Page 102 - ACTL_Win23

WAR STORIES & SNIPPETS
A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ONTHEWAYTOTHEFORUM...
WE OCCASIONALLY PUBLISH WAR STORIES FROM FELLOWS, WHEN WE FIND THE RARE ONE THAT IS ACTUALLY FUNNY AND NOT TOO SELF-AGGRANDIZING. WE ALLOW, EVEN EXPECT, A BIT OF FICTIONALIZATION IN THESE STORIES. BUT TRAVEL CAN BE WARFARE TOO, AND THIS STORY FROM FELLOW ANTONIO APPS CAUGHT OUR EYE. IT EVEN HAS A GRAIN (BUT ONLY A GRAIN) OF TRUTH.
Antonia Apps arrived in Rome early, excited to attend her first international College meeting. As a rule, she never checks bags, because like most of us she prefers to spend as little time as humanly possible in airports. But needing attire for leisure, business and black-tie, and because she is a world- class heptathlete training to secure a spot on the US Olympic Team, she needed to travel with her own personal shot and javelin. She could put the shot in a carry-on bowling bag; and she could put on dark glasses and paint the javelin white so she could claim it was her cane. But she would need to check the bag with her clothes.
After forty-five minutes of leaning on her javelin at the bag- gage carousel, she sensed there was a problem. No one else was still waiting. Looking carefully, she noticed there was a single, lonely bag that kept circling. It looked remarkably
similar to her checked suitcase, but it wasn’t. Hers had a name tag - with her name on it. This one had a tag as well. It read: “G. Rossi. +39-055-123-4567.”
Antonia did not roll off a radish truck. She is Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers. She has degrees from the University of Sydney, Oxford and Harvard. She is smart. So she immediately – well, no, she’s not that smart, it took her forty-five minutes to check the name on that bag – figured out that G. Rossi must have her bag; and Antonia had his. Or maybe hers. Or its or theirs.
Antonia called G.’s number. Straight into a recording. “Quel numero non e piu in servizio.” She tried again. “Quel nume- ro non e piu in servizio.” Once more. “Quel numero non e piu in servizio, Stupido!.” Antonia had an inkling what she was up against. Italian impatience.
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