be given a secondary inspection?<\/div>\n
“Is this random, or is it because I have a beard?” I asked the guard.<\/div>\n
“It’s because you look like a terrorist,” he said, smiling, and then adding that there actually are many reasons an airline might call for this — ranging from purchase of a one-way flight, paying cash, etc. “Do you have any ticklish spots?” he asked, preparing to feel me up.<\/div>\n
It was that kind of a trip home. First, I got to Cancun airport well ahead of time, which was a good thing, as the line-up to check in was more than an hour long in a hot building. Then the departure of the flight kept being pushed back while mechanics worked on the plane. We finally left, two hours late, when I only had an hour and a half in Chicago to clear immigration and customs, change terminals, get inspected, in make my flight. Needless to say, I missed my connection, as did many others.<\/div>\n
When I talked to the American Airlines people, they told me they had me on a new flight going at 9 a.m. Saturday. In other words, I would have to spend the night in Chicago. But she checked, and lo and behold, there was a flight with United going later Friday night, and I had plenty of time to make it. I would get into Ottawa just after midnight.<\/div>\n
All was well until I arrived in Ottawa, and waited for my luggage to come down the carousel<\/span>. I waited and waited until I was the last person, and they shut down the belt. It never came. After filing a claim, I now faced the task of getting home in minus 26-degree weather without even my jacket, which was in my luggage.<\/div>\n
Fortunately, I got a taxi right away, so didn’t freeze for long. But I didn’t get to sleep until close to 3 a.m. And United gave me very little information about my luggage until they told me Saturday night that they’d located it. They finally delivered it to me Sunday night.<\/div>\n
So here I am back home, and all set to return to work. I haven’t decided how long to keep the beard, but I won’t wear the dreadlocks. They are just a crude wig made from cotton in Guatemala, and sewn into a Rastafarian hat to sell to tourists.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Travel tends to change one. Of course it’s always hard to return from a trip and pick up where you left off. As I began to unwind from a stressful fall, I began to let my hair down, so to speak. In order to shave, I need a mirror and hot water, and most of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,8,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","category-mexico-central-america","category-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rmcguirephoto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rmcguirephoto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rmcguirephoto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rmcguirephoto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rmcguirephoto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/rmcguirephoto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":503,"href":"http:\/\/rmcguirephoto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57\/revisions\/503"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rmcguirephoto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rmcguirephoto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rmcguirephoto.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}