I arranged for everything, caterer, flowers, photographer, you name it. It was all just a big blur. The last thing on my mind was packing for my honeymoon. So when I took my text books out of my back pack and replaced them with some magazines and a travel size Yahtzee game for the plane ride, I didn't give much thought to what was in the bottom of my back pack. HUGE MISTAKE! I completely forgot about the gun that my dad had made me take to school with me (after all Ted Bundy went to the U, don't you know?) that was in the bottom of the before mentioned backpack. I forgot about it, that is, until I was going through security at the airport and all the red lights and sirens started going off. There on the security guards black and white x-ray screen lay my little gun. Loaded and all.
The next twelve hours are hard to remember. Someone phoned ahead to tell the gate agent not to let Ben, my husband of one day, to board the plane. His wife was being detained for questioning. (He had run ahead to hold the plane, as we were late getting to the airport, another mistake.) Security guards surrounded me, although I don't think they handcuffed me. They escorted me on to a golf cart which then whisked me away to the airport security building. After being left to await questioning by the FBI and FAA, I couldn't do anything but cry, with my head on the cold metal table. Alone.
When the FBI agent came to question me, he couldn't help but laugh at my story and I remember him saying, "Well, you certainly don't look like a hijacker." (Remember this was pre-911, I am sure these days they would have locked me up and thrown away the key.) The FAA official called on the airport security phone and told me in a far from laughing tone, that I could be imprisoned for up to ten years and/or a $10,000.00 fine. Then the security guards informed me that they would be keeping my gun for evidence and that all of this could have been avoided if I had just declared the firearm was in my luggage. As if I had wanted to take a gun with me on my honeymoon on purpose! Oh, the irony.
They finally had all the forms filled out that they needed for my case and I was released. Ben of course wanted to know what in the h?@# just happened and why we had missed our flight. What a way to begin married life, ha?
And now, nineteen years later, it's still painful. Laughable actually, but painful. Though the dress hangs in my closet, there's no way I could fill out the chest. And now my hair could be described as sandy blond but back in 1992 it was platinum all the way through, including the roots. And I didn't have wrinkles around my eyes or age spots on my cheeks. Ben doesn't look much different, although his face has aged a bit, tattooed with the wounds of living with one pistol-packing woman and three crazy boys. But he doesn't hold it against me. He is aging gracefully, while I am just gettin' old.
