Sunday, December 03, 2006

Sunday Evening Coming Down...

Ring! Ring! Ring! Ring!

"Hello and good evening sir! Brand D Airlines Bangladore baggage information line! How can we help you?"

"Well, my bag is still missing..."

"Yes sir. We see that you've called several times, and we are sorry for your loss."

"My bag is missing...not dead."

"Of course, sir. We are sorry for the inconvenience, and we will be delivering your bag in the next 12 hours, although we are not required to do so. And it may be longer than 12 hours, in which case we'll return your bag to your origination point..."

"No no...I'm calling to try and help you out!"

"Sir?"

"Well, you'll note in the file that there is a declared firearm in my baggage. I don't know if you're aware of this — no reason why you should be — but the law requires me to notify the local police and the Federal Gun Agency if a firearm has been missing for 24 hours. I have no choice...in four hours I have to call the Denver Police and notify the Feds, and then it's out of my hands...and it will be ugly for the men at Brand D baggage in Denver! Man, those guys are going to be so busted, homeland security and all..."

"That would be very bad, sir!"

"Those poor men, and it's Christmastime and all..."

"Let me see what I can do, sir..."

[...pause for effect...]

"We have good news, sir!"

I'd never do anything like that, of course, nor would I recommend that you try it. But nonetheless, I'm safely tucked into the No-Tell Motel under I-85 in Georgia, listening to jake-brakes, pondering the pry marks on the door and happily loading magazines. It certainly makes me bubble over with the holiday spirit!

I spent a really cool day learning to shoot Gunfighter style, which in cowboy action shooting parlance means blazing away with a gun in either hand. My instructor was five-time cowboy action shooting world champion, Gunfghter style, Clyde "Easy Rider" Harrison...we had a blast, so to speak, and fired about a billion rounds through a couple of Vaqueros...the guns, not the South American cowboys, you dolts!

My theory is that this is the only way to do weak-hand practice that doesn't feel like dental work. Anyway, you'll see the show! It was definitely Big Fun...

Tomorrow, I'm spending the day at Detonics pondering the vagaries of mini-1911s with the folks who designed the first ones that actually worked, going to the range, then hanging with my buddy Jerry Ahern, who wrote The Survivalist series of novels and now runs Detonics.

Time to put the chair under the doorknob, the garbage can on the chair and make sure my lines of fire are clear! I wonder if reruns of AMERICAN CHOPPER are on?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Tried the "police report" thing in an attempt to motivate a "brand-U"
airline to find my lost bag (and associated declared firearm) when it went missing at SeaTac.
-- called the Seattle PD, they said "we don't care, that's Port of Seattle jurisdiction"
-- called PoS (hmm, interesting acronym) they said "we won't even take a report until it has been missing for a week, we have to give the airlines a chance to find it. Happens all the time". When I attempted to reiterate that the bag had *MY GUN* in it, no response, other than to suggest I call back in a week.
-- called BATF, just on a whim. They said "if you aren't a dealer, we don't care".
-- Finally called my insurance agent-slash-notary, and asked him to take a report, just so *somebody* had it on record that my gun was missing as of that date.

It did finally turn up... 4 days later, my bag was left on the front step of my house. No call, no receipt, no chance to inspect it before "accepting delivery".

Long story, the bag had *clearly* been gone thru (padlocks on outside and inner gun case had been cut off), but the important bits were there. And the story that the airline told me about where it had been was complete crap.

Hope it turns out that favorably(!) for you, as well.

Anonymous said...

Though my comment doesn't deal with firearms, it's still a good story.

I once interviewed a pole vaulting coach at a D-I university who told me about trying to transport poles across the country. He said they once checked all the poles on their flight to California.

Well, needless to say the poles got lost and didn't show up. Finally the airline called weeks later and said they have the poles and they are being delivered out front in an hour. So when the guy went out and there, sitting in front of the athletic building was a brand new bathtub.

I'm still not sure how someone confuses six 20+ foot poles with a bathtub, but then again i don't see how they get lost in the first place.

dt

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