On my flight home from Cincinnati at the end of May, as I was getting off the plane at Dulles, a lady ahead of me turned around from the jet bridge and came back through the plane’s center aisle. I tried to make room for her, but we were still exiting and it was very tight. The delay gave one of the flight attendants enough time to see what was happening, and she sternly asked, “What are you doing?” “I forgot my bag, I’m just getting it,” the lady said. “I’m sorry, you can’t re-enter the plane.” “What about my bag?” she asked. “We’ll bring it to you, but you have to leave. Leave the plane, please.”

The lady complied. I was just glad it wasn’t me. I felt like it was me. I nervously checked my own bag, pinching it in case it wasn’t real. I’m one of those people who can’t help but feel attacked when I watch someone else be attacked. And yeah, I’m not enough of a seasoned air traveled not to see the rules as a personal attack.

Its hard—for me, anyway—to distinguish my own lapse of forgetting something from the randomness and fickleness of the process itself. It feels like what you do doesn’t matter. Like maybe next time they’ll pull me aside and tell me I can’t take my bag off the plane. Who knows! It’s difficult to pause and remind yourself, this only feels menacing because it’s unfamiliar. Kind of, perhaps, like some folks feel in big cities.

My impulse is to feel like I have to be arrogant or condescending: “I know you’re only doing your job, but I need my damn bag so let me get it.” (There are other things I’d like to say, too, that TSA wouldn’t like, so I won’t.) The fact that there are regular flyers out there who would mock me for this makes me feel it more, and I walked out of the plane muttering myself about how if it were up to me I’d never step foot on another airplane in my life.

Screw airports and flight attendants and the BS security theater and the three unlabeled security lines that turn into six lines or maybe three different lines, rushing to the gate only for the plane to be late (so I didn’t almost miss it!), the indignity of basically giving up your private property, whether it’s lost luggage or being forced to check your carry-on at the gate (because everyone is wise to how awful baggage claim is, and the planes aren’t built for every traveler to have a full-size carry-on) or having the flight attendant tell you that can’t just run in and grab your bag, or having to surrender a yogurt cup or a nice kitchen knife you bought to slice some salami from a market...