Baggage Claim by C. D. Tolliver

Baggage claim. The continuing nightmare. They’ve lost my luggage on every flight since I was 8 years old. But I was late and I’d had to check my carry-on bag. No room in the overhead bins and the only seat was at the emergency exit. Still, it was only a 30-minute flight. What could go wrong, right?

Two hours later, we finally took off. But now thunderstorms rage on our flight path. We’ll have to fly around. The turbulence is so bad they won’t serve drinks. It’s supposed to be a 30-minute flight, but the tornado says otherwise. Was that a hailstone or a bowling ball? The pilots are somehow keeping us airborne. It feels like one of those rides, “Plunge to your Death” or “Through the Mountains of Madness”.

I see the undulating cloud of puke before it hits me. The woman with the five kids is apologetic. Her oldest offers me clean cloths. We’ve passed the storm and I can make my way to the toilet to change, others making way for the man covered in puke.

Dressed in the kid’s clothes, I get to deplane and go to claim my single bag. The flight through Hell has taken three hours, not counting tarmac time. Finally, the light announcing baggage arrival starts to blink. Bag after bag drops down the shoot. All but mine, claimed by whatever gremlins waylay luggage. I dully report it and am told it’ll probably arrive on the next flight. I wait.

After two more hours, I hear my name over the intercom. At the office a preternaturally cheerful chipmunk says, “We’ve found your luggage.” And points to the pile of bags. “But I only had . . .,” I start, and am immobilized in amazement. That bag has a Braniff sticker, and the next, TWA, and the next Pan Am. They’ve found all my luggage, not the one bag I was expecting, but every other bag that had gone missing since my first flight. Fifty-five years of missing luggage.