Security

LONG STORY FOR A SHORT POINT ALERT
How sad when helpfulness can be cast aside in favor of fear. At the airport yesterday I saw a laptop computer face down on the seat behind me. I had heard an announcement referencing it earlier ("A laptop has been found. If you believe it is yours, please pick up a white courtesy phone."). As I glanced at the fancy but forgotten piece of equipment a kindly old security guy came over and told me he had already tested the laptop for bomb material. It was clean, just a computer, he said, but he had put it back where it was left and would keep an eye on it for a little while, in case the owner returned soon. I was glad to know that things like bomb testing went on so unobtrusively. I was also pleased to hear that they didn't immediately whisk forgotten items away to the trash. So I turned the little computer around slightly to read the stickers on the bottom, looking for clues to its owner. It looked like a company owned computer. I gently tilted it up (my gentleness was to allay any potential fears on the part of security of an attempted theft) and saw another sticker on the front, this time a long label.

As I slowly flipped the laptop over, I realized I was being intently stared at by a woman sitting several chairs down. My immediate neighbor was intrigued but did not look stricken. This more distant fellow passenger looked like she was about to tackle me, as she sat balanced on the balls of her feet, hands pushing down on her armrest. "Don't open that!" she cried out as I turned the computer to read the name on the label. I read the name out to the security guy who immediately got on the intercom to beckon the laptop's owner by name. (I guess when security tested it, they were focusing on the test requirements not on the stickers, probably reasonable.) "Don't open it!" She was really panicked now. Her husband and another neighbor looked a little funny at me too. "I'm not opening it." I said to her clearly, calmly. I lifted my hands as a show of faith. I understood why she was afraid, but I knew I wasn't playing with fire here. I really did not want to be the cause of a scene. "It's already been tested, it's clean." I tried to reassure her, but she did not look convinced.

Next to the name was a phone number, Connecticut area code. I took the chance that this was not an undetectable, sophisticated, phone-triggered explosive device passing off as an expensive, license-sticker-laden Dell laptop. I picked up my cell phone and quickly dialed, carefully avoiding the evil eye that was directed at me. I moved away from the computer and my chair so she might think I was just making a random call. Well, it turns out the owner had just boarded his flight when I caught him on his cell phone. It took a moment for the guy to comprehend that he had left his laptop on a chair out in the terminal, but soon I saw him jogging towards me. It also took the beady-eyed woman a moment to figure out I had called a number somehow attached to the computer. When the owner arrived, the security man politely asked to see his ID before handing over the computer.

The computer's owner was very gracious and appreciative and then went hustling on back down to the gate whence he came. The woman shook her head at me like I'd done a very naughty thing, but I know I didn't. How sad that we live in such fear. My neighbor commented that I did a nice thing and I told her that someone once mailed me back my wallet which I had left at Taco Bell. I do believe that what goes around comes around.