The traveling Not Now Silly Newsroom

Let me introduce you to my knapsack, which I often call the traveling Not Now Silly Newsroom. Yesterday the traveling Not Now Silly Newsroom almost made the news.

Everything I could ever possibly need to write a Not Now Silly story is contained within my knapsack, including pads of lined paper, notebooks, clipboard, extra pens, Post It Notes, spare batteries, small camera, and a big clamp to be used as a handle for my smart phone video camera.

When I left Starbucks yesterday afternoon, I inadvertently left my knapsack behind. Amazingly I didn’t realize I had left it there until this morning, when I went to get something out of it. As they say in Quebec, “There she was, gone!”

It only took a minute to realize I’d left it back at Starbucks. Even though I was about to jump into the shower, I jumped into my clothes instead. Then I jumped into the car and rushed right over to get my knapsack — never exceeding the speed limit, even in the 15MPH school zone.

When I arrived, the first person I encountered was the manager, Issac.

“Did somebody turn in my knapsack yesterday?”

“Oh, that was yours?” Then he preceeded to tell me the following:

It seems as though my knapsack was noticed by a European couple only minutes after I left. Because people in Europe are far more sensitive to potential terrorist packages left lying around, they wanted to call it in as a suspicious package, but Starbucks staff wasn’t quite so sure. They were pretty certain they knew who it belonged to. However, the two Israelis, also on the patio, concurred that it cannot be ignored, especially as a new Mideastern restaurant was being renovated in the space right next door.

That’s when police were called.

Apparently the bomb squad wasn’t brought in because, if they had been, my knapsack would have been blown to bits as a precaution, just to be on the safe side. Instead, the officers glanced inside my knapsack, determined that it was something its owner would definitely return for, and turned it over to Starbucks for safe-keeping.

Now I’ll go take my shower and see if I can wash off the embarrassment that I wasted everybody’s time.