Luggage

Finally our luggage was packed and we were ready to leave for our well-needed holiday. Frank and I hadn’t been away together since we had been married three years before so we were looking forward to two weeks away at a tropical island paradise in Thailand. We looked at each other and smiled let’s go I said and we both picked up our luggage to take downstairs as we waited for the cab.

Our luggage was as different as we were from each other. Mine was new, lockable and with wheels and even though I traveled frequently for work, without a scratch, it almost looks as new as the day that I bought it. Franks luggage, on the other hand was a backpack with old stickers on it from when he spent two years in Europe with some other struggling students. It looked worn out and barely able to contain his clothes, even though he packs pretty light.

We caught our cab moments later and reached the checkout counter moments before our flight was closed to passengers. With our luggage checked in we boarded our flight and buckled up relieved and excited to be on our way to our looked forward to holiday.
Frank was next to the window and I was next to him, moments before the flight departed the empty aisle seat that was next to me was filled by a gentle older lady who was flustered and had heaps of hand luggage that I helped her stow in the overhead locker.
She thanked me for my help and settled herself in her seat closing her eyes as we took off only opening them once we were safely in the sky. She was breathing a little heavy and I asked her if she was okay.

She told me that she probably needed a little puff from her asthma puffer and I called the hostess now that the fasten seat belts sign had been turned off to get her hand luggage from the locker so that she could access her medicine.

She searched through her hand luggage, a small black bag for her puffer and inhaled three long puffs once she had found it. We again called the hostess who arrived quickly and returned the hand luggage to the storage space overhead.

Satisfied that she was feeling better I put my head back on the headrest and closed my eyes, it had been a hectic few days leading up to our time off and I was feeling exhausted. We had a long flight ahead of us and it was my intention to get some shut eye before they served lunch, I could already hear Frank gently snoring beside me and I was determined to join him in the land of nod.

I was just in that nice space between sleep and awake where I was seeing me sitting on a pristine white beach in a bikini, under a native umbrella with a long, cool tropical drink on a small table beside me. When a poke in my ribs brought me fully awake to the loud buzz of the air conditioning and the face of my elderly neighbor peering into what were now my open eyes.

Are you asleep dear she asked and when I gurgled something she shot out her hand and introduced herself as Gertrude. I weakly shook her hand and she asked me where I was going and before I could answer she told me that she was worried about her luggage and afraid that the airline would lose it.

She kept talking and talking and before I knew it we were landing, Frank was awake and looking very refreshed and we left the plane to retrieve our luggage on the carousel in the arrivals hall of the airport.

We waited and waited for our luggage to come and rotate around to us. We watched every piece of luggage that came down the chute and onto the carousel itself and then we noticed something. Individual clothes started coming out draped over the other luggage. A bra, some panties and as a cute little green sundress was jauntily draped over and orange backpack I stopped laughing and realized that the clothes were mine and panicked.

I nudged Frank and whispered loudly that it was my clothes that were on display on the carousel, that something had happened to my luggage and that we needed to discreetly retrieve them without too much fuss.

For some reason this made Frank laugh louder and he bellowed across the carousel to a man on the other side and asked him to retrieve his wife’s panties that were just about to float by on somebody else’s luggage.

I turned bright red as everyone turned to look at us a caught the panties as the man smilingly grabbed them and tossed them to us. I hid behind Frank as we gathered my under and outerwear and I wondered where my actual bag was.

Our luggage was the last to arrive and mine was open and almost empty with most of my things no in a pile at my feet. I grabbed it and stuffed everything inside hoping that I hadn’t lost anything and anxious to get out of the airport.

I must have drifted off because I woke with a start as the hostesses brought around the lunch trolleys and Gertrude was still talking oblivious to the fact that I had slept through most of the conversation. And I was so relieved that my luggage coming open on the luggage carousel was only a dream.