A Calm Traveler (Not)

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​A Calm Traveler (Not)

      On November 15 my mate Tom and I were in the Columbus airport prior to our flight to Los Angeles. 

        We checked in, checked our luggage, and received our boarding passes, and as we headed towards security I held in my hand my boarding pass, my driver's license, and my phone.

     As we stood in line approaching the entrance to security, I moved my phone to get to my boarding pass and ID,

...to find that I was holding only my boarding pass. My driver's license was missing.
      "Oh no!" I cried, "I don't have my driver's license! I must have dropped it on the ground between check-in and here! I have to go back and retrace my steps!"
        But then I turned over my phone and saw that my license was stuck to the screen of my phone.

         "Oh," I laughed - in truth, I have a nervous habit of laughing, not always at appropriate times - "here it is. Crisis averted!" And I laughed again. I was quite relieved.
            The man who was standing behind me said, "Boy, you were so calm. I don't know anybody who would have handled losing their license in an airport as calmly as you just did."
              What? I thought. That guy thought I was calm just now?  I wondered whether he was being sarcastic or sincere.  But then, I guess it was altogether possible that he really did think I was feeling like:

...when in fact I was feeling more like:

        The thing is, though I'm a worrier by nature and anxiety is my personal bête noir and it takes a lot less than losing my driver's license while in line for security to make me freak out, I don't always show how anxious I'm feeling. 
      I'm anxious but fairly quiet-spoken, which sometimes makes my verbal exclamation points float from my tongue to the air in soft, dulcet tones. On more than one occasion during my piano-teaching career parents commented on how laid back I was with my students. I wasn't laid back, just soft-spoken and well-tamped.
            As I guess I was in the airport when my fellow traveler mistook me for being calm. But of course I wasn't calm. I'm never calm. But it always feels good when once in a while someone thinks I am.