My Mom's Luggage Horror Stories
This time she arrived at LAX from her Continental flight, happy and chipper because her savage cat didn't attack everyone on board the plane and bite them, as it does us whenever we visit Grandma. Then her bag arrived, identified by the strap she always puts around it and the colored ribbon that she ties to the handle. This was unusual in itself, because her bag often doesn't arrive for days and days after she flies, as it prefers to take a scenic route that frequently includes overseas visits.
But her bag did arrive on time last week, only when she got to it she found that a corner of it had been torn open and mangled, either by machinery or by a security screener who saw the full moon and became a werewolf. As she stood shaking her head and gaping at the damage, a woman walked up to her and handed my mother her shoes, which had been liberated from the bag and were flying solo. Another woman walked up and handed over my mother's prized box of powder.
The airline forked over a new bag on the spot and offered to reimburse her for lost items. They should have saved themselves the trouble and just sent the bag off to Bombay, or Zanzibar, because surely that's where it will wind up the next time my mother flies.
Be careful out there, and if a woman sits down next to you on a flight with a purring Siamese cat in her carry-on, be afraid. Be very afraid.