"Funny" what you remember when trying to come up with something eye-catching or interesting.
During one particularly distressing assignment training new Air Force pilots, I had the occasion to take one young lad on a cross-country navigation training mission. We left the sunny slopes of welcoming Enid, Oklahoma and braved the elements all the way to Amarillo, Tx, where the military facilities are co-located with the commercial airport.
Not having the best of luck, our trusty steed broke down and left us stranded in the middle of the middle of nowhere! One quick phone call and we were instructed to pick up airline tickets at the only desk in the civilian part of the airport (it was also the military desk, but they had separate chairs!) and return via airliner. Our 'sick' transportation would be fixed and retrieved at some later date.
No one thought anything of it (it was, after all, 1976) and Osama and his boys were still in diapers, but we boarded the plane with our "carry-on" stuff, loaded it in the overhead bins and sat down to enjoy the ride. Of course our "carry-on" stuff was helmets and parachutes, but it only dawned on us about halfway home that we could possibly have been mis-interpreted.
I pulled down the window shade, asked for a blanket and hid for the rest of the 'trip' - there was nothing else to do. After all, we were liable for those things and couldn't leave them in the broken airplane - could we?
LIke I said, 'funny' what comes to mind....
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