Ober and Out

Dear besties,

I’m not one who is prone to hyperbole or gushing. I never exaggerate, nor do I offer aggressive or excessive praise. Ok, yes I do.  You three readers might know that by now. But despite my propensity to embellish every so often, I entreat you to believe me when I tell you that Sarah S., United Airlines representative at the San Francisco International Airport and Fun Zone, is quite possibly an earthbound angel. Let me tell you why.

Recently, in between Christmas and the new year, I spent a not-relaxing five days in San Francisco. During those few days, I sampled much wine and beer, ate like food was going out of fashion, had three family-fight-induced meltdowns and developed ripping calf muscles from all the walking we did up hills with 100 percent gradients. Yes, we were walking up cliffs. Actually, the walking just made me wheeze and have heart palpitations. It did not in fact get me ripped.

Anyway, since I am a very nice person, during my travels, I bought a number of little trinkets made in China to give to my friends back home. I also bought two bottles of wine, two liter-bottles of beer and a split bottle of olive oil that cost more than my rent. My brother, being somewhat more indulgent and rich than I am, bought 13 liter-bottles of beer.

Part of my spoils. Take that, Hellbeast! (Read after jump for details.)

All of this purchasing of liquid caused us some issues when it came time to pack up and go home. My luggage was quite spacious, whereas my young brother’s plastic hobo suitcase was about the size of a small attaché case. Luckily, he packed light. Two shirts, two pairs of underwear, a pair of jeans and a half a pair of socks was about all my ginger-headed sib needed for a five-day stay across the country.

The morning of our departure, we found a UPS store, bought a half-dozen rolls of bubble-wrap and spent a least an hour packaging all of our bottles so that they didn’t explode mid-air, shredding our clothing to ribbons and wasting good alcohol in the process.

After wrapping them all up good and tight like, we packed and repacked, trying to get the bottles to fit in both our bags. It was like Tetris, only without the fun music or Russian austerity. Finally, all the bottles were in our bags. I had half of young brother’s clothing in my bag, plus a few of his inferiorly wrapped beverages. Off we drove to the airport.

To make a long story slightly less long, my bag weighed too much due to the extra carbs I was carrying. When I opened my bag to transfer some of the bottles to another family person’s bag, the United representative/Hellbeast informed me that I couldn’t check my bag with bottles in it. Um, what?

Young brother got righteous. He told the Hellbeast that he had called United, spent 19 minutes on hold and when he finally got Rajiv from Jaipur, India, on the line and asked whether it was ok to bring said bottles in his checked luggage, Rajiv said yes. Green light!

Not so, said Hellbeast, who clearly did not like Indians. The bottles were not “manufacturally” packed, meaning we didn’t spend half a year’s salary getting the airport people to wrap the bottles. Hellbeast told us that we would need to skip our little fannies over to the international terminal, get the bottles “manufacturally” packed and then recheck the bags. At $9 a bottle, that would have cost us $162 — more than we spent on the alcohol, and principally, not bloody likely.

I was about to go pout in a corner when young brother came over and decided we needed to hatch a plan to dupe the airline. Oh, that’s a great idea, especially after some dingleberry tried to explode a plane a week earlier with his underpants. Now everyone’s on hair-trigger high-alert and the TSA will not take kindly to getting scammed.

As we discussed ways to skirt the extortionate rules, a United First Class representative interrupted and asked if we needed help. We quickly brushed her off. But still, she asked if she could help. Uh, no, we’re good, thanks, we said. One last time, Sarah S., soon to be my personal goddess of light, dropped into our convo one more time.

“Do you  have wine in there?” she asked, pointing at our bags.

“Yep,” I said, my pouting on the precipice of full-blown sobs.

“And they told you that you have to get it wrapped again?” she asked.

“Uh-huh,” young brother said.

“Oh, you don’t have to do that. If you’ve already bubble-wrapped them, you’re fine,” she said.

She explained to us that as long as no one can see the bottles, no one will care. She encouraged us to wrap the bottles in T-shirts and scarves. Ah, yes. Concealment. I like it. And she told us to do it in the corner where there were no cameras spying on us.

Sarah S. was a total first-class, rule-breaking deviant. And I love her for that. In a system built around order and control, Sarah S. was all like, “Um, eff that noise.” And that is why I shall be writing the most effusive customer service letter ever penned, extolling Sarah S.’s many wondrous qualities.

After obscuring our rolling liquor cabinet and successfully checking it, we walked past Sarah S. towards TSA Checkpoint Charlie. We started to say thank you when she put her finger to her mouth, effectively silencing us, and winked. She FLIPPING WINKED. Little brother and I had a secret with Sarah S. And I will never share it with anyone. Except you.