Maybe Just One More Skillet?

The first leg of my trip to Spain began with a flight from Seattle to Chicago where I would be spending some time with my brother and his family. I had already shipped a few vital things to Chicago. For the flight I would be limited by the airline baggage constraints: two checked bags, a carry-on, and another small personal bag. I was planning on this being a rather lengthy trip so I had to push the boundaries of these restrictions. Unfortunately, the boundaries are rather strict. Who would have thought that baggage weight limits would be enforced with a scale? Would their Draconian rules include actually counting the bags as well?

I spent the last couple months that I lived in Seattle sorting through what I owned and making decisions on what to keep, what to sell, what to give away, what to throw away, and what to flush. As the date of my departure approached, when push came to shove, I pushed and shoved most of what I used to own into the hands of friends and strangers and tossed the rest into the dumpster of my apartment building.

A day before I was scheduled to leave, I was in a panic to clear out my apartment and get everything I now owned to fit into the bags that I’d carry on to the plane. I was frantically packing, cleaning, and taking stuff out of my apartment and throwing it into the dumpster. The analogy of sand pouring out of the top bulb of an hour glass suited my lack of time and my possessions flowing out of my apartment.

At one point in this chaos, I lost track of where I had put my passport—the only damn thing that was absolutely vital. I did a cursory search of places where passports logically should be and came up empty-handed. I had already packed the two huge bags that I was going to check at the airport. I didn’t think that my passport was in either of them but I tore them apart and searched them anyway. Nothing. Now I was beginning to worry.

I looked through everything as I repacked the bags. When I had finished, I was in a full-blown panic. The only thing that I could think of was that I had thrown it out in one of the many loads I had delivered to the dumpster. I had no choice but to climb inside and root through everything. What added insult to injury was the group of Hispanic kitchen workers from the restaurant below my apartment who witnessed my dumpster diving while they took a cigarette break in the alley. They probably laughed to themselves as they thought about what a bourgeois affectation it was to have a passport. A little later I finally found my passport inside my computer bag and I took some comfort in knowing that the almost everything that I had thrown out was now being recycled by the kitchen workers who had witnessed my ignominious search.

I've always been fascinated with the quantity and quality of stuff that we Americans simply boot to the curb. I have something bordering on a fetish for thrift stores. I visit thrift stores like some people cruise seedy bars and night clubs. They are looking for Mr. Goodbar while I am looking for…well, I can’t really say but I always know it when I see it. I find books, clothes, sports gear, furniture, rugs, pots, and pans. It was one of these last items that pushed me over the airline baggage guidelines.

I planned on doing a lot of cooking in Spain so I wanted to take some of my favorite pieces of cookware along for the ride. Unfortunately, one of my favorite items was a really heavy cast iron skillet with a lid that was almost as heavy as the pan. Hauling this thing to another continent made absolutely no sense but I’d really grown fond of it over the years. I knew that my two bags to be checked were heavy but I didn’t have a scale and I didn’t bother to find out the airline’s exact weight limit.

When I got to the airport my friend suggested that I use the curb-side check in with the hope that perhaps they wouldn’t be such sticklers on this whole weight issue. As soon as I saw how they strained to lift my bags I knew that I was busted. Both bags were well over the 50-pound limit. They told me that I could transfer contents from one bag into the other so I would only have to pay the fine on one bag no matter how much it was over the limit. I left one bag on the scale and started taking stuff out of it to bring it down to 50 pounds.

The two Punjabi bag handlers watched in bemused amazement as I took the huge, cast iron skillet out of the bag and packed it into the other. I’m sure that they have witnessed a lot of weird baggage in their day but they probably haven’t seen anyone dumb enough to travel with a cast iron skillet. I was within about five pounds of the bag being legal and was searching for anything inside that might put me under when one of the handlers said in his sing-song accent, “Maybe just one more skillet?”

Maybe it had to do with the fact that I was completely stressed out and exhausted from the move but I thought this was the funniest thing I had heard all week—and it was only Thursday.