Running on Mountain Dew and sheer stubbornness, I pulled my trusty rental truck into our driveway around 5:30AM and hunkered down for the night. I was tired and, how you say, not so fresh, and was asleep before hitting the pillow.

The next day brought a call from the Charlotte airport. They had my bag and would arrange delivery for that afternoon. Rested and cleaned, with the truck unloaded, all that remained to complete the equation was my bag.

A few hours later, the doorbell rang, and I leaped to the door expecting to find my trusty companion of the last ten years. Rather than a black, ballistic nylon rollaboard Andiamo suitcase (about how I had described it when completing the missing bag claim in Erie), there was a red backpack. Like a mysterious sprite, the delivery guy was bounding back to his truck and was greatly displeased when my yelling and arm waving prevented him from making a fast getaway.

“This is not my bag; it’s not anything like it” I said. He shrugged, mentioned that he’s “just the delivery guy” and of course “there’s nothing I can do,” and I would have to call my friends back at the call center, and scampered off. Stepping inside, I made the first of about fifty conversations that would go like this:

(after navigating several voicemail prompts) “US Air, can I have your baggage claim number?”

ME: “Yes, it’s OU812ICUP”

Call Center Drone: “Please wait while I look it up… that was YC973ICEU, right?”

<repeat claim number at least four times>

CCD: “Ahh, here it is, let me read through the notes.”

Me: “It says that it was found but actually..”

CCD: “Yes sir, I see here that you bag was located and is currently being delivered!”

Me: “Yes, that was three weeks ago, they delivered the wrong bag.”

CCD: “I understand sir, but it says that your bag is out for delivery.”

Me: “Right, what’s the date on that note?”

CCD: “I don’t have that information sir, your bag is being delivered, thank you for calling US Air!”

Me: “WAIT!!!”

(and so the dance would continue for 10-30 minutes, until they finally acknowledged there was no bag, and I should just wait “a bit more.”)

After about four weeks, I resigned myself to never seeing the bag again and purchased a shiny new replacement and filed a claim with US Air. I guess it was time for a new suitcase anyway, and baggage technology has actually improved in the last ten years.

Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago, two months after the bag originally went missing when I get a call from a strange North Carolina warehouse asking for Mr. Gray. I responded in the affirmative and he proceeded to tell me that he was holding a bag with not one, but two of my business cards attached, each with phone numbers, address and email. He was in the Charlotte warehouse, the last stop for luggage before it was put out to pasture in the midwest, to roam free with the wild mustangs and lost umbrellas.

Unbelievably, after over two months, my bag was returned. The contents were all intact, down to the small pile of change I put in an outer pocket so as not to incur the wrath of the TSA metal detectors. Things were a bit crumpled and one shirt had an odd stain, and I wondered what strange adventures my bag had endured as it bounced around the country, somewhere between Dallas, Erie and Charlotte.

Like a Greenwich hedge fund manager who trades his trusty wife in for a new model, I have left my old suitcase dejected in a corner, replaced with the fancy new model with shiny wheels and fancy ratcheting handle, rather than the scars and tatters of age. Meghan tried to pull a fast one, suggesting she get the new suitcase since “you loved that old one so much,” but I’ve relegated the old battleaxe to Meghan’s service. I figure he needs a good break after all the strange happenings he must have seen during his two months with US Air.

Categories: Travel
No Comments »