Since my flight today isn’t until the middle of the afternoon, I decided to wait until this morning to pack. I had set out a small, hard-side roll-aboard for my computers — I’m traveling with separate business and personal laptops — and my second smallest suitcase, which I planned to check, for everything else.
At some point this morning, I had an epiphany. Every time I make this trip to Montpellier, the checked bag gets lighter and lighter. Last time, my checked bag ended up weighing less than my roll-aboard. So why check a bag at all?
I reassessed my belongings and determined that there were a few things that weren’t strictly necessary. After that, everything that couldn’t go into the roll-aboard easily fit into a small backpack, which I could claim to be a personal item.
Everything was going great until I checked in, at which time they weighed my cabin baggage. It hadn’t even occurred to me that there was a cabin baggage limit or that anyone would check, but apparently I was 1.2 kg overweight. The agent offered to check the hard-side bag, but I explained to her that it was impossible given what was in it.
“You know what?” she said. “Have a nice flight, sir.”
Next time, I’ll know better, although the kindness of a stranger was welcome at the moment.
It’s eerily quiet here today at Sky Harbor, especially compared to two weeks ago when I picked Kathryn up. I breezed through the security checkpoint and was seated in the airport lounge, with a beer and a view of the north runway, just in time to see my aircraft touch down.
