Things to Do When You Lose a Suitcase: A List
1. Wait for a very long time at baggage claim, thinking your missing suitcase will eventually emerge. Maybe it’s still on the tarmac and someone will finally load it onto the conveyor belt and out it will pop, hooray, hooray! Maybe it’s forgotten on the plane. Maybe it’s on the next flight. Someone will find it. Someone has to. Right? How can a suitcase just disappear? Why is everyone so incompetent?
2. Think about everything in the suitcase that you really don’t want to be without. Think about what you’ll do if you are, permanently. Cry.
3. Call the airline and complain. Call many times. Talk to someone at a call center who doesn’t seem to care at all about your missing bag. Their stuff isn’t missing. Tell them things would be different if they knew how it felt. Initiate a claim. Make more calls.
4. Feel untold frustration. Scream into the air, if that helps. It does, a little. Keep calling. Yell at someone you love. Feel guilty about that. They didn’t lose your stuff.
5. Wait some more. Buy new things, because you need what you need. Borrow a pair of shoes from a traveling companion, if you are still traveling. Steal a shirt someone left on a park bench. (Does that count as stealing?) Make do. Feel a little more OK with knowing you may never get your things back, that impermanence is a part of life, nothing is forever.
6. Scream again.
7. Maybe, just maybe, get a reimbursement for what you had to buy to replace what was in your bag.
8. Realize that some things are simply irreplaceable.
9. Vow to travel lighter in the future.
10. Move on, but don’t forget. Tell your story of loss to anyone who ever talks about flying anywhere.
11. Don’t check. Carry on.