9. Day - under Drugs suspicion

Verdi and Pheebee
Verdi trys to help with the gardening
Verdi

From Erie to Detroit it was only few hours of journey, and we gave time to ourselves. Past Cleveland and Toledo (we were, in the meantime, in Ohio again) we went to the state of Michigan. In a „Resting  area“ we took a tasty lunch at Red Lobster, and about 15.30 o'clock we reached the car Rental park in Detroit where we wanted to deliver our car. We had barely set our car in the park completely at the area of Enterprise when already two employees attacked us, tore our luggage from the car and loaded it in the ready shuttle coach. The whole vehicle handing over only lasted five minutes, and faster than we wanted, we sat in the shuttle again, driving in the direction to the known parking level 4. Five hours before takeoff we were already at the airport. This anyhow we had fancied a little bit differently … We decided to check in immediately to get rid of our luggage. Once again this would not happen to us again that we miss an airplane … However, already there was the next problem: Where we wanted to check in, only the people who had parked on the parking levels were allowed. Linda grasped the situation very fast and explained without further ado that our vehicle stands on parking level 4 (she has not lied yet, because the shuttle stood, on parking level 4). One agreed to check us in. However, there with us, actually, nothing runs off without specific features, we were hardly surprised that the lady in the counter did not find Linda´s names on the passenger list. What had happened now? There was some to and fro, and then this problem was solved also: Now Linda and I received our Boarding Cards and still had more than four-hour time up to the takeoff of the machine. We sat down on a bench before the arrival hall and observed the activity of the incoming and going people.
Because I have very dry skin by the sun and wind and my shinbones started to itch again, I fished my bottle with baby lotion from the handbag which I have always beside me, and creamed my legs and hands. I would better not have done this probably... Since later with the security check one held me back. I had to sit down on a chair behind the controlling tape; the hands outstretched forwards, behind me a security man, before me an officer who declared that my hands would have given an alarm. I was held on under Drugs suspicion! One supposed cocaine with me. I might touch nothing more. My palms were felt with a test strip (without the strip touching my skin) which was pushed in a scanner afterwards. The suspicion was confirmed. I could not explain this to myself at all, because I didn`t touch a bank note throughout the day (many bank notes have tracks of cocaine) or, otherwise, something suspect. My handbag, my hand luggage and my jacket were "confiscated" and then examined for the most. One must know that my handbag has a total of seven outside pockets and three inside pockets in which I had accommodated all necessary carefully sorted. Pocket after Pocket was opened, emptied, examined and put away again. Besides, the officer also discovered the Zippo lighter that I bought from the states. And up to the light and immediately withheld it. Such lighters are not permitted in airplanes, she explained. Normal gas lighters are allowed. I could not follow this logic though so completely, but had to dismiss me, however, from my new Zippo. Jacket and hand luggage followed the handbag, while I still sat there with outstretched hands, guarded by the security man who observed each of my movements. Linda stood beside me and could also make no rhyme of these actions to herself. Then, after the luggage, I myself was examined. The feet apart hip-broadly, I had to position myself backward before the officer who felt then every centimeter of my body. I believed myself like in a crime film and already expected to be asked in a separate room to get undressed completely.  However, luckily I didn`t have to do this. I had to sit down again. The officer scrutinized me doubtfully and then asked whether I have touched something. There it fell to me like scales of the eyes. The body lotion! I pointed out to it and wanted to get the lotion already from the pocket. Friendly, but intended I was pointed out to touch nothing. The officer herself carried the lotion from the handbag again, studied the ingredients most exactly, then took a test and put it in the scanner. After a while she packed up everything again, pressed pockets and jackets in my hands and dismissed me with the words „You `re safe“.
Linda and I made that we got away, before they could reconsider something else. I would have renounced this experience with pleasure…
We were glad when the machine took off, finally, and we landed safely in Amsterdam after a 7-hour flight. Here a sweltering heat of more than 30ºC received us – the temperatures in the states had been substantially more pleasant …
From this exciting day we relaxed on Linda`s terrace and observed the Mantle Pheebee, almost eight-year-old in the meantime, and the high-spirited Verdi, also a son of Striker and Raffles. The mad guy absolutely wanted to help Dik with the gardening and, stood only in the way …
The next day at noon I drove all the way back in the direction of Westerwald. Before, nevertheless, I dropped Linda of at the airport again in Amsterdam. She flew to Milan on this day where she was invited as a judge for a Dane Specialty Show. Because she flew without me this time, a little more uncomplicated trip probably in front of her …