Fly By Night

I travel a good amount, and whenever I get on an airplane, I don’t worry so much about mechanical malfunctions or terrorism or, for that matter, whether there will be meal and whether it will be edible. No, mostly I worry about whether my luggage will arrive with me. And now my anxiety is further fueled by this new report that 30 million bags were lost by the airlines last year — and worse, of those, 200,000 were never found.

First, a moment of silence for those shoes, dresses, toiletries on a one-way trip to nowhere.

Now I have issues as it is with trying to stuff my carry-on luggage with everything that could possibly reasonably be defined as essential. Many a time have I been chastised at check-in about having one too many personal items (yes, I can fit my handbag in my carry-on, thanks, if I really had to and really crammed it in there…). But who can blame me? You can’t check your laptop. You can’t check your underwear or your La Mer or your toiletries or your jewelry. And you definitely can’t check any of your Pradas or Manolos. All essentials, I tell you!

So you can understand how I end up with a 50-lb. carry-on. And it’s all because I’ve learned my lesson the hard way. I think every time I flew Alitalia they misplaced my luggage. But luckily it was always on the way back from Milan, so my fashion week wardrobe was never disrupted. Okay, so my late arrival at the airport and lack of Italian colloquialisms beyond “Dov’e Prada” probably played a role, but still. I was rather put out by it all!

And that’s not even my worst lost-luggage story. There was the time a couple of years ago when, still groggy from getting no sleep the night before (packing of course), I dragged my sorry self to JFK to get on a flight to L.A. for the Grammys. So many mistakes were made that fateful morning: (1) I put my Grammy outfit in my checked luggage. (2) Really, is there any other mistake to list? (3) Oh wait, I didn’t notice that the United staffer checked me into a flight to San Francisco instead of L.A.

I didn’t realize that my boarding pass said SFO until I was already beyond security, so I had to run back (heavy carry-on in tow) to the counter, and of course by then my checked luggage was long gone. I’ll admit it. I freaked. There wasn’t much time left before departure, so the guy re-checked me into the correct flight and swore he’d run down to the luggage area and replace the tags himself. . . if it was still there. Sure, he was being honest, but it sounded menacing all the same. And I couldn’t stand and wait for him to come back; I had a flight to catch.

Needless to say, it was the worst six or seven hours of my life. The entire flight was spent with my stomach in knots, wondering if I would ever, ever see my clothes again. Whether I’d have to wear the same outfit every day that week. Whether I had actually put a luggage tag on my bag…

Thank God my suitcase did show up at LAX. But my nerves barely survived that scare. Never again, I told myself. Never again. I know other frequent travelers who swear by FedExing their bags ahead of time. But did I ever tell you the story of how FedEx lost my cousin’s engagement ring…? (Apparently, transport foolishness runs in the family.)

      
      

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 22nd, 2006 at 1:01 am and is filed under Fashion, Miscellany. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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