A final indignity (stateside)

If we had been blogging properly, telling stories as we went, this would have been the first entry. Now it's coming slightly in the middle, since we had one or two quick teaser posts from Europe and last night's we're-too-tired-to-blog update.

(Update on the update: We went to bed at 9:30 last night, an all-time M&M record, but then again that was 6:30 this morning to us, and we had been up since 2 a.m. the day before. Even so, we didn't sleep well -- I caught a cold and kept us awake coughing and nose-blowing all night -- and finally gave up and made some coffee at 5, another M&M first.)

So anyway.

A week ago Sunday, when Mich so generously picked us up and took us to the Seattle airport, we were excited and ready to get checked in and through security, even though we had nearly three hours before our flight. I was in such a good mood I'd practically forgotten about the senior-discount and healthy-eating indignities, but when we got to the security screening station all that changed.

Experienced travelers by now, we went about our duties like automatons: backpacks on the conveyor, empty pockets of change and metal, remove jacket, kick off shoes and stand, ticket in hand, ready to be waved through the metal-detector arch.

The middle-aged screening lady looked me over. "Are you carrying a pouch," she asked, patting her belly.

Jeez. And this was before two weeks of eating our way through the food capitals of Europe! I knew she wasn't kidding either, since joking around at a TSA checkpoint is against federal law.

No, I said, that's just my gut.

Michelle and I laughed and agreed not to take it as a bad omen for our trip. In fact, it became a fun refrain in Rome and Paris. Michelle would show me a picture of myself in front of the Spanish Steps. "Are you carrying a pouch?" Ha ha. Or, in the Louvre, "Look at the pouch on that guy!"

My pouch truly is bigger now than when we left, although no one had the poor manners to mention it again. We ate like fiends -- what's the point of going to Paris if you're not going to have a croissant for breakfast? -- and both resolved to be more responsible when we got home.