I STALK the airport, mind keen, senses honed. Watching for the subhuman scum who walk among us, flouting the law with cabin bags larger than 40cm by 30cm by 20cm.
You can’t tell by looking at their faces. No, this filth is clever as well as duplicitous. By all appearances they’re happy holidaymakers, chatting and laughing, ready for a stag night in Prague or a few days in Malaga. Keeping their evil hidden.
No, it’s not the faces I scrutinise from behind my mirrored sunglasses, my hands clenched like claws, my grimace fixed. It’s the cheating, immoral bastards’ cabin bags.
The rules are clear. One bag, to be placed under the seat, of regulation size. The measurement bins are right there by the automated check-in. The law is neither to be flouted or mocked.
The minute I see a bag that exceeds those dimensions – to my mind, overly generous – I pounce. ‘Excuse me, sir,’ I hiss, my eyes twin slits of loathing, ‘can I just ask you to pop that in the bin to be measured?’
I’m never wrong. I can spot a 42cm bag at 200 metres through a 300-person queue. And when it doesn’t fit? That’s when I get to say those delicious words ‘Very sorry, sir, but that will be a £48 charge. Or you could just leave the bag here?’
My reward isn’t just enforcing regulations and humiliating vermin, of course. I get paid €1.50 per bag caught, soon going up to €2.50. And let me tell you, it adds up. I already have enough for a return to Faro. Priority Boarding.
So next time you fly? Look out for me. Because, in my implacable hatred for you and your swindling kind, I’ll be looking out for you. And your f**king cabin bag.
