Going back in time a little bit… I feel I must inform you of everything that has happened concerning my luggage. A little recap. You remember when I last saw it? That’s right, green and shinyish, one little sprig of luggage tag, blinding label, yeah, you remember. Ok, and we remember a giant Easter Island head instead of said luggage? Ok good, y’all are doing fine. Ok, so let’s take it from Morning 1 in Munich. Lights, camera, action.
While I was busy taking my jetlagged sanity rest my first morning in Munich, my uncle Claus was in fact on the phone with British Airways trying to find out where my bag was, how long it would take to get here, all that sort of thing. When I finally woke up he had been trying to find help all morning until he finally reached one lady who seemed to actually know what was going on. She was able to punch in any British Airways luggage number and track any piece of luggage from where it had come from, how far it had gone, all that sort of thing. Problem was, there was absolutely no record of my bag. None. Zero. British Airways had never received the bag. As far as they knew, the thing might not exist. However, she promised she’d keep trying.
With slow horror the memory of the United Airlines luggage office seeped back into my brain like a messenger of doom. Why those incompetent little… [edited for content]. Since we were eight hours off the American schedule, I said I’d call my dad later that night and see if he could try and get in contact with United Airlines during his day time.
That’s when we went off into Munich and saw things (see list above).
When we came back home British Airways had not yet discovered anything. I called my dad and he said he’d see what he could do about the United half of it. The next thing I heard from him the following morning while he was on his way to sadhana was that United was convinced that they had most definitely handed the bag over to British Airways. I was less convinced. I must admit I was pretty poorly impressed by both these airlines overall, but given the circumstances, I was taking sides with the English on this one.
Later, as we were out shopping for those essentials (it seemed pretty apparent by now that my bag wasn’t coming tonight), we got a call from a lady in Munich saying she apologized for the inconvenience and assured us that they were doing everything in their power to deal with all this baggage stuff. She also told me that a rather bizarre thing had happened. Ok, you know the luggage tag they stick on your bag when they check it? It has its lovely little identification number and all that? Well it turns out that by freak coincidence, there was a bag in Seattle, still open in the system from a luggage disaster during Christmas travel, that happened to have the exact same tag number. You see what this means? You type in the tracking number for my green, shinyish, pink enhanced bag and some boring black thing shows up in Washington State. She said the chances of two bags open with the same number are like winning the lottery. In fact, she’s not sure it’s ever happened before.
My brain: “Oh give me a break.”
Now keep in mind that the whole thing is complicated by the fact that I’m supposed to be leaving for Italy tomorrow morning.
The following morning, before we go to the train station, we are informed that my bag has been located (well hallelujah). They hope it will be on a flight to Munich arriving around 3:00 pm and then will be forwarded on to Italy. Once I get to the train station and realize that my train ain’t goin’ anywhere anytime soon I call my uncle to inform him that if my bag does arrive, we can work out a way for him to transfer it to me while I’m still in Germany. Later I call him to inform him that I will actually be spending a whole extra night here, but by that evening he still hasn’t heard anything about my bag.
The following morning while Vanya and I are headed back to the train station from the farmhouse, I get a call from my dad, who has still been dealing with the bag information from America. I let him know that they’ve located the bag. He says yeah, they’ve located it, but no one knows where they’ve located it. I point out that this is a paradox and makes no sense. He concurs, it is indeed a paradox and makes no sense, but is in fact the case. Because when you call the airline and ask them what’s going on they say they’ve located the bag. And if you ask them where it has been located, they say the location is unknown. I dunno, if someone can explain that to me then please don’t hesitate to email me with the math.
Anyway, my dad goes on to further explain that the entire Heathrow airport has been shut down because of the wind storms.
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