DL 65 to Paris

We were walking in the hotel parking lot after checking out when Carol realized she didn’t have her jean jacket. I continued on to our rental and put the luggage in the trunk while she went back to retrieve it. At the rental return we were on the bus to the Delta terminal, when she realized she didn’t have her jean jacket yet again. A rental service rep spotted it, called our driver and Carol and the jean jacket were happily reunited once again when a subsequent shuttle met us at the terminal stop.

…we are stuffing them into a shoulder-strapped pouch that is constructed of cut-proof strap material and an inner lining that somehow prevents thieves from surreptitiously reading your card information as you pass them by, (I didn’t even know that was a thing. I’m old school, I’ve been successfully pickpocketed twice, so thieves have no need of technology with me.)

I mention this rather mundane lost and found anecdote, because it has an ominous harbinger feel to it. For this trip to Europe, Carol added another layer of security for our valuables. This time, instead of carrying our phones, credit cards and passports across various parts of our bodies as we explore places and things (my spectrum-like, continuous padding of my pockets resembles a third base coach giving signals to a baserunner), we are stuffing them into a shoulder-strapped pouch that is constructed of cut-proof strap material and an inner lining that somehow prevents thieves from surreptitiously reading your card information as you pass them by, (I didn’t even know that was a thing. I’m old school, I’ve been successfully pickpocketed twice, so thieves have no need of technology with me.)

But here’s the thing with these thief-proof pouches. I’ve already nearly walked off without mine a couple of times. Carol has caught it both times, but with her own pouch to worry about, to say nothing of a jean jacket that is apparently experiencing a crisis in remaining a simple personal belonging is concerned, I’m not at all sure I can manage this new layer of security. (At our gate awaiting our flight to Europe, I left my phone to charge at a charging post a couple of rows from where we were sitting. When I returned Carol casually asked about the plastic sleeve that I attach to the back, and contains my Driver’s License and two credit cards which I had left attached. See what I mean? I’m her jean jacket personified.)

Plus, this trip has already required us to stay on our toes. Following a quite pleasant three days in Detroit (ballpark #19 for me, and a chance for us to visit Carol’s granddaughter starting her freshman year at nearby University of Michigan, we returned to our room to discover our planned standby itinerary to JFK and then onto Madrid the following morning had crashed and burned. Also, our plan B to route ourselves through Atlanta had also gone belly up. I was looking at something through Boston, when Carol noticed a direct flight from Detroit to Paris. It meant getting from Paris to Madrid and then Madrid to Rota, but we had time to kill before our rental in Rota would start. So, three days in Paris and a flight to southern Spain seemed like a pleasant compromise. It was another all’s well that ends well standby experiences for us.

(To put a cherry on it, a couple of pods opened up in the last few minutes of boarding, and we were flying to Paris in Delta’s Business One. As Carol likes to say, “This is why we’re going to Hell.”)

P.S. The jean jacket made it aboard and seems to have resigned its life of being just another personal belonging.