Armani wearing terrorists?

I flew out on my holiday to Egypt on the 18th with Egypt Air. Both my spouse and I would have been a bit happier had my tour company taken an European based airline but this is what they chose. In an effort to prepare me, my spouse reminded me of things to look for in people and their behavior so I could bail on the flight if my Spidey sense started tingling.

I made it to Frankfurt without going the long way around. Usually I forget to stay to one side at a particular Autobahn split but I remembered finally. In fact I arrived early enough to stop at McDonalds and have some gnosh before flying. While checking in, the ticketing agent pointed out that my dependent passport had expired....Opps! (Must fix this quickly) Thank my lucky stars that I brought my tourist one as well or I would have been screwed. I then had to explain why I had two passports but dropping into German and explaining what my spouse did for a living cleared the way quite quickly.

After boarding the plane is when all the fun began. I was nervous, eyeing people as they boarded - making a mental note if they bothered me or not. I also said a little prayer as we took off asking for a peaceful flight without problems. I only noted one man in first class who seemed to have everyone treating him very nicely so I figured he was some kind of dignitary and ignored him.

The man that started it all was sitting across from me in the first coach class row. He was well dressed, clean cut and had to be 2 meters tall. He seemed stressed and was very fidgety. Right after the plane took off he bee-lined it straight back to someone in the back end of the plane. He was another well dressed man, clean cut and slim. They talked for at least twenty minutes. I would say that my suspect went back and forth to this man at least six times before I started getting really spooked. I started scanning about looking for a weapon or anything that I could McGyver into a weapon. About the time I spotted a pair of plastic airplane headphones the freaky guy was back at his seat talking to a flight attendant. As he went to sit down he scratched his back, exposing a shiny, metal something. Oh crap, what the hell is this guy? I snapped the headphones in half thinking that should this man and the other well dress Armani wearing terrorist get any bright ideas I would stab him in the neck with the broken end of the headphones.

I quickly took my carry on and my McGyvered stuff and retreated to a seat next to someone I knew. As I sat there quickly going over everything I had seen and what my plan was to stop them...my friend starts to laugh. I smack him on the arm and ask him what the hell is he laughing about since we were about to be hijacked. In between his fits of giggles he tells me that those are Egyptian Air marshals!

After asking a billion times if he was kidding and was reassured that they were indeed Air marshals, I quietly threw away my make shift weapons. I then threatened my friend to not tell a soul that I nearly lost it and tried to keep the plane safe from their own air marshals. We arrived safely, with no help from me that's for sure.

My next almost international incident comes later in the week....