Unattended Luggage

Transportation Security Officer Angela Young eyed her partner for the day’s playbook exercises, eyebrows furrowed. “So what do we do with this, Supe?”

Supervisory Transportation Security Officer Jim Goldman eyed the brown paper-wrapped package under the seats at Dulles airport’s gate B23 and pointed to his right temple. “You tell me,” he said. “Go through the SOP in your head. What do we do when there’s unattended baggage at a gate?

While TSO Young delineated the procedures she had learned over the last six months, passengers and other airport employees passed them by, some giving them suspicious sideways glances, others waving and greeting them warmly. Usually the latter reaction was from the employees who saw TSA officers every day, and Angela had learned to just roll with it and let the negative reactions roll off her back.

“I know who that belongs to,” one of the Delta Airlines gate agents startled both the newbie TSO and the supervisor. “Sorry,” she said. The tag on her uniform said “Sondra.”

“Don’t worry about it. I think we were both pretty focused on this thing,” STSO Goldman put her at ease. “So you said you know who it belongs to? Any chance they’re still around?”

Sondra shook her head. “No. I saw an old man with it in his lap about two hours ago in that very seat. He must have left it to go get something to eat—nobody pays attention to those announcements about not leaving luggage unattended, you know—and forgotten it when his plane to Minneapolis boarded. They took off about forty-five minutes ago.”

TSO Young, now that the package had been cleared of all suspicion for explosives—she’d been performing the test as her supervisor spoke to the gate agent—brought it out from under the seat.

“No label or writing, just brown paper and butcher’s twine,” she mused. “I wonder what that’s about.”

“TSO Young,” Jim Goldman scolded, “Did you forget something?”

“I tested the package, Supe.”

“Did you wait for MWAA to get here before touching the package?”

“Oops!” Her cheeks colored, making her skin nearly match the fiery red of her hair, and she fumbled in an attempt to put the offending item back where it was quickly, as though the quicker she put it back, the less likely anyone would notice she’d done what she wasn’t supposed to. Of course it didn’t help that the cat was well and truly out of the bag in her case; that just made her more embarrassed to have committed yet another rookie mistake.

“New officer?” Sondra mused.

“Yeah,” STSO Goldman answered, “but she’s actually doing pretty well. Finished all her on-the-job training hours with glowing comments from her mentors. She just needs some more experience at making her own decisions with no one whispering the answers in her ear.”

Feeling a bit better after Goldman’s review, even if he was talking about her instead of to her, Angela took a calming breath and grabbed her water bottle from the rolling cart for a sip to quench her sudden thirst.

“So, Minneapolis, huh?” she remarked. “Too bad. I hope he thinks to call the lost and found here, or he’ll never get whatever this is back.”

Just then, a couple of MWAA’s police officers came up on their Segways, and within a few minutes, the small, nondescript package was whisked away to the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority’s lost and found office.

That night, while the old man slept in his Minneapolis hotel room, the saltwater taffy from Williamsburg he’d purchased for his grandchildren sat slowly melting in the hot and humid MWAA lost and found office.