It'll Take a Miracle

When I muttered these words to a gate agent at the Detroit airport I did not expect her to perform one on my behalf.

It all started with a decadent ball of fresh Buffalo mozzarella at an outdoor cafe in Italy. It was served with a bottle of insanely flavorful olive oil, probably made just down the road from the restaurant. We drizzled the olive oil over the mozzarella and sopped up every last drop with crusty bread. As my friends and I polished off the mozzarella, I came to the conclusion that I had just eaten the best cheese of my life. After lunch, we couldn’t stop talking about the olive oil either. This meal was followed by several more throughout the trip where a bottle of fresh olive oil served alongside the meal tried to steal the show.

So you can understand why a beautiful bottle of olive oil in the duty free shop of the Rome airport captured my attention.

I never shop duty free in airports, but my dream trip to Italy was coming to an end. I was sad, and I was clinging to the last few moments of the trip. Plus, I had intended to bring home olive oil from Italy— I just hadn’t gotten a chance to buy a bottle while on the trip. Now I was at the airport, early for my flight, and there was a lovely bottle of olive oil begging to head to home with me.

I bought it and tucked it into my carry-on bag.

That was that: I was off on my way home from one of the best trips I’d ever taken. I was not mentally ready to leave Italy, but I was at least logistically ready: all of my luggage and travel plans were in order… or so I thought.

Ten hours later, I landed at the Detroit airport. My flight was early; I had a five hour layover. I was feeling optimistic and ready to breeze through customs.

We deplaned. I breezed through customs. Then, I was funneled towards a TSA security checkpoint. I always forget about this hassle of international travel, but since I had a long layover I wasn’t worried about the extra time spent waiting in line to go through security again.

That was until my bag was diverted away from me. I had breezed through security, but my bag had not. Suddenly I remembered the olive oil, and I knew it was the reason my bag was being pulled aside for an extra check. But I had bought it in duty free! It shouldn’t be a problem should it?

It was a problem. A kind but stern TSA agent informed me that my impulse-buy olive oil wasn’t allowed in my carry-on luggage because the duty free shop in the Rome airport hadn’t put it in the proper bag. I couldn’t take the bottle past security, but I could go back and check it. Though I badly wanted to bring home some Italian olive oil, I was ready to call it a loss. I couldn’t just check a bottle of olive oil— there was no way it would make it the rest of my long journey home. The TSA agent wasn’t ready to give up on the olive oil, however: he encouraged me to go back to the gate agents stationed just before security and check my olive oil. He said they often have boxes just for this reason; they might be able to pack it up for me.

Since I had a long layover, I decided to give it a shot. I took my pitiful bottle of olive oil to the gate agent, sat it on the counter, and informed her that TSA wanted me to check this item. She gave the bottle a long-suffering look. I imagined this had happened many times before. Then, without a word, she went to find a box to pack it in.

A few minutes later she returned with some bubble wrap and a plastic bag. “This is all I have to put it in,” she told me unenthusiastically. I decided it was better than nothing; at this point my only other option was to let TSA confiscate the olive oil, so I chose to take my chances with the plastic bag. “I know it’ll take a miracle to get it there in one piece,” I muttered to her as I signed the fragile item waiver, half wanting her to know I didn’t usually go to such lengths over olive oil and half wanting her to know I appreciated her help.

For the rest of my journey home— a journey that involved two more flights— I wondered how my little bottle of olive oil was faring. Was it being thrown into the cargo hold of a plane? Had it already smashed into a thousand pieces? Did a kind ramp agent take mercy on the bottle and carefully load it on the plane? Was it on the plane with me or was I flying solo? The bottle of olive oil was my phantom companion for the rest of my journey, haunting my thoughts.

By the time I arrived at my final destination I had convinced myself the olive oil no longer existed. The effort I put into saving it was valiant, but there was no way it had survived the long journey in a plastic bag. I was prepared for the worst: no bottle of olive oil on the luggage carousel.

My last flight landed at midnight; I drug myself down to baggage claim; and I waited. My checked bag was one of the first unloaded. After I grabbed it I remained there by the carousel carefully scanning each new item. Despite my firm belief that it was long gone, I was hoping to see my bottle of olive oil.

I waited and waited. No plastic bag. No bottle. Eventually all of the other bags were picked up. The other passengers went on their way. Still the carousel spun. A cardboard box with a big fragile sticker emerged. At first I ignored it: my olive oil wasn’t in a box. After a couple of spins around the carousel with no one to claim it, I realized I should go check the box. To my complete and utter surprise it had my name on it! The number on the tag matched the number on my baggage claim ticket. Could this be my olive oil?

I greedily grabbed the box and peeked to see the olive oil tightly bubble wrapped inside. The words I muttered to the gate agent came flooding back to me: “It’ll take a miracle…” I was filled with a huge sense of gratitude to this unnamed stranger who went out of her way to track down a box, carefully bubble wrap and pack my silly olive oil, and put a giant fragile sticker on the box. She must’ve decided my olive oil and I needed a miracle that day.

Today, I poured the green-tinted Italian olive oil over fresh mozzarella, and it tasted all the richer knowing the journey it had been on. I was grateful to have a little taste of my beautiful Italian holiday on an otherwise mundane day, and I wished I could thank the gate agent who made it happen. So I’m sending this thank you out into the ether; maybe it will find its way to the Delta gate agent in the Detroit airport who decided to make a small miracle happen for a weary traveller.

(It goes without saying that the moral of this story is even though you may never know it your small acts of kindness have a big impact on others. The alternate moral is if you shop duty free make sure you get the right bag and a receipt!)