Saving her clutch from their clutches

THIS vacation tale is about a crazed return trip from Rome to Los Angeles. It could be subtitled: “Is That 66-year-old Jewish Woman a Terrorist?”

Unfortunately, I am that woman.

Join me as the craziness begins. We are coming to the end of a monthlong stay in Italy. I have been translating material for the Museum of Contemporary Art of Rome; my husband, Marty Fiebert, has been sightseeing.

When we had booked our return trip -- Rome to Paris, Paris to L.A. -- Marty noticed that the connection was tight, with only half an hour to change planes in Paris, but there didn’t seem to be anything we could do about it. So we arrive at Rome’s Fiumicino Airport about two hours early and check in at Air France. At Marty’s request, we are shown a map of Paris’ Charles de Gaulle International Airport so that we can check the route we will have to take to transfer planes. It looks like a long distance to cover.

Things start going badly almost immediately.

The Air France plane gets off the ground late, meaning we’ll arrive in Paris even later than expected. Marty asks the flight attendant what we should do. She responds that Air France will have someone meet us upon our arrival to take us to the other gate.

A woman in blue-and-green airport garb is waiting when we get off the plane, holding up a sign with our names on it.

We dash to her van, and she zips along a convoluted airport road to the other flight area.

We have to go through security again, and there is a long line. The helper manages to get us into a separate security line, but the plane leaves without us.

We are taken to a special Air France desk to make new arrangements, then wait two hours for the next flight to Los Angeles. Finally, we are ready to board the plane.

I had not carried a handbag the entire time we were in Italy because Marty carried everything in his backpack, but now I’m carrying my purse and a tote bag with a bottle of duty-free wine. We get on a shuttle bus to go to the plane and take a lengthy ride to the aircraft.

As we get on the plane, I realize I have left my purse in the terminal. I rush up to a flight attendant and tell him. He takes me to the intake attendant and says, “Madame a un petit souci.” (Madame has a small problem.)

This must be the understatement of the year. She telephones the terminal, and I am told to wait.

After a while, they tell me they found a bag.

It must be my purse, I think, and ask them to please bring it to me on the plane. They say they cannot, that I have to get off the plane and go back to the terminal to get it. I will miss the flight, they say, but can catch the next one, whenever that may be. The alternative, they say, is that I leave on this flight with Marty, and they will blow up my purse. It could be a bomb.

Marty and I decide: Forget the purse; we’ll leave on this plane.

Then I realize I’ll lose my credit cards, driver’s license, Medicare card, plus $100. I have to rescue my bag.

Marty promises to pick me up at LAX when I arrive on the later plane, so I run up to another flight attendant and tell her that I will miss the flight and go back to the terminal to get my purse.

*

The crowd stares

AT least six uniformed ground crew members are standing at the plane’s entryway discussing the situation. When I say I have changed my mind, they say it’s too late.

“Please check,” I beg.

They call and get the people on the other end to hold off on the explosion.

“I have my passport; give me my coat, and I will get off and await the next flight,” I say.

Suddenly they give me the go-ahead, adding that they’ll take me to get the purse and return me to the plane in time to make this flight.

My driver, a cute French guy named Franck Farge who is head of the ground crew, takes me back to the terminal in a van. Once there, he leaps out of the van, followed more slowly by me. We trot up the stairs to Gate 86, where I see a huge crowd standing behind a barrier of yellow crime-scene tape. As I cross the barrier, they stare at me. Or are they waiting to see the explosion?

I walk past them into a silent, empty waiting area, and I see my purse sitting where I left it on one of the seats. Another member of the ground crew walks me to the purse, where we are greeted by a police officer on a walkie-talkie explaining the situation to someone.

He berates me in French for having left the purse behind and tells me to open it, which I do. I am instructed to take out identification. I open my wallet and show them my driver’s license picture. It is indeed me. I am allowed to take the purse.

Franck and I run back, through the glass door, down the glassed-in stairs, to the plane. He drops me at the entry stairs and I run up and onto the plane and take my seat, clutching my black leather purse.

Both of us have been proved innocent.