The airport. It feels like school - you've crammed for a test, but if you boof something up and fail, it could result in your whole day screwed, or all your 3 oz liquids thrown away. It feels like work - stand in line, be here by this time, deal with sudden changes with grace.

I woke up on vacation. I sprawled across the bed, looking at my clothes exploding out of my suitcase. My boyfriend dozed next to me, a late riser. My feet were sore from days of walking and sight-seeing. I glanced at the calendar... I still had three more days of vacation. No work. No school. But today seemed exempt from the total - airport day.

Getting a taxi was a headache, and check out had enough paperwork and bureaucracy that I felt like I was back at work filing receipts. I'd tried to streamline the whole airport experience, and bypassed the long check-in line by going straight to the kiosk. No dice - the plane was out of commission due to mechanical problems.

Rebook, reseat, new boarding passes, new tickets. ID's out, tickets out, shoes off, laptops out. The woman at security screening grabbed my baggie of 3oz liquids and holds it aloft, glaring. Already a nervous wreck from all the spontaneous changes, I stammered that the bag was mine, and was anything wrong? She hardens her glare and shakes the bag again, remaining quiet. Another security attendant arrives, takes the bag, and beckons me to a screening area as if I were an animal. Clumsy with shoes half on, jacket, bag, foisting my laptop on my boyfriend, who was being hustled out of the area.

"Toss it," said the screener. What? Toss.. all of it? "I'm sorry, ma'am" (yes, I ma'am'd.) "but I'm returning home and had already flown with these." She snarled, "NO. TOSS. IT. It's over 3 ounces." Her blue gloved hand pointed at the bottles of shampoo and conditioner, which I tossed into a garbage bin full of similarly usable hair products, saline solution. What a waste... I felt the same feeling in my gut as when I put together a large food order for an event and there's a small turnout.

All we had to do is wait for the plane. Security announcements droned, a squad of guards and police and dogs walked past the cafe. I did some people watching, separating the business travelers from fellow leisure trippers like myself. And then, there, slumping against a trash can.

AN UNATTENDED BAG!

We kind of wanted them to shut down the wing, to come in like the French did with giant guns and drug-sniffing dogs. But weren't the broadcasted warnings just alarmist propaganda, turning traveler against traveler? Turn everything into a possible site of terrorism?? I wrestled between "obligation to American safety" and just wanting to be home. If they shut down the wing to look at this bag, all flights would be delayed, they'd probably keep me in the airport even longer to answer questions. However, if I didn't say anything and the bomb exploded... then we'd all be dead!

I did a surreptitious pass by the bag... hmm, paperwork. Must belong to a business traveler. Or a terrorist! Terror paper! I sat down again and watched the bag. Maybe if I stared enough, someone else would report the bag. Finally, a rumpled man came back with a half sandwich and sat down, rooting through the bag. "Oh good," I said loudly, "that unattended bag was yours." He sneered and I made a face.

Boarding procedures, heft bags into overheads, sealed in a tube and shot across the country. Shuttled from one container to another, we rode the tram past the baggage claims in a daze. Bypassed those suckers waiting by the claims with a lone hardback suitcase that had surely been circling for hours.

Free and back to the city, back home. There was still a weekend before me. The rest of the night was in a daze, touching familiar objects in my home, trying to calm the cat's alarm at my presence. I fell asleep on vacation, much as I woke up.