There’s nothing quite like returning home from a trip to the Mayo Clinic where you’re trying to find out whether you, in fact, have CANCER, and being greeted not with answers, nor clarity, nor even a working sense of “everything is fine,” but instead with United Airlines deciding to play Hide-and-Seek: Trauma Edition with your luggage.
One of our bags—my bag, naturally—simply failed to arrive. My husband’s bag? Oh, that one rolled out like it was being welcomed back from a semester abroad. But mine? Nope. Mine apparently punched its timecard at Dulles then noped out of the rest of its responsibilities.
A United employee pointed me “upstairs.” I trudged up. Another person pointed me “downstairs.” I trudged down. At one point I am positive I passed the Beetlejuice waiting room where the Lost Souls of Baggage Past go to contemplate the void. I, however, was on a mission: retrieve my suitcase filled with the pathetic assortment of wrinkled clothing I had lived out of while being scanned, prodded, biopsied, and told to “just relax.”
We waited two hours.
Two hours during which my husband circled the baggage carousel like a hopeful golden retriever waiting for someone to throw a tennis ball.
Two hours during which I subsisted on… let me check my records… yes: one hotel breakfast and one Stroopwafel. Truly the nutritional foundation of champions.
While I waited, a couple from Newark filled out their lost luggage claim, explaining they were supposed to attend some event in D.C.—with $2,000 worth of luggage that had apparently vanished into the ether. I felt terrible for them… but also slightly better about my own situation, because at least my lost luggage did not contain formalwear, heirlooms, or someone’s wedding-guest dignity.
Finally—FINALLY—a woman appeared who seemed to possess the mystical ancient magic required to locate missing objects in airports. She asked questions. Detailed ones. Personal ones. “Describe its zipper.” “What color are the wheels?” “Would you say the bag is more ‘travel weary’ or ‘emotionally exhausted’?”
Then she declared, like some kind of baggage whisperer, “I’m going to find it.”
And she DID.
My suitcase had been scanned in at Dulles but left behind by the baggage handlers at our gate. Just… forgotten. Like a child at a rest stop in 1987. So while I was pacing the fluorescent-lit basement of IAD, it was presumably taking its sweet time rolling toward us, maybe after grabbing $6 gummy bears at Hudson News and then wandering off to find a Pumpkin Spice Latte.
Two hours after I should have been reunited with it—and after filling out a claim form that promised delivery to my house—my luggage emerged.
The silver lining?
Today, I found out United reimbursed our $40 checked bag fee.
Which, for those doing the math, comes out to $20 per hour for waiting at baggage claim. Not exactly hazard pay for a woman fresh off a liver biopsy, but honestly better than I expected. And still far, far less tragic than the Newark couple who probably had to attend a wedding wearing emotional support sweatpants.
And here we were, thinking how fortunate we were to fly direct from Minneapolis—upgraded to Economy Plus, no less.
Economy Plus! The land of slightly more legroom and the fleeting illusion that the universe is smiling upon you.
Turns out the universe was merely warming up for its next trick:
Now you see your luggage… now you don’t.
Absurdities and Fires 