Don’t Leave Your Items Unattended
I was waiting for my flight to board at a major east coast airport. In walks this young, slick, LOUD business kid on a conference call, shouting into his Apple earbuds.
Drops his bag on the one free seat and starts pacing the floor, up and down the aisle, oblivious to dozens of folks eating lunches, working quietly, and babies sleeping.
He continues pacing and shouting, “Yup, yup, we’ll upload that into the system…blah blah jargon jargon acronyms and business,” annoying everybody around and making everyone else get out of his way.
Folks start giving him the stink eye, but his shouting and pacing continue, his circuit widening until he’s walking out of sight, then circling back, still shouting into the air. After 20 minutes of this, I’m over it.
The kid stalks off in a hurried pace, abandoning his backpack for the three or so minutes it takes him to pace the terminal. So I walk up to a TSA guard and point to the bag, “Sir, there’s an unclaimed backpack on that seat!” Then I walk away.
TSA starts making announcements, trying to find the owner of the bag, but business kid is too oblivious, pacing and shouting.
TSA is already removing the bag when he realizes and chases after them. Too late, he’s a suspect and he has to follow them out of the terminal for a bag check. And now it’s quiet again.