Last week, at a meeting in London, I was given a large iced cake to mark my retirement. The plan was to share it with colleagues at the end of the meeting. Unfortunately, due to a late finish, that didn’t happen and I was left with the option of either donating it to someone else, which was unlikely given it was decorated with several rather embarrassing photographs of me, or taking it back on the flight to Dublin the following morning. While I was mulling this over a colleague found the large box the cake arrived in and after carefully repackaging it, reassured me that getting it home ‘would be no trouble.’
Next morning, my edible companion and I stood in front of the BA desk in London City Airport.
‘Excuse me, do you think I could take this on as hand luggage’, I said, holding up the rather large cardboard box. ‘I’m a bit concerned that it might not fit in the overhead luggage compartment.’
‘What is it sir?’
‘It’s a cake… to celebrate my retirement.’
‘You can take it on if it fits in that’, he said pointing to the contraption used to check the size of a case.
Sadly, it didn’t. It sat on top. I thought of taking it out of the box and cutting it into bite sized chunks, however, a small queue was now starting to form behind me and I’m not sure any of my fellow passengers would have been happy to wait in line as I performed surgery on the contents of my baggage.
‘Could I check it in?,’ I said.
After consulting my booking, he said: ‘You haven’t paid for checked in luggage sir. If you’d like to check it in now it will cost £65.’
‘£65’, I said. ‘At that rate I’d prefer you took it home and ate it.’
At this point the man’s supervisor lent in close to remind him that the charge went up the previous day and a late baggage check was now £75.
I began to panic and wondered if perhaps I could just abandon it. Under pressure the best ruse I could come up with was to pay a visit to the Gents and leave it behind in one of the cubicles but then, I thought, this is London and as we’re frequently reminded, unclaimed luggage will be destroyed if left unattended. I had visions of the bomb squad arriving and sponge cake flying in all directions. Besides, I could hardly deny that I was the owner seeing that there were multiple photographs of me stuck to the top.
‘Just take it up to Security,’ the BA man said, as his supervisor walked away. ‘If you get through there then ask at the Boarding Gate. They might check it in for free.’
I clambered up the stairs, into the Security area and bundled everything I had into the trays. All the usual stuff and one rather large cream sponge cake. I watched as the whole lot was swallowed up by the security scanner.
Out came my PC, case and jacket but no sign of out sized friend. Moments later one of the security team emerged holding up a large battered, and all too familiar looking, box.
Unamused, she asked, ‘What’s this?’
‘A cake, a retirement present,’ I said.
‘It got stuck in our scanner,’ she said.
‘Thank you,’ I said, as I grabbed it, perhaps a little quicker than I should from a security agent, and sprinted down to the Boarding Gate and straight up to the young BA attendant standing there.
‘Excuse me,’ I said. ‘Your colleague downstairs suggested you might be able to check this in for me’
.
‘What is it?,’ he said.
Weary but determined not to be thwarted at this stage I told my story for the third time. He smiled, as if he knew I was coming and then, to my complete surprise, passed the baton on.
‘You don’t want to check that in. Take it on as hand luggage. Ask the cabin staff if they would let you put it on the seat next to you.’
I walked out and up the steps to the plane where I explained my case to yet another BA staff member.
Smiling he said: ‘Just pop it down in front of the seat beside you. We’re not all that busy this morning.’
Later that day, my family and I manged to do what I should have done 24 hours earlier – eat the damn thing… and very nice it was too.
storiesfromadam 