I’m sitting at gate 42 in Terminal C of YHZ, waiting to get back home after a short business trip. An announcement comes over the loud speaker informing us that the gate’s been moved, all the way to gate 7, on the other side of the airport. This is going to take a while.

The guy next to me, visibly frustrated about the change, picks up my bag instead of his, probably because they’re the same colour and almost the same brand. I stop myself from telling him about the mistake, as it occurs to me that if I wait a little longer before acknowledging his error, I won’t have to carry my bag all the way to the other gate. And once we arrive over there, I will simply feign ignorance, take my bag from him, and he’d be forced to return to the other gate to get his actual bag. I like how this plays out in my head, so I keep my mouth closed shut.

We’re almost at the new gate and he still hasn’t noticed. But some other guy who was seated next to us at the first gate – he’d commented on my bag before, wanting to know where I picked it up. Well for some reason this Samaritan starts pointing out the mix-up to my unintentional porter, and I try to get him to keep it to his own self until we get to the new gate. But once the guy carrying my bag sees me trying to silence this other guy, it all clicks and he realizes what’s going on.

So apparently in airports, if you leave your bag unattended, they just destroy it right away because of that one guy who put a filthy bomb in his shoe. I wasn’t aware of this at the time, but everyone else seemed to think it was common knowledge. Anyway, the guy hurries back to the original gate but his bag is already cremated. He returns empty-handed and then gets all mad at me, even though he was the one who picked up the wrong bag from the beginning. Some people really get my goat. And some goats really get their comeuppance. But it’s not about goats right now. It’s about getting goats. And my goat got got.

March 28 – Reba McEntire gets a foiled attempt at laziness
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