The Rule of Two

We lined up for our 7 AM flight to Tucson with a bunch of sleepy people, all with their little wheeled suitcases, backpacks, laptops, and purses. After the America West person scanned our boarding passes and we started to walk down the ramp to the plane, she admonished us, “You can take only TWO pieces of hand luggage on the plane.” This is while people with humongous wheelies wheeled by and others with bulging backpacks shook their heads at us.

But I had planned ahead for just such lunacy. I quickly stuffed my little homemade quilted purse into my small zippered bag. Three had now become two. David crammed his camera case into his backpack. We flashed a “We just beat the system” smile at the watchdog employee, who had somehow hoped to either fine us or force us to check something, and walked onboard to find our little economy class seat with its continually shrinking legroom (that’s for another post).

We both wondered why the airlines didn’t use a simple rule of a weight and volume limit instead of the ridiculous 2-piece rule. I guess that might just make too much sense to an industry that thrives on rules that don’t make sense.