I always thought it must be an awful experience when an airline loses your bag, especially a bag with your most personal and expensive belongings, including any special souvenirs you purchased during your trip. I’d never had that problem; an airline has never lost my luggage—I lost it myself.
First of all, I don’t know how it happened to me, how I lost sight of it, but here’s the story.
One time, while returning home to the US from a year-long trip in Spain, I was carrying more baggage than my hands and arms could handle. My boyfriend, brother, and a friend were helping out — one bag each — and all I had to do was hold my carry-on and my purse. I had one job…
We took the train to the airport that morning — a train specially designed for airport trips where there is a lot of space for luggage. We all sat together and kept our bags close. All the conversations and jokes, and the anxiety of flying, kept me distracted — perhaps more than I would’ve wanted. And thirty minutes later, we got to our final destination, and bags in hands, we set off to our gate.
“How many bags are you checking in?” asked the agent behind the desk. We started counting bags and I noticed that something was missing: “My carry-on!”
I panicked. I was frantic.
From the train tracks to the ticketing zone, it was a long walk. Besides, it’d already been over 20 minutes since I made it to the gate, which meant that if I left the bag on the train, there was a chance somebody had already taken it. Not necessarily stolen it, but perhaps taken it to lost and found. I hoped it was the case. After all the terrorism cases worldwide, we all doubted anybody would want to touch an unidentified bag on a train or anywhere else at the airport.
I didn’t have much time to go back and search, so my brother, who wouldn’t be flying with me, did the search. He retraced our steps, but came back with nothing. I wasn’t sure if it was worth it to change my flight and look for my bag. I mean,my life was in it: laptop (with all my years of writing), everyone’s souvenirs, my jewelry (this was stupid), my makeup that I loved, my privacy… But we were running out of time and I had to choose between my bag or my flight.
It’d been too long. I was dying to see my family — dying. It would be a tough decision either way. So I chose to leave the bag behind and leave my brother in charge.
Well, needless to say it was one of the most depressing flights I’ve taken to this date. I literally cried the entire way home. I’ll never forget it.
Seeing and hugging my family made things a bit better, though, and guess what? About two days later my friend told me they found the bag! She sent me a picture of the moment she got it and it was like finding a long lost child. Ha ha! The greatest feeling of joy ever. I was beyond relieved.
But, what hell did we go through to locate it?
Well, after a few unsuccessful back-and-forth messaging with the staff at Barajas Airport (from my friend and I), she took the matters into her own hands. She knew someone who worked at Barajas and, with her friend’s help, she was able to trace it faster. The bag was found near to the train platform. So, my guess is that maybe I stopped to readjust the other bags in my hands and then I forgot to grab the carry-on. And, none of us noticed my stupidity because everyone was rushing.
Lucky for me everything in the bag was intact when I received it (a few weeks later).
It was a stressful time and not how I wanted to end my amazing trip to Spain, but I was lucky it was found. Also, it taught me to back up all my work all the time now. Duh!
Common sense advice and moral of the story: never lose sight of your belongings!
