Epilogue?

I left town with more stuff than I came - a shopping bag more, as it turned out, so I had to check in some luggage at the airport, but kept this giant bag filled with merchandise as my carry on.
I sat around the Belize airport for a few hours, because when they tell you to arrive two hours early for an international flight, apparently they are fucking with you - or me - or their own heads - or something.
But my flight to Miami got moving at the right time, and went up well enough.
I landed with two hours plus for my connection, which meant I'd have time to get to the next gate, get lunch, make some calls, maybe do some writing... sky's the limit while on the ground, right?
We in the writerly business call this sort of thing ironic foreshadowing.

I went through customs lines, considered getting some lunch, didn't like the line, picked up my luggage at baggage claim, checked it for my next flight, asked a guard if this was a good place to run through the x-ray scanner,  took off my shoes, and started emptying everything into trays.

TSA boiler plate image. I didn't photograph anything at the time. 

Something apparently beeped. My shopping bag, including the merch I'd bought in Belize, was apparently causing trouble. I'd shoved a couple of extra items in there. I wondered if there was still something, like over three ounces of sun block, I'd failed to check at the gate.

Unfortunately, a family also had there stuff caught for inspection before mine, so it took maybe ten minutes before my bag got inspected. 

The one guy who was looking into the material was very polite. Young. When it came time to look at my package, he explained it just needed to be checked again, but that he also needed me to take off my belt, which hadn't been required the first time. 

I shrugged, nodded, took off my belt, and, unsurprisingly, my pants dropped to floor. 

Someone in an office behind me called out "Pick up your pants!"
"This is the consequence of having no belt!" I said behind my back.

She repeated herself more forcefully. I repeated myself more giddily. 

The gentleman in front of me said, "You can pick up your pants."

I got frisked.  

Not my butt being checked - not a photo of TSA during my return home. 

All along, it was unclear to me what might have been dinged about the package. It was a big ass plastic bag, after all. It's shape and contents seemed like they'd be easy enough to ascertain. They had my permission to open it up - though I'd asked them to supply me another plastic bag afterwards, so I could continue to carry it to my flight.
Anyway, it all came to nothing. I was eventually given the all-clear and my belt back.
I gave the shouting lady, a TSA authority, the evil eye, and she asked, "Do we have a problem?"
"Oh, yes. I'd say we do."
"Take it outside. You can't dress here."
I looked around. "Every single other person is expected to put themselves back together here -"
"Not if they can't keep their pants up -"
One of the other guard came by, looked at me, said, "Just get yourself together. Take your time," then went into the office, closed the door for a minute, came out again, and reclosed the door.
I was out of there a moment later. When I got to my gate, they had already called my group to board the plane. I wasn't late, yet, but I didn't have loads of time to spare.
The flight from Miami had me watching Infinity War, which is a shocking bummer of an epic film.
This is what I was carrying:

...in all his resplendent glory...

I'd asked Frank Malic, in Belize City to carve a rough likeness of me. We'd only talked for a few minutes, so I didn't expect all the details to be right. I had specified beard and glasses. Oh, well. I can probably buy this guy glasses, and maybe I'll shave my beard.
Maybe we'll end up growing more alike as time goes on, what do you think?

One of these things is not like the other.  

That's all I got for now.