I was in an airport when I decided to buy a plane ticket to Europe. I went to a counter and told the lady behind it that I wanted to go to Europe. She asked me where and I told her I thought it would be cheapest to fly to Paris. She agreed and told me it would be $262. I told her that sounded cheaper than I had expected. She said there was also an arrival fee in Paris of $95. I repeated the words "$95," somewhat disappointed to have to pay that also. I wondered if there was an arrival fee like that for people arriving in the United States.

I thought about a recent newscast I had seen where a plane had crashed when it had attempted to land in Paris. Many people apparently had been killed, but one American teenage girl had been thrown clear of the crash. She had been shown talking on the news. I wondered what it would be like if the same thing happened to me.

I pulled out some wads of money from my pocket. There were several hundreds and twenties included in the bills. But I also pulled out a checkbook and decided to just write a check for the ticket so I wouldn't have to go to the bank again before leaving. When the lady saw me starting to write the check, she said that they didn't accept checks. But then she noticed some kind of letter written on the back of what appeared to be a picture in my pants pocket, and told me she would take the check.

After I had finished, she handed me a name label and told me to write my name on it. I walked over to another counter to do so, but first put all my money together in a stack. It was quite thick, about four centimeters, too thick to put back into my pants pocket. Fortunately I was carrying a gray overcoat, and was able to stick the money into one of its pockets. I knew I needed to be careful with the overcoat so nobody would try to steal my money. However I casually laid it on a couch, turned around to another counter and began filling in my name on the label.

As I wrote my name I gradually became aware that someone was standing behind me. I turned and saw a black man (probably in his mid 20s) standing right next to my coat. He was wearing a long green army coat. I quickly concluded he was trying to steal my money, circled behind him and put my arm around his neck. He offered no resistance as I searched through his pockets to see if he had taken anything. The women behind the counter were watching me and they seemed impressed by the way I was handling the situation. I quickly concluded that he hadn't had time to take anything and I let him go. I thought I needed to be more careful with the money.

Copyright 2004 by luciddreamer2k@gmail.com