TIFU with my luggage, over and over and over again and ended up at gunpoint, on my knees, on the runway outside a running plane, being screamed at by a circle of police.

This is going to be a long one. Please fasten your seatbelts and stay seated for the rest of this story.

In 1990 I was avoiding an FBI investigation (I was a key witness and was going to be hauled into court over and over and over as a slew of angry businessmen sued my boss). After doing my interviews with the FBI and getting everything I knew down on paper, I decided to skedaddle. I bought a giant backpack and headed for ten months of wandering North Africa and Europe.

The backpack was a beast. 90 pounds (41 kilos). I also had a day pack that was another 20 pounds. Because I was traveling so long I had winter, spring and summer clothes AND, to make it more interesting, part of my trip was going to be a Nile cruise where you had to wear a tie/jacket to dinner and since I was a clothes hog I had two jackets, several slacks and a different tie for every night (12 nights).

To get everything in, the bag was packed like a puzzle. Everything was rolled, and bagged and rubber banded so it would all fit. I should have been worried when I flew out on the trip. My friend who was driving me to the airport couldn't lift up my bag. The counter person at the airlines couldn't either.

I landed in London only to find myself facing the tail end of a hurricane. I had to get from the airport to my friend's place in Golder's Green. When I came up out of the tube system the wind was blowing so hard I could barely move forward. One small step forward at a time, with the weight of the backpack kind of pinning me in place. Garbage cans blew by. Bricks were getting blown out of facades, the whole street was locked up with security grills down. There was no where to go but forward or find a nook to hide in.

I finally made it to my friend's house and a few days later flew on to Athens. I bummed around for a few days and met a Lutheran missionary. He was heading to Crete so I joined him. We booked a ferry cabin and the next day we headed to Crete. Being crafty and smart, I put my money belt (all of my money, ID and all but one credit card-this was pre debit card days) under the mattress in the cabin. Along with my traveler's cheques. They would be super safe there as long as I didn't forget them. You get where my next FU is going?

We landed in Crete and ended up bussing down to the southern most tip of the island where we spent a couple of days exploring in the cold February weather. I left the missionary at the beach and went back to the hotel and went to cash a traveler's cheque and realized they were gone. As was my whole money belt. I'd left it under the mattress on the ferry.

The hotel looked up the ferry schedule, it was in town and then gone for two days. I had to cross Crete fast. I had my emergency credit card hidden in my backpack so I pulled that out, wrote a note to the Lutheran missionary, paid for the hotel and a taxi to get me to the other side of Crete and off I went. The drive was terrifying. Lots of twisty scary road and the guy was flying to catch the ferry before it left.

We arrived, I rushed to the ferry and.... $*#&#^$*# it was the wrong ferry. My ferry was coming in the next day.

I was unable to find a room since I had no ID. No one would accept my credit card without the ID. Finally, a woman who let rooms, allowed me to stay in her place after I explained the situation. Her demand? I had to give her all of my luggage. I wouldn't give her my day pack but she made me leave everything in it but my journals. So, my camera, walkman and, here comes the next FU, my electric shaver, all went into the backpack.

The next morning I rush to the ferry office. The purser (?) sees me coming, walks down the gangplank and tells me they have been waiting for me. The maid had found my money belt and turned it in. 100% of my money, cards, ID and traveler's cheques are as I left them.

I went to the hotel, paid and decided to get the heck out of Crete. I headed to the airport and booked a flight back to Athens. (for some reason I didn't want to take the ferry). I should have stayed put. The luggage person couldn't lift my bag. I had to go help behind the counter to get it on the belt.

I was sitting in the waiting lounge, when a group of men burst into the waiting room. They were sweaty and red and looked around kind of frantic and then tried to look casual. They all looked around until their eyes, one by one, landed on me, then they looked away.

I found a seat and they called the flight. This was a no frills, line up, walk out of the airport across the runway and climb a rickety stairway onto the Olympic Air flight. I notice that a couple of the sweaty men had pushed their way up in line a few people ahead of me. I didn't see that they had also come up right behind me. I followed the line outside and to the base of the staircase. The Flight Attendant (AKA "stewardess" at the time) looked at my ticket, asked "Mr Teach-of-the-Year?" and I said yes.

Suddenly, one of the men in front of me, who.had stopped and lingered while the people in front of them had already climbed up into the plane, grabbed the stewardess and yanked her away from me, the other one raised a pistol and put it about five inches in front of my face. Everyone starts screaming at me in Greek. Hands pull me backwards and yank my daypack off my back, I'm forced to my knees, and see several things. I'm surrounded by armed men, all with their guns out, aimed at me, and everyone is screaming. The passengers that had been in line behind me had been stopped back at the lounge. They are all lined up at the window watching.

The screaming continues, I might have been crying at that point (if not, I soon would be). A soldier comes running out from the airport. He is screaming in English. "What is in the bag?! What is in the bag??!!!" I look at my little daypack, with its peace sign patch stitched to the front. "My camera? My journal?"

"Not that one!!" He screams at me, while all the other men are still screaming and holding guns in my face-guns held by shaky hands, I might add. "That one!!" He screams and points out on the runway, where my backpack sits, forlornly, where it has been dumped by, I'm guessing, not one but two scared-to-death baggage handlers.

"Nothing. Just clothes." I whimper out.

"It is moving, it is buzzing," he screams as he show's his hands kind of vibrating.

Then I picture myself sticking my electric shaver in there and it all comes clear. "My electric shaver," I squeak out.

They stand staring at me, and he finally says, "Go get it."

I start the long, slow walk out to my bag. I'm spooked. I look back. The men are lined up between me and the plane. They are all aiming guns at me. In the plane behind them I can see a face (or two) in every window as the passengers watch me, the deadly terrorist, walk to my bag. Behind all of them is the airport waiting lounges with people all lined up watching to see what is going on. Cars with red and blue lights and sirens are approaching in the distance.

And all I can do is keep walking and hoping that the woman who had kept my luggage all night, had not put a bomb in it. My legs were shaking. I kept looking back, only to have the men shooing me along with their guns.

Then I hear it. The shaver. The relief is palpable. I hold it up. The men rush me. I'm searched while they dump out my daypack and the entire contents of the backpack on the runway. They went through my journals page by page and drop them on the ground. All the ties and jackets and 10 months of clothes (winter spring summer!) are spread out in heaps around us. They finally finish.

"Put it back and get on the plane," I'm told and they walk away, leaving me on the runway. I just start stuffing. It won't fit. I try and I try (here is where I know I was crying) and I can see all these angry faces in the plane, which has been sitting there for over an hour now, and I finally give up. I drag the bag to the plane, with a big armful of ties, sport coats and winter clothes in my arms.

The walk of shame to my seat, now taken, and leaving me with a back row seat, was long and shameful. Everyone was glaring, I was hitting everyone with coat sleeves and dropping things.

I got to Athens, booked a flight to Mykonos, and sat on the stairs of the airport and slowly rolled and repacked 90lbs of clothes and stuff then went to wait on my flight.

I sat in the waiting room next to an old woman. She smiled at me. I smiled back. She vomited on my shoes. I got cleaned up and then they called my flight. I looked at the ticket but it seemed wrong. I went to the counter and asked. No English but they looked at my ticket and said "Yes!" and moved me to the exit out to the tarmac to board the plane. I got on. I sat quietly. They announced the flight and I, again, was confused. It did not sound like the flight was going to Mykonos. I called the stewardess and showed her my ticket . The sticker had this flight and gate on it, but when she pulled up the sticker, she saw that I was, indeed, on the wrong flight and the sticker was incorrect. The plane had already closed up and moved away from the terminal.

They stopped the flight, opened the door, dropped down this little staircase, I walked out, the co-pilot came down and opened up the luggage door, they found my bag, dropped it on the tarmac, pointed to the airport, then they got in the plane, I moved away, and it moved off down the runway and took off.

Nobody came to get me. I just stood there waiting. A plane landed and then drove by me. I decided I needed to get the heck out of there and hiked back to the terminal. I kept trying doors until I found one that I could go in.

I would finally get a new flight and make it to Mykonos. It was closed up for winter and the next day I got on a Ferry This was the biggest FU of all and the trip went downhill from there....but that is another story altogether.

TL;DR: TIFU everything on a 10 month trip by packing poorly and causing trouble everywhere I went.