The worst fears about the start/end of a holiday…..lost luggage. You shoot off the plane, zip along the corridors until you reach the luggage carousel. Now you jostle your way for a good spot. You stand where you think the bags are going to come out so you see them first and there will be no way of someone else taking your bag, only to be disappointed and realise the carousel goes round the other way. Oh well this is just a minor set-back. Here is a question for you all at the start, why when the carousel starts up does it always take about 5 minutes before the first bag arrives?! Everyone gets all excited when you hear that jolt and the thing starts moving, then nothing, just empty rubber mats joined together going round and round and round.
The first bags appear. The excitement grows, ‘Is it my one?.’ It never is. Your bag is never the first off the plane, you always have to stand in suspense. There is always a nice gap between sets of luggage. At first it is just a dribble of bags coming through. One very minute or so, then it is rush hour. Bags come out non-sop, there are bags on top of one another. Even if you can’t initially see your bag then there is always hope as some are buried under other peoples. You see people leaning in and collecting their luggage. The annoying sod that was sitting near you on the flight always gets theirs before you. ‘I hope that bastard didn’t take my bag.’ Such irrational thinking, why the hell would they want to take a bag that doesn’t have any of their stuff in it, but we all think it. More and more bags come out but yours doesn’t appear. Then for some reason there is a lull in proceedings. Still have of the passengers that were on the plane are around the carousel but no more bags are coming. The one bag that came out right at the start is still going round, it always happens. Why does that always happen? There is one bag that someone forgets or isn’t there to collect. On this point, how do you forget a bag?!?!? But anyway the wait continues. The familiar clonking of luggage coming up the ramp before falling onto the carousel fills you with renewed hope. People are starting to pick up their luggage and rift off. There is noticeably less people around now. Uh oh, where is mine? Please let it come out.
The luggage flow is back down to a trickle again now. There are very few people left. The big family that have bought 900 suitcases with them and have 899 of them are always still there waiting for that last piece. The kids are running riot as they managed to sleep on the plane. The parents couldn’t sleep and are now pissed right off, giving stern tellings off when one of the children come within ear shot. This does not help you. The families stuff comes out and they drift off leaving you, alone, with the one bag that was there from the start going round, teasing you.
Bollocks. There is no denying it now, your bag is not coming out. Off you trek to the airline counter. The people behind the lost luggage counter look so disinterested that they may as well be on Mars. You report your lost luggage, the people behind the counter mumble something at you in a monotone that makes you want to slap them right across the face. ‘We can’t guarantee you a time frame when you r luggage will be here’, is the normal line that you will be faces with. Oh great I have got the clothes on my back and nothing else. They will offer a paltry sum of money to allow you to go to a second hand shop or a tramp and buy the clothes that they have in there (unless of course you are going home and you have your clothes there), and you leave your contact details with them.
You can only hope that your suitcase turns up before your holiday is over, if indeed you are going on your holiday when this happens. It has to be one of the most frustrating things. I have known a good few people that have been in the unfortunate position that this has happened to, here’s to hand luggage!!! That is the thought for today, tune in tomorrow for something else. Laters
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