Concourse B, Gate B10

I am 28 years old and I packed a suitcase full of dirty laundry for Thanksgiving and that is not a smart metaphor. I have four chapsticks in my plastic 1-quart bag of 3 oz containers with one lip-gloss, a full sized deodorant and mouth sore pain reliever gel. Looks like I am anticipating a post-turkey tryptophan-laced mass-makeout session with questionable oral health participants.

I packed a toothbrush. It didn't fit in the 1-quart bag I picked up in the security checkpoint line. I know it isn't liquid and didn't need to be screen separately but its friends were in there, you know, the mouth sore gel and the horde of lip applicants. I put the toothbrush on the bottom of my purse. Figured that would be cleaner than placing it directly on the conveyer belt through the x-ray machine. What am I supposed to do with all my toiletry accoutrements now that they have to be segregated by viscosity? My glasses, contact case and toothbrush have nowhere to live now that the pastes and ointments have to suffocate in a Ziploc. So they run free. Free as the movie stubs from The Dark Knight that haunt the corners of my purse. I suppose they could go in a case. A case for the contact case. A case for the eyeglasses. A case for the toothbrush. Too many cases. Toothbrushes are always gross anyway. If it looks dirty later, I guess I'll throw
it away.

The girl in front of me in the security line has a brand new American Girl Doll, looks like Christmas came early. I know it's new because the doll hair is still braided in the oft-imitated never-replicated sleekness of a factory fresh $90 credit charge. She got the Swedish one. Kjersten or something, there is a "J" in the name, a silent "J."

Four moving sidewalks, two escalators and a tram ride to my concourse. Concourse B is hidden out back, that's where they keep the tiny planes. Secret tiny planes. I bet we will be stealth in our arrival to ND. Invisible even. In our tiny plane. Tiny secret plane.