Pittsburgh
March 2013
Pittsburgh airport. Flight to Denver to take us to the high point of Kansas, among others.
At the gate awaiting our flight. Lisa goes to get a magazine. A woman sits down on the adjacent chair, or whatever those plastic things you sit upon at the airport are called. We sit for a few minutes when she exclaims, “Oh!” She turns to me and says she must check something, would I mind watching her stuff?
No, I don’t mind at all. But I’m amused. We’ve just met. Well actually, we haven’t even met. She just occupied the chair next to mine for three minutes. We haven’t even said hello. Now she’s asking me to keep an eye on her possessions.
Think about what she has done. She has solicited a complete stranger to guard her belongings against theft from a complete stranger. How does she know I’m not the complete stranger whom she wants to guard against?
So I pick up her stuff and walk away with it.
Until I hear her bag ticking…