This happened to me when I visited my old friend Jacob in Boston. Just before leaving the house to take me to the airport, he asked me if I had still been playing football for my college team. When I answered positive, he decided to make me a present. Jacob ran back into his room and returned with a football visor from hi high school years.
“It’s a good brand”, he said, “so it would be a pity to throw it away or give elsewhere to unknown people at a yard sale”. During our way to the airport, I also found out that the visor had a very exciting history, and once it had saved my friend’s eyes during a very tough game, yet there was no a single scratch. I felt like Jacob is giving me not just a football gear, but a piece of his memory and a mighty talisman. My favorite brand is Under Armour football visor. I think they are very high-quality and durable.
At first, I put my new gear at my suitcase, but I didn’t feel much secure about it. What if the airport staff throw my luggage and damage the visor? I knew that it was made of a strong resistant material, but damaging even a clip would be a really unpleasant outcome. So I decided to fit it in my cabin luggage. I had just a small backpack, therefore it was really hard to fit it. I managed to wrap it in my T-shirt (Jacob didn’t give me any special bag for it) and squeezed my new football visor inside.
Surely, while I was passing the customs control, the officer saw something suspicious on the screen and kindly asked me to open my backpack. So I had to take out all the tightly squeezed things that I hardly put inside my bag.
“Oh, it’s a tinted visor. You play football, son”, the officer smiled to me, but I became so frustrated that couldn’t answer him politely. It took me ten more minutes just to pack my stuff back. But suddenly I heard that the boarding on my plane was closing, and they called my name to proceed to the gates A5.
Running and almost falling down on a wet slippery floor I finally found the right gate and in a few minutes put myself down in a comfortable airplane seat.
At that time I wished I wouldn’t accept the gift from my friend that had caused me so many inconveniences.
However, there was a football game in a week, and I decided to try Jacob’s lucky visor on the field. The very first minutes of the game I found myself knocked down by a huge African kid from another team, and his elbow accidentally went exactly into my left eye, cracking on the surface of the visor, but causing no damage.
That day I decided that miracles happen, and talismans really exist. But there also was another thought: when you travel with your football visor, pack it wisely.
