Overweight

Overweight

I was standing in line at the Kenya Airlines check-in counter at the Moi International Airport in Mombasa, Kenya East Africa. It was 5am local time. Our group arrived an hour early so as not to miss the connecting flight to Nairobi. We stood in the oppressive tropical heat before sunrise ready to be checked in.

The Kenyans learned well from the British during the colonial days. When it came to government regulations, they were sticklers. Every document had to be in precise order and every regulation had to be followed scrupulously. By the time I boarded the plane I had numerous stampings in my passport book.

Things started going wrong when the ticket agent told me that my return reservation was not in the computer system. After some discussion in broken English and Swahili, I produced my printed reservation documentation. When this was not enough to convince the agent, I asked if I could come behind the counter and help her find my reservation on the computer. In spite of my limited airline computer skills, we found my reservation.

Next, when asked by the agent to place my carry on suitcase on the scale, I was told it was overweight. In all my travels, I never had an overweight bag. When I asked what I should do, the agent said to lighten the bag. So, while she was printing out my boarding pass, I put my bag on the floor, took out some dirty clothes, closed the bag and placed it back on the scale. I was told I was now within the weight limit. So I took the bag off the scale onto the floor and put the dirty clothes back in, grabbed my boarding pass and headed for the gate. No questions asked.

My traveling companions were dumbfounded. They didn't pass up the opportunity to warn me that if the plane crashed on the way to Nairobi, my overweight bag would be the fault. Tongue in cheek, I quoted to them this Bible passage from the Book of Proverbs: “A just balance and scales belong to the Lord. All the weight of the bag are His concern.” By the way, the plane made it safely to Nairobi.