Welcome to the Twilight Zone
Has anyone read Stephen King's "The Langoliers," or possibly managed to make it through the 2-part miniseries? It's the one where almost everyone disappears from a coast-coast flight in mid-air. In case you missed the movie, or haven't bothered to read all 1000 of Stephen King's stories, let me enlighten you by recapping a recent event that happened to me.
I am currently on vacation in VA. Tomorrow morning my family and I are making the 4-5 hour trek to Smith Mountian Lake. I've been looking forward to this trip for weeks. It's been a rather stressful summer for various reasons, and I haven't had a relaxing break in a year. To make sure that I would be at my sister's in plenty of time for the drive, I decided to fly in yesterday afternoon. I live in Boston. I needed to fly into Washington National (I absolutely refuse to call it Reagan National!!). The flying time is about one hour. The flight is non-stop. I packed EVERYTHING in my suitcase and checked the bag.
Somewhere over the eastern seaboard, the luggage for the entire plane disappeared. When we landed in D.C., and went to carousel 12 to pick up our luggage, the baggage claim attendants told us that our bags had already been unloaded from the plane, placed on the conveyor belt, and, because it took all of us so long to reach the carousel once we disembarked (10 whole minutes), our bags had already been placed in baggage claim.
We're all dumbfounded by this bit of news, since we were standing in baggage claim and there wasn't a single bag to be found. According to the airline (who shall remain nameless, though I really don't know why I'm being this nice), the luggage was placed on our plane in Boston. Further investigation, however, revealed that there was no luggage on the plane when we landed one hour later. Truly a case for Moulder and Scully!
For over 24 hours, said anonymous airline kept telling me that my bag was on its way. "From where," I asked, "the Bermuda Triangle?" Really. Bermuda was a possibility. Turns out that the cart with the flight's luggage was dropped off between our plane and the one next to it, which was bound for Bermuda. All responsible parties (I use the phrase lightly) truly believed that someone (passing stranger? airport luggage fairy?) had unloaded the cart before the flight took off, placing the luggage on the correct plane. Apparently, this wasn't the case. As both flights took off, the cart still loaded with luggage sat on the tarmac.
Now, you'd think that this would be an easy, no-brainer problem to fix. "Oops, we forgot to load the plane. Let's put the luggage on the next flight out." Nope, apparently this solution was too complex for the powers that be. Better solution? "Let's lose the luggage for every flight leaving Boston and going to National, just to see what kind of chaos we can cause." I don't know why I didn't see the logic in this solution, when I was screaming at no-name, and in some cases no-brain, baggage reps.
After 36 hours of frustration, and driving my sister nuts with my constant whining, I returned to National to yell at someone in person. We all know how well that works! However, I didn't get the chance to make a scene and have TSA personnel lock me up, because I was too busy tripping over the 300 suitcases that just showed up out of nowhere. And, lo and behold, one of the lost and found souls was mine.
I was so happy to see my belongings that I cried tears of joy and wanted to hug the people responsible for my misery. Now I'm off to the mountains, for what should be a peaceful and relaxing week on the lake. Mmmm.....
I am currently on vacation in VA. Tomorrow morning my family and I are making the 4-5 hour trek to Smith Mountian Lake. I've been looking forward to this trip for weeks. It's been a rather stressful summer for various reasons, and I haven't had a relaxing break in a year. To make sure that I would be at my sister's in plenty of time for the drive, I decided to fly in yesterday afternoon. I live in Boston. I needed to fly into Washington National (I absolutely refuse to call it Reagan National!!). The flying time is about one hour. The flight is non-stop. I packed EVERYTHING in my suitcase and checked the bag.
Somewhere over the eastern seaboard, the luggage for the entire plane disappeared. When we landed in D.C., and went to carousel 12 to pick up our luggage, the baggage claim attendants told us that our bags had already been unloaded from the plane, placed on the conveyor belt, and, because it took all of us so long to reach the carousel once we disembarked (10 whole minutes), our bags had already been placed in baggage claim.
We're all dumbfounded by this bit of news, since we were standing in baggage claim and there wasn't a single bag to be found. According to the airline (who shall remain nameless, though I really don't know why I'm being this nice), the luggage was placed on our plane in Boston. Further investigation, however, revealed that there was no luggage on the plane when we landed one hour later. Truly a case for Moulder and Scully!
For over 24 hours, said anonymous airline kept telling me that my bag was on its way. "From where," I asked, "the Bermuda Triangle?" Really. Bermuda was a possibility. Turns out that the cart with the flight's luggage was dropped off between our plane and the one next to it, which was bound for Bermuda. All responsible parties (I use the phrase lightly) truly believed that someone (passing stranger? airport luggage fairy?) had unloaded the cart before the flight took off, placing the luggage on the correct plane. Apparently, this wasn't the case. As both flights took off, the cart still loaded with luggage sat on the tarmac.
Now, you'd think that this would be an easy, no-brainer problem to fix. "Oops, we forgot to load the plane. Let's put the luggage on the next flight out." Nope, apparently this solution was too complex for the powers that be. Better solution? "Let's lose the luggage for every flight leaving Boston and going to National, just to see what kind of chaos we can cause." I don't know why I didn't see the logic in this solution, when I was screaming at no-name, and in some cases no-brain, baggage reps.
After 36 hours of frustration, and driving my sister nuts with my constant whining, I returned to National to yell at someone in person. We all know how well that works! However, I didn't get the chance to make a scene and have TSA personnel lock me up, because I was too busy tripping over the 300 suitcases that just showed up out of nowhere. And, lo and behold, one of the lost and found souls was mine.
I was so happy to see my belongings that I cried tears of joy and wanted to hug the people responsible for my misery. Now I'm off to the mountains, for what should be a peaceful and relaxing week on the lake. Mmmm.....