Page 7 of Holiday Unscripted
Me: You’re welcome.
I stop talking to him when the carrousel makes a buzzing noise and then it starts to move again. The first couple bags start coming out and then forty minutes later new faces fill the carousel, and a couple of people from my flight are still lingering. I look around and see the counter for the airline, pick up my carry-on, and put it over my shoulder before going over to stand in line.
Fifteen people are in front of me, another man comes over to help, and I literally feel like I’m going to fall on my feet. I’m so tired. I blink as my eyes start to get dryer. I put my bag down and kick it forward when the person in front of me walks ahead. It’s almost an hour later by the time I make my way to the counter.
“Hello,” the woman greets me. The happiness and cheer she probably started her day with is now gone, and who can blame her. How much does the job suck when you get yelled at hourly?
“Hi.” I smile at her. “My bag didn’t arrive,” I tell her and she looks at me with a blank expression on her face.
“Where did you originate from?” she asks me and holds out her hand to me, expecting something.
“Do I have to pay for this?” I ask her getting my wallet, and she snorts.
“Girl, I wish,” she replies, shaking her head and laughing. “No, I need your baggage ticket.”
“Oh.” I laugh at her. “Got it.” I grab my big tote bag to fish for the paper ticket I stuck in there. “I’ve been up for twenty-four hours now,” I ramble as I rummage through and find it at the bottom, “not that anyone seems to care.”
I hand her the ticket, and she turns it over. She clicks on her computer. “Hmm,” she says and then I hear her nails on the keyboard doing it again. “Are you sure this is the right ticket?”
I stare at her. “That is what she gave me,” I tell her. “She said this is for your bag.”
“There is nothing in my system,” she reports and now my mouth hangs open.
“Excuse me?” I blink five times, not sure I actually heard what she is saying.
“There is nothing in my system,” she repeats the words slowly.
“Yeah, I heard you the first time. What I mean is what?” I ask confused. “You see, I got to the airport. Gave my bag.” I start to motion with my hands. “She put a luggage tag through the top of my luggage and she put an orange tag that said priority on it, and then away it went.”
“Yeah”—she nods—“but there is nothing in my system to say it even scanned in.”
“What does that mean? So you don’t know where my luggage is?”
“Technically”—she looks at the screen—“no.” She then looks at me. “Usually when it goes in, it’s scanned and whatnot, but it doesn’t even show that it made it on your plane in”—she looks back down—“Australia.”
“I don’t know what the screen is telling you, but what I’m telling you is I checked in my bag, and now I have no bag. You can see from the sticker she gave me that I checked a bag, I didn’t make it up.”
“We can fill out a lost bag report,” she offers. “They usually turn up…” I let out a sigh. “…in a couple of days.”
“A couple of days,” I say, flabbergasted.
“With the holidays”—she starts to type, ignoring looking at me—“it could be longer.”
“Great. How does this happen?”
“Could be a whole slew of things. One could be that your tag literally just ripped off.” She shrugs one shoulder. “Another could be that it got onto the wrong belt.”
“And my bag could be sitting anywhere right now?”
“That would be correct.” She smiles. “Okay, so I’ll ask you a couple of questions.”
“Great.”
“Was there anything on the bag besides the tag?”
“Yes,” I reply. “There was the luggage tag on there. It’s from Coach and it’s blue with sparkles. It has my name and address on it. I think even my phone number.”
I put my elbow on the counter and form a fist, leaning my forehead on it.
