Travel / Outdoors

After my stay on the slow-going Hawaiian island of Molokai, I’d become so relaxed and carefree that I wasn’t in my usual neurotic traveler mode of checking and rechecking that I had everything with me. The result: I forgot my laptop at the TSA security checkpoint when transferring flights at the Honolulu airport.

Airport security checkpoints can be hectic anywhere in the world. Reminder: Be sure you have all your belongings when you head for your gate. (Associated Press file photo)

I realized my laptop was missing that night after arriving at my next stop, Kauai. I found the TSA lost-and-found phone number in Honolulu and left a message.

Bright and early the next morning at 6:40 I get a call from the TSA in Honolulu. “Aloha,” says a cheerful man named Ron who gets me to identify the laptop and gives me details, which I scribble down in my sleepy state, on how to email him to authorize its release to an airport business center that can ship it home to Seattle for me.

Just like that it’s all sorted out. And it’s a good-news story about the TSA, the government agency that most travelers love to hate.

Thank you, Ron, and aloha.