We’re stuck on a plane at La Guardia airport, waiting for a ground stop in Chicago to lift so we can return home from a weeklong romp through the east coast. I’ve just seen Ja Rule in the airport terminal, and I figure this random sighting will provide me with some conversational fodder back home.

But then two Port Authority cops board our plane, stopping two rows behind us.

“Let’s go, John,” they say.

John, middle-aged and red-nosed, obediently gets out of his seat.

“Get his luggage!” calls an airport employee.

“You almost got away with it, John,” says one of the cops, relishing the spotlight. He shakes his head. “You almost got away with it.” John says nothing. You can hear a pin drop.

“Does he have any luggage?” the woman calls again.

“Leather jacket, just above row 24,” the cop says. With that, they take John off the plane, and speculation runs wild.

“He was drunk,” the guy in front of me says to his neighbor across the aisle. “I could smell the liquor on him.”

“They would really pull him off for being drunk?”

The first man shrugs. “Guess he didn’t know the rules.”

Not to be outdone, the flight attendant returns minutes later with an even more ridiculous explanation:

“He stiffed a New York City cab driver. Told him he was going to the ATM, then got right on the plane.”

Right. And he told the cabby his name and his flight number, too. I watch The Wire, people; I know how this stuff works.

Back home, I check for headlines about a big-time mob informant trying to skip town, or something along those lines, but nothing comes up. That’s probably how New York’s Col. Daniels wants it, though.

It’s such a burden, let me tell you, what with their endearing little smiles and their… well… their HATS.

We’re trying to eat our way through as much of the town as we can in a few short days. I met up with the gents earlier for a requisite trip to the Coolidge Corner Clubhouse, where we spent many post-college evenings, and where I developed my abiding love for buffalo chicken.

Oh, buffalo chicken…

With time to kill before lunch, I wandered over to the old apartment. Five of us lived there for three years; it saw us through grad school, law school and first jobs. It held up well beneath games of living room basketball and parties, and played host to countless games of Hearts. Maggie showed up at the back door of this apartment, then a skinny stray with a gash under her chin and a fang missing.

So the place is fairly thick with memories.

I was standing in front of the three-flat, staring up at the top floor balcony like a house inspector giving the place a once over, when a car pulled up next to me. It was one of my old roommates, apparently bent on a little nostalgia as well – though he claimed to be looking for parking.

Good to see you again, Boston – looks like we got here just in time for the flower show.