He said

At present, I’m being held against my will in a small prison thinly disguised as a lakeside resort in the Bavaria region of southern Germany. I came here without a struggle thinking I was arriving to participate in an off-site strategy session for another business I’m involved in, but it’s now clear that a misunderstanding at LAX last night resulted in my immediate and indefinite incarceration in this 400-year-old farmhouse turned detention center. Think Club Fed…with smaller rooms and worse food. And it’s 50 degrees and raining.

The incident occurred when I showed up at LAX roughly 50 minutes early for an international flight. I meant to arrive earlier, of course, but got tangled up by my own scheduling and some nasty Friday night traffic. Despite my bad timing, I had only one piece of carry-on luggage and a valid passport so I thought for sure I was in good shape. I presented myself at the ticket counter and was promptly informed that the flight to Munich was closed and my seat was no longer available. What?

My recollection was that I used my considerable charm to persuade the ticket agent to downgrade the passenger who’d taken my seat and reclaim my spot on the flight. It was clear that she understood my situation was completely unavoidable and that the off-site conference would suffer from my absence. After a brief phone call and some quick keystrokes, she presented me a boarding card, bade me “Gute Reise!” and offered an energetic Lufthansa rep to move me through security without delay. The whole process was so seamless I made it to the gate in time to stop at the newsstand for magazines and snacks. The flight itself was fine and I thought nothing of it until I was picked up at the airport and dropped off at the entrance of the penitentiary below.

Wait, there must be some mistake…



She said

In a twisted case of “he said, she said”, the ticket agent’s report of our interaction differed dramatically from my own. According to the extradition filing faxed to me by my attorney, her sworn recollection was that I forced my way to the ticket counter “swinging my briefcase like a flail and threatening other ticketed passengers with profane language and physical harm.” Her statement continued that I was dragging a carry-on piece “in gross excess of FAA weight and dimensional limits” and her impression was, given my angry refusal to check the bag, that it contained “something incriminating…possibly a body.”

She was obviously in the grips of some hallucinogen because her statement continued with the assertion that I demanded that if she didn’t “downgrade that whiner who took my seat and give me my [expletive] boarding card,” I’d “burn this terminal full of squatters to the ground” and make sure that she would be “put on the street and sold into slavery.” According to her, she only released the seat to me because I appeared “uncontrollable” and the other customers who “were starting to sob and shake with fear.”

Conspiracy, obviously

Unfortunately, the Germans are a loyal tribe and her colleague joined her in the foul conspiracy. The escort alleged that my sprint through security reminded him of “a looter fleeing from the police” and noted that the only time I complied with posted rules was when confronted by an armed federal officer at the security detectors. He supposedly observed me stuffing magazines and beverages into my briefcase at the Hudson News shop and insisted that he “hadn’t seen the passenger pay for any items.” His account concluded that my behavior throughout reminded him of Colonel Jessup in A Few Good Men right after he’d been tripped up on the witness stand.

The final insult was the in-flight staff report that I commandeered every available pillow in business class and raided the service carts for all the Jack Daniels and premium vodka, which according to their inventory comprised 8 pillows and some 20 mini-bottles. Supposedly, I refused my in-flight meal with the demand that they “send this swill back to steerage where it belongs” and when offered Portuguese wine made some suggestive comment about having it served by a Brazilian in a thong for authenticity. For good measure, they made some wild claim that I “intentionally served two minors alcohol.”

All of these allegations are complete nonsense, of course, and some aren’t even actionable under current US law. In any event, on Monday, I intend to find local legal representation and address each of these specious claims in detail. In the meantime, I’m trapped in Hotel Gut Ising with nothing to entertain myself with other than my wits.

The Stalag

The prison website draws unsuspecting inmates by depicting outdoor activities like tennis, golf and equestrian activities. By description, it’s “an idyllic country hotel with a rural ambiance and private atmosphere on the beautiful Chiemsee.” (a large lake) and from the looks of the dogs and horses wandering around the property, pet-friendly. The location, per the website, is less than an hour from Munich and less than a half hour from Salzburg, and supposedly looks like the aerial photo below.

The location for the 2011 season of Prison Break



A more accurate introduction would be "Willkommen to Stalag Gut Ising. You can get here via a two-hour, high-speed drive through winding roads. If you’re not completely nauseated upon arrival, we have an exercise room with two pieces of equipment confiscated from the Mengele estate and offer the smell of known carcinogens in most rooms. We’ve left local programming on the TVs for maximum boredom and maintain our signage exclusively in German to keep you in a state of constant confusion. The dogs you see sleeping in the restaurant are trained attack animals and the guards on horseback will run you down should you try to escape. Oh, by the way, it’s damn cold and it rains all the time.”

The guard tower



The warden’s house



Hannibal Lecter had a better view



”Ok, where do I start?”



I’ve yet to find a staff person who will admit they speak English and have no idea what time it is, what I’m eating or how I’d find my way home even if the dogs didn’t run me down. I start shivering uncontrollably every time I go outside and my contact with the outside world is limited to a sketchy internet connection. Given the circumstances, it’s probably best if wrap myself in whatever blankets I can find and spend my time working on counter arguments to the Lufthansa allegations.

Pertinent facts

First, my briefcase is far too heavy to serve as effective flail. I may have used it to help a woman nudge her overloaded stroller forward but to claim that I “used it as a battering ram” is way off-base. Besides, what was a 4-year-old doing in a stroller anyway? Make that lazy brat walk off some of that baby fat.

Likewise, the notion that I may have been transporting a body in my carry-on is ludicrous. You’d have to be an idiot to take even a partial skeletal system through an x-ray station. If they can see a shoetree, what makes you think they can’t see a femur? Everyone knows the most effective was to dispose of a body is through extended submersion in water. What, I’m the only one who ever watched the Sopranos?

As for burning anything to the ground, it’s certainly a phrase common to me, but I was clearly joking when I said it. The concrete and steel construction of Bradley International wouldn’t respond well to fire and why would I even bother? The next earthquake should turn that rickety slum to a pile of rubble without any help from me.

The “selling into slavery” reference is wishful thinking by that mean trollop at the ticket counter. Given her sour look and bad attitude, it would cost the airline thousands of dollars to get rid of her. What value would she bring in any active slave market? And the other customers were sobbing? Oh, please. Tell those crybabies that air travel is not for the weak.

As I sit here today, there’s no way the gate escort saw me stuff anything in my bag. Did he mention the PowerBars? The Advil? No, of course not…because he couldn’t SEE me. And if he couldn’t SEE me, how could he HEAR me tell the newsstand clerk that I’d settle up on the following Saturday when I returned? Exactly. I’m notifying that weasel I’m considering a defamation action against him once we sort the primary incident out.

The in-flight claims have some element of truth but they aren’t crimes per se, especially without intent. The pillows and liquor are free to business class customers, right? Are there any posted limits per passenger? As for the food, any Lufthansa frequent flier will confirm that their menu is tough to stomach. So I was a little dramatic. What of it? Is that a crime? And my suggestion about improving the wine service was a good one. Put it to a vote of the business class travelers and you’ll see.

Finally, re: serving alcohol to minors, remember that the plane was darkened for overnight travel and I’ll state under oath that the little minx insisted she was of legal drinking age. And she herself suggested that we give bottle to her younger brother to settle the fidgety bastard down. In any case, that specific incident occurred somewhere over the Artic Circle. Who really has jurisdiction there—Canada? Russia? Finland? Good luck getting any court in those countries to convict a guy offering vodka to a girl.

On a positive note

I think once these pertinent facts are aired, I’ll be released with written apologies from all parties. It wouldn’t even surprise me if I’m offered some form of compensation for the gross inconvenience. I’m thinking a couple of business class seats anywhere in the Lufthansa system and a 10-day stay at somewhere warm with decent food.

In a crude attempt to keep Amnesty International at bay, my captives have let me and several other inmates make brief visits to local churches and monasteries to introduce some sort of repentance into my life. If it didn’t happen at Assisi, it isn’t happening in Bavaria, but I’m making the best of it. So far, I’ve had dinner in a former monastery, heard a German woman play a church organ once played by Mozart (Salzburg, his home, is less than an hour away) and managed to sneak a stein or two of the local brew product.

Been there, done that



They store the sinners here



Dinner in the monastery



Not Mozart, but he did play it



In any event, I’m stuck here until I can sort things out. Feel free to post me with suggestions on where I should take me free trip from Lufthansa.

Edmond

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