night of firsts

Monday night my manager and I went to Prague for meetings today and it was a night of firsts for me –first time in Orly airport; first time flying Skyeurope; first time in Prague (although I didn’t get to see any of the city); and the first time I’ve ever had such a hassle getting to the plane. It started when I beeped going through the security scanner and had to be patted down and checked with the hand scanner. Then my purse needed to be checked, I guess because they saw something on the x-ray machine or they thought I looked sketchy. And then, and this was what got me, at the gate my boarding pass came up as invalid. My manager and I checked in together and his boarding pass was ok, so I'm not sure what was going on. I tried to peek at the screen to see if I had been put on a no-fly list since my last trip. I was allowed on the flight but my paranoia had kicked in and I started wondering if the cosmos was trying to tell me not to get on the plane. Suddenly I had visions of my life as a movie of the week where everything was fine until I ignored the signals to stay off the plane and was killed in the subsequent crash. Fortunately, nothing so dramatic occurred and we arrived safely. My manager asked if I was a terrorist or an undercover spy. Perhaps I should change my name to Seattleite 007…