Puffer Alert

Well, the trip to Albuquerque for JW's funeral was extremely eventful. The funeral service was lovely with lots of wonderful tributes from his family and friends. Jim and Charlie both served as pallbearers and did JW proud. We are all fairly certain, however, that JW wanted to yank their chains just a bit before they left town. After laughing that he got Birk inside of a church for over an hour and also wearing a tie, JW must have thought he'd keep us in town a bit longer. We headed to the airport later than planned and arrived to learn that Jim and my flight to Denver was delayed beyond any hope of making a connection to Columbus. The very nice United gate agent had already rebooked us on American routing us through Dallas and was glad to see us check in. Just as she started to print the boarding passes, American called to say that all flights into and out of Dallas were on a weather hold and that they would not accept us as passengers. Instead we left the counter with 2 hotel vouchers, 2 dinner vouchers, 2 breakfast vouchers, and confirmed seats on a plane today (Thursday). Because our cancellation was due to the crew not showing up on time, we were compensated for our troubles. Charlie's flight had also been delayed, but he worked a scam with Northwest and was going to make a quick hop to Memphis to handle some things for his father's estate (only Charlie would have his dad's death certificate along to use for a special bereavement rate). He treated Jim and me to a drink and headed off to security. We took the shuttle to the the Wyndam along with a young guy that said his flight to Dallas had been cancelled. When we were checking in I noticed that Jim had two boarding passes for the Denver to Columbus flight and none for the Albq. to Denver one. Back to the airport we went. I called Charlie because I was sure that he was NOT headed anywhere. We were correct, he was standing back at Northwest retrieving his checked bag and had to bum a spare bed from Jim since he got nothing for the weather related problem. We met up with Pat, Karen, and Mark at the bar for drinks and dinner (thanks again to the HOF). Since it had been a long stressful day, we headed to bed early which was good because all of our flights were at 6 AM. Left the hotel at 4:30 and after checking Jim's bag and getting more boarding passes (another story of its own) we started through security. Jim said we should go through the "Puffer Machine" because you didn't have to take your shoes off. Well, I had on Crocs and didn't care about the shoe situation but blindly followed Jim and Charlie. We put all of our stuff on the conveyor belt including our shoes because you DO have to remove them and stepped into the Puffer. Guess who got stopped for a Puffer Alert.......not anyone who might possibly REALLY have gun powder residue on them. ME. After they released me from the Puffer machine, I got to have the "complete" body pat-down including as the TSA agent said all of the "sensitive" parts. She promised to go quickly so that Jim and Charlie wouldn't turn around and laugh. No such luck as they were already almost peeing their pants. After the pat down, I got to go to the "penalty box" where EVERY item in my bags was examined and sniffed. The agent asked what medications I took and when I asked why she wanted to know she told me that they are emitted through the skin. Since I only take Aleve, I haven't a clue what set the damn thing off. We shared our vouchers with Charlie and all had bagels and cream cheese before heading off to our gates. I ducked into the restroom and came out to see BAM walking back from the counter. Guess the "Cramer and Birk party" had been paged because there were too many boarding passes for us. They let us sit in the seats we wanted so all was right with the world. Arrived in Denver with a 2 hour layover and of course discovered that our new gate was right next to the one we just got off. Had we had the 50 minutes like the original schedule, we would have walked a mile. Flight to Columbus was fine - had one last drink courtesy of the HOF. I got home around 5 and Jim was still only halfway last I heard from him. Charlie made it to Detroit and was headed to see his brand new granddaughter that was born while we were flying. She weighed in at 8'14" so Michelle had to have a C section. Both were doing well and Charlie promises to send pictures.