en route to dubrovnik

Because I fly about for work every now and again, I'm now so familiar with the procedure for checking in and passing security at airports that it's a quick and painless procedure. So long as those in front of me are similarly savvy.

Just now I was held up coming through the baggage check system because a woman in front of me was repeatedly setting off the alarm. She must have been seventy years old, an aged and rather befuddled woman dressed, bizarrely, like a gereatric air hostess. Her husband stood by, his face twitching in annoyance. He was wearing an electric blue boating blazer. She had several big plasters on her arm and vivid brusing to her face and chest. It was a strange sight.

"Are you wearing jewellery, madam?", she was asked.

"Fine welcome for a foreigner", she replied, and obligingly removed about a ton of heavy gold jewellery, stepping back through the machine. It buzzed again.

Several further permutations of jewellery removal were then performed, over the course of ten minutes, until the woman was at last free of her hefty gold burden and, presumably, fine to go through. Not that the machine would stop buzzing. Her husband's irritation seemed to have been replaced by a look of weary familiarity.

"Do you have any metal plates or medical pins?", she was asked. She stuck her chin out and demurred.

I stood shuffling from shoeless foot to shoeless foot, wondering what would happen. There seemed no way through. Eventually a portable gizmo was brought out and the problem was, hilariously, traced to her, erm, suspender belt.

I darted through security without a hitch. Waiting for my plane now. Whee.