The Terminal—stuck in Immigration.

Always travel with a photocopy.

After a great cruising season in Mexico, we put the boat to bed for the summer and caught a flight back to the States. Somewhere between seat 1B and immigration line 13 at LAX's Arrivals Hall I lost my passport and very nearly my mind.

Pulling my ransacked wheelie to the window, I told the agent what I'd done and asked him to please not send me to Guantanamo. The guy was good, he never even flinched. I produced a photocopy of my passport (never travel without copies tucked away in your bags) and was whisked off by another agent to Area Z. I wasn't sure what Area Z was, but it must have been the end of the line otherwise they would have called it Area J or B or T.

What I did know was that Area Z was something like Area 51—that other place for undocumented aliens. The people around me spoke Norwegian and Hindi and Chinese, not English; so there I sat, silently awaiting my fate.

While I cooled my jets, Alaska employees were searching the plane, shuttle bus and corridors on my behalf.

In less than an hour an Area Z agent handed back my photocopied document and welcomed me into the United States—I was free to go. If it turned up, my passport would be sent to the State Department where it would be destroyed, not mailed to me. It wouldn't be a problem except that I had an upcoming international flight and not enough time to get a replacement.

Right on cue, an Alaska employee approached, and holding up my passport, said, "This is your lucky day, Mrs. Fullagar".

I'd like to say this was my first encounter with aliens and U.S. Immigration, but...We just wanted to have lunch.