If you travel (and maybe even if you don’t), eventually an airline loses your luggage. For reasons you can’t possibly foresee, or even imagine, sometimes it actually works out for the best.
I’d been hired to speak and sing for a school group (teachers, counselors, administrators) in Alamosa Colorado. The gig was at 8 AM on a Thursday, so I left Kansas City the morning before, on a United flight through Denver, connecting on United Express to Alamosa.
After we landed in Denver I hiked the four miles or so through the airport over to the United Express gates. When I got there, I was informed my flight had been canceled, due to low passenger count. I’d been rebooked on the next flight, at 8 PM, seven hours later.
No big deal, I thought. I have my laptop, I can work in the airport. There’s a good French restaurant I can visit for dinner, and I’ll still get to bed at a decent hour.
When 8 PM approached I hiked the six miles back to United Express. This area is the ugly stepchild of the airport. It’s a long, narrow hallway with a hundred little gates, no food, and very little seating. You exit the gate directly onto the tarmac and board the plane via an outdoor stair ramp, just like in the old days before jetways.
I was shocked — shocked! — to learn my second flight had been canceled, due to low passenger count. (Why was nobody flying this airline?) The next flight to Alamosa was not till 9 AM the next day. I asked the gate agent how I was supposed to get there in time for my 8 AM gig. She told me — and I swear this is true — they had booked me on a night flight to Farmington that would detour through Alamosa to let me off. This strained all credulity, and I pressed her several times to make sure she wasn’t making it up. I even asked the pilot. Turns out she was telling the truth.
I stood there at the doorway watching the baggage being loaded for my plane, wondering if I would need a parachute to get off at Alamosa, or if they would actually land on the ground. From the window I could see the plane, the pilot, and the baggage loaders with their carts. What I did not see was any of my luggage. My guitar travels in a large, white, ultra-strong, specially made case that baggage handlers have yet to destroy. It’s sturdy, and my guitar is relatively safe inside it. Being white, it’s easily identifiable, even from a distance.
It was nowhere in sight.
I let the United Express gate agent know about this, and she assured me my gear was on the plane. I asked how she could be certain, and she said because it had to be. This is like saying the world has to be flat because it looks like it. I had to see for myself. I insisted. She resisted. I persisted. Finally she let me out onto the tarmac and I quizzed the baggage handlers (who were nice guys) about my large white guitar case and black suitcase. They had not seen anything like them, and they definitely were not on the plane.
Rushing back to the gate in a heightened state of tension, I asked the gate agent to please find my luggage. She frowned and replied there was nothing she could do. I suggested she could surely, at the very least, check with United to find out if my bags had ever arrived from KC. For some reason this extra bit of work in the form of one phone call annoyed her, and she refused to do it.
But a traveler whose back is against the wall. whose valuable and dearly beloved guitar has disappeared, is a desperate, determined person. I was undeterrable. Finally she agreed to make the call. My luggage had, in fact landed in Denver with me, several hours ago. But they couldn’t exactly say where it was at the current moment.
By now my plane to Farmington (with an unscheduled stop in Alamosa) was boarding. The pilot told me they were leaving, and I had to either get on, or say bye bye.
With only a minute to decide, I discerned that arriving in Alamosa without my clothes and guitar would be embarrassing, not to mention pointless. I told the pilot I was staying. I had to find out what happened to my stuff.
So the search began.
I hiked the ten miles back up to the civilized part of the airport and found the United counter. The people there were friendly, understood the problem, agreed my baggage had to be there somewhere, and they would find it. They sent out a three member search party, equipped with detailed instructions, flashlights, walkie-talkies, and what looked like survival gear. After an hour, they came back empty handed. No luck.
But it had to be somewhere! They sent out another search party. Different people this time. Maybe with better eyeglasses. Down into the bowels of the airport. But the result was the same. No luggage.
They were apologetic. They were certain my luggage was somewhere in the airport. They suspected it was locked up in storage someplace, and would definitely be found in the morning. They would make sure it was on the first plane to Alamosa.
This, of course, was no help whatsoever. I told them my gig started an hour before the first flight even left Denver. They were sorry, and they meant it, but there was nothing more they could do.
At this point, all seemed lost. It was midnight, I’d been stuck in Denver for 12 hours, and my guitar was somewhere in Neverland. Possibly Peter Pan and Tinkerbell were playing it. My gig started in a mere 8 hours.
My client had booked me into a hotel in Alamosa, so I called the hotel. A pleasant young woman answered. Yes, she had my reservation. No, nobody had asked about me. Not even the people who were supposed to pick me up at the Alamosa airport many hours ago. That felt weird.
I let that go for the moment, and explained that I was the speaker/musician booked for the meeting the next morning. Yes, she saw that meeting on the next day’s schedule. I told her I was stuck in Denver, the airlines had lost my guitar, and there was no way I could do the gig without it.
“So if you had a guitar you could do the gig?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said. “but there’s no way to get one by then.”
“My boyfriend will lend you his guitar,” she said.
“That’s very kind, but you don’t understand. I need a good guitar to put on this kind of show.”
“He has a good one. He’s a professional musician.”
“But he won’t want to lend it to a complete stranger. He doesn’t know me from Adam.”
“Oh, he’ll lend it to you.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I’ll tell him to.”
“He’ll do it because you tell him to?”
“Yes.”
“You’re kidding.”
“No.”
“He must really like you.”
“He does.”
“Maybe you should call him first and ask.”
“I can’t reach him now, but I’ll call him in the morning. He’ll bring his guitar by 8 AM.”
“Because you tell him to.”
“Yes.”
“And you’re sure you want to do this?”
“You’re a musician. My boyfriend’s a musician. We have to stick together.”
How could I say no to such generosity? I had no choice but to believe her.
Incredibly, the car rental counter was still open at midnight. I rented a car and drove to Alamosa. Five hours later, at 5:30 AM, I stumbled into the hotel lobby. The same lovely girl was still on duty. She gave me a big smile, a room key, a bag of toiletries, and said she’d arranged a wake-up call for 7 AM.
“Have a nice nap!” she said.
I slept for an hour, got up, showered, and shaved with the razor she’d given me. (Travel Tip: When one normally shaves with an electric shaver, one’s face isn’t used to a blade, and one’s skin cuts easily — like a steak knife through tofu.) I nicked my face in four places. I stuck toilet paper on it to staunch the bleeding.
It was August. I was traveling in shorts, a t-shirt, socks, and tennis shoes. (Travel Tip: Never do that.) All I had to wear were those same dirty, grubby clothes. This is gonna be great, I thought.
Sure enough, she and her boyfriend were in the lobby waiting for me, with a good guitar in a nice case. Her boyfriend seemed not at all worried about his instrument, and they told me to leave it at the desk when I was finished. So trusting.
I picked up the guitar and found the meeting room. A hundred or so school professionals were milling around, chatting, drinking coffee. The people who had hired me introduced themselves, as if nothing was remotely strange about me not having arrived on my appointed flight the day before, and showing up this morning with cuts all over my face, dressed like a yard worker.
I explained everything that had happened. They were amazed and delighted. Amazed at what I’d been through to get there, and delighted I even showed up. So far so good, I thought.
But the sound system I had requested was not there. Instead, all they had was a cheap microphone on a podium. You can’t play a guitar behind a podium because it blocks the view, it blocks the sound, and you’d have to have a neck like a giraffe to even reach the mic. I explained this, and they quickly came up with a plan to get a real sound system. Evidently somebody had one at home.
While we waited for that to appear, I chatted with folks and got a feel for the group. They all seemed to be in a good mood and ready for some fun. I wonder if this might actually work out, I thought.
The sound system arrived, they set it up, I plugged in, and it worked fine. We began the program an hour late, with me looking like a refugee from Camp Learn-To-Shave.
It turned out to be one of the most enjoyable gigs I’ve done. I played some appropriate songs, and wove my story of the past 24 hours into the show. It fit right into my message that we can’t control everything, stuff happens, so we have to make the best of it and try to have fun anyway. I was living proof of the point, plus they all thought it was funny, so it worked out well.
Toward the end of the program, I let the audience know I had to make my noon flight from Alamosa back to KC. I couldn’t miss it because I had a performance there the next day. So someone was needed to drive the car back to Denver for me and turn it in. Amazingly, three people — three! — volunteered.
Other helpful folks drove me to the tiny Alamosa airport just in time to see the plane land that would take me to Denver. I watched it taxi to a stop on the tarmac. As they unloaded the baggage, my beautiful white guitar case, along with my suitcase, emerged from the belly of the plane. I grabbed the gate agent (a nice one this time) and let her know it was my late luggage arriving. I asked her to please tag it quickly so I could get it on the plane home with me. She was happy to do it.
I watched them load it onto the plane, just to make sure. I wasn’t taking any chances.
I slept all the way to Denver, walked the fifteen miles back to the good part of the airport to change planes, then slept all the way to KC.
When I got to the baggage claim In Kansas City, my guitar and suitcase were…..missing.
They’d lost them again.
Postscript:
- United delivered my bags later that night, in time for the gig in KC. They blamed the lost luggage on United Express.
- I wrote a letter to the hotel management prasing their night clerk, and suggested she was excellent management material.
- I avoid United Express whenever possible.
© 2010 Greg Tamblyn
