By the time I got back to Tucson, I had only a week to buy a new video camera, figure out its basic operation, and mail order an extra battery, charger, and camera bag. I should have spent some time learning the basics of how to carry the bag.
Only two nights in Seattle, I traveled lightly. I boarded the plane with a small, wheeled and draggable carry-on and my new little camera bag. The new fangled, high definition video cameras are extremely petite and light. I removed that little bag's flimsy shoulder strap — it was more of a nuisance than a help. Its hand strap worked fine, a bit like a man clutch purse. The little bag, stowed beneath the aircraft seat in front of me, also served to hold my wallet and wireless phone, cautiously removed from my coat pockets because I shoved my coat in the overhead bin.
I'm still getting used to using my wireless smartphone. I get nervous when it makes its little sounds because, like a baby crying, I'm not sure what it wants me to do. Plus the protective cover I bought for it has a flap that covers its screen, so it's a bit cumbersome to use. But use it I did on my flight to Seattle.
I did really well. I even used the Alaska Airline app to create a boarding pass with the "QR" (square) barcode on my phone screen. Just in case, I had a printed paper boarding pass and kept it in my coat pocket, but I bravely fumbled and exposed my phone underneath the boarding scanner; several times, actually, because I had a hard time believing it worked. "Am I okay? This is my first time using this." She smiled faintly and I proceeded into the jetway, dragging my carry-on, clutching my camera bag, and fumbling with my smartphone.
Two hands and three things. Like chewing gum and walking at the same time. I already knew that if I wanted to use my phone on the go, like people everywhere do, I needed a way to strap the camera bag onto the drag handle of my carry-on. I mentally decided to jury-rig something for the return flight.
Fate deigned to impress that resolution deeply into my psyche.
"Airplane mode", some Kindle-book reading, and a lot of solitaire got me through the flight. Seat belt signs extinguished, I retrieved jacket and carry-on. Very deliberately I removed phone and wallet from the camera bag, turned "airplane mode" to "off", and put the two items in my inside coat pockets.
I was doing fine until the phone made one of its little noises as I was walking up the jetway. I had no desire or competence to field a phone call or text while disembarking in a narrow tunnel — or even just walking in an airport crowd. I fumbled with the nuisance and, mercifully, accidentally swiped it upside down, turning it off.
Those familiar with smart phones know how to swipe right to answer and left to hang up and leave the caller with the "please leave a message" prompt. I had my smartphone several weeks before I figured that out.
I didn't want to block any of the many streams of human traffic armed with clumsy baggage, so I walked towards the nearest blank wall, put down my two bags, and reached for my phone.
It had one text message from Shari forwarding a photo of our niece Jessica suckling her newborn, Lila Marie, born while I was in flight, born a week and a half past due and after a day and a half of painful labor. Over the previous days, Shari had shared periodic text message reports from Jessica's mum who was in attendance. Delivery required an emergency C-section, but the smile on Jess's face in that photo was a precious relief to me. And the first distraction.
My phone also had two voicemail messages. My sister Cini called to let me know that sister Böbe would pick me up. Böbe called to let me know she was already waiting. I called Böbe to let her know I was off the plane. Even as I pushed the red phone icon (the shape of an archaic phone handle no longer in general use) to hang up, I mentally patted myself on the back for being so tech-savvy.
I briskly walked through the North Satellite, down the escalators, onto the connecting train to the main terminal (knowing not to get off at C-concourse), past baggage claim and out the exit doors to the street where I saw Böbe and her blue Honda about a hundred yards away — I felt smugly competent. Heck, I knew that airport.
Then I realized I didn't have the camera bag.
Time slowed down as I realized I had left it somewhere.
I had to go back and retrace my steps, I thought, but TSA would never allow me back into the terminal.
Poor Böbe, with a startled smile mixing welcome with confusion at my agitation, took my carry-on as I blurted out that I'd left my camera bag behind. I turned and fairly ran back inside the baggage claim area. For the next half hour or more I telephoned her periodically to give status reports as the drama unfolded.
First I went to the Alaska Airlines lost baggage desk. They were helpful to make some calls, take a description, and explain how, if I had left it on the train, I'd have to check with the SeaTac Airport police. The police have their own lost and found and, the Alaska employee suggested gravely, it was harder to claim stuff from them. She pointed me towards the nearby police counter.
I was pessimistic. I was thinking I'd have time in the morning to buy a replacement camera. I was in disbelief of how careless and distracted I had been.
There were two uniformed officers inside the protected, glassed-in counter. I located the open window and explained my situation to the woman officer; awkwardly because she was sitting by a computer to left and inside of the window. The man officer sat on a desk on the other side and just listened.
I explained my theories of where I might have left it, likely at the North Satellite but possibly on the train. I was certain I had it with me as I walked off the airplane. I thought it was black, but it could have been dark blue. (I couldn't remember.) It was small and the only identification was my printed Alaska itinerary folded up inside.
The more I explained, the more helpless and hopeless I felt.
"When was this?"
"Maybe twenty minutes ago."
"Which gate?"
"I think N-3. It was the Alaska flight from Tucson."
She calmly looked it up on the computer. It was gate N-4.
She located the security camera and found the time in the recording when they opened the door to the jetway. The time stamp read three-thirty. I was leaning inside the window and to the left as she turned the screen towards me. She said, "It's on fast. Each minute is actually seven in real time, or we'd be here for an hour." She remarked to the man officer that the Alaska folks had opened the gate very early.
"More time," I thought as my sister Böbe waited outside.
It was a security camera in the jetway that faced towards the terminal. We would see the backs of passengers as they filed underneath.
It took forever. I made a phone call to Böbe waiting outside, a combined status report and apology. I told the woman officer that we had disembarked around four, but she let the recording play from three-thirty.
I couldn't understand why she was focused on the jetway. I knew I had it with me there. I supposed it would confirm that I didn't leave it on the plane.
"I walked inside the terminal past one or two other gates to a blank wall where I could stop and field some phone calls. I think that's probably where I left it."
Minutes passed agonizingly slowly as we watched the empty jetway with the occasional Alaska employee walking through. More time for someone to pinch my bag.
"Did you have the bag on a shoulder strap?"
"No." I'd taken it off and had held it by a short handbag strap.
"What color pants are you wearing?"
"Light tan," I said stepping back from the window and looking down. I realized that sitting in her enclosure, she couldn't see my bottom half.
"Shoe color?"
"White tennis shoes," I said, again looking down to make sure.
More minutes passed in real time, many more in virtual time. Sure enough, the backs of passengers started passing under the camera. I awkwardly leaned in the window and to the left to make out the images on the screen that was a bit too far away from me. My job was to recognize me.
There I was. I was a bit surprised at the paleness of my figure: white hair, light colored jacket, light colored pants, and white shoes. I thought I should have chosen more color and variety for my ensemble. I had dressed in Tucson sunshine but here I was in the dark grey of the Pacific Northwest. My light shades didn't suit the grey environment.
The security camera recording showed me pulling the carry-on with the right hand, the small camera bag in my left.
Okay, I thought. I didn't leave it on the plane. Maybe now I could cut my losses, leave my name and number, and go.
She kept looking at the computer screen at slow playback. It showed me walking into the terminal. Other people got in the way, but we could see a blank wall space in the image, on the other side of the adjacent gate. Somehow, the angle of that camera in that narrow jetway included that blank wall space maybe thirty or fifty yards and crowds of people away.
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| The little camera bag; tennis shoes for scale. A re-enactment to show how small it is. Imagine it by the wall of a crowded, hectic major airport terminal. |
Through scores of other passengers passing between the camera and me, we could follow as I walked up to that blank wall space, camera bag still in my hand. I stopped. More scores of intervening passengers later, my pale, ghost-like figure walked away and out of view. It took a little more time to confirm the remaining image. Sure enough, left behind on the ground was a small dark object.
Now, maybe, my risk was that someone had pinched it, or someone had turned it into lost and found where it could remain lost in the system for hours, days, or even forever.
We kept watching the screen as passengers and airport employees passed by. Then the jetway doors closed. The show was over.
I think by then that the woman officer had sent the man officer off to check on the train. She dialed him up on some wireless phone-like link, or got a call. I really lost track. But she did get a confirmation that the bag had been recovered and the man officer was bringing it back. She told me to call my sister, who had been waiting in a nearby parking lot, to come back outside to the arrival pickup area.
As we waited for what seemed to me a really long time (I thought to myself, had he stopped for a cup of coffee?), she explained how this surveillance camera work on my behalf was good practice for her. Only a few officers in the force knew how to work the computer application. She told me that she had used the system and some if its hundred or so cameras to identify, track and capture a murder suspect trying to flee the country.
She also told me that the previous day she had worked the arrival curb area and how much more difficult that was: standing on her feet and having to tell less than cooperative people they couldn't park and had to move. SeaTac is a very congested and busy airport. She walked outside to check on my sister's blue Honda, again parked by the no-parking curb, then called the officer on duty to tell him or her to let that Honda be.
Finally the man officer returned carrying my little black bag. All too quickly I thanked both officers, then ran out the automatic doors and towards the blue Honda. I barely remembered to say hello to Böbe as I sat in the passenger seat and apologized for my carelessness and delay.
As we drove off, I remembered something else. "Say, is my carry-on bag in the car?"
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