Imagine you are at an airport waiting at the baggage carousel pickup. You breathe a sigh of relief when you retrieve your last checked bag. “Yes. Everything made it,” you think to yourself. To your horror, you hear, “Where’s Owen’s bag?”
Owen is my eight-year-old son (at the time of writing). We arrived in Atlanta after a summer vacation to Wyoming, visiting Yellowstone National Park. Atlanta is the world’s busiest airport, and it is expansive. It takes a fast person at least 20 minutes to debark the airplane, wind down the terminal, catch the transit train, ride what must be the world’s longest escalator, and arrive at baggage claim. We are a family of four with two little kids, so we arrived at baggage claim 40 minutes after landing.
We left Owen’s bag on the airplane in the overhead bin.
Owen has a miniature luggage bag with a handle and wheels decorated with Captain America. It has mesh netting on the side where he keeps his favorite stuffed monkey. It’s one of those bags that makes you say “Aww” when you see kids walking, pulling the bag behind them. The bag was gone, along with stuffed animals, pajamas, shoes, and his favorite clothes.
What do you do? Next to us was the Baggage Help Desk, which seemed like a reasonable place to start. The person behind the desk seemed shocked. “I have never heard of this happening before!” she said. ‘Never,’ I thought. The bag was gone, I was sure. I looked dejected, and my son could tell. “Can I go back to the airplane and look for the bag?” I suggested. She consulted with her colleagues and came up with a plan. “Here’s a pass to get you through security without having an airline ticket. Your plane landed at Gate A6. That was an hour ago, and the plane may have left for its next destination – no one is answering the phone at the gate desk. Run! Good luck!”
Run. I was not at the starting line of a local 5K, but the intensity and nerves were the same.
I darted from for the security check-in, leaving my wife and kids with a glimpse of hope. A crowd packed the security lines –this is the world’s busiest airport. I pleaded with an attendant, and she fast-tracked through security. Success, but I still had more than halfway to go, and the last half of a race is always the hardest.
I arrived at Termina A and ran for the Gate A6. Our plane had landed over an hour ago, and the chance it was still at the gate was slipping away. I was running at a steady marathon pace – too many people and too much weaving required for much faster. Physically, I felt great.
“There, that’s my bag! That’s my son’s bag.” The flight attendant had let the last passenger on the plane and was closing the boarding door. He wheeled around, smiled wide, and “We found it on the plane while changing over for this flight. I was hoping someone would come back.” I thanked the man, took a selfie with the bag, and sent my wife and Owen the picture. The race was over. The starting line appeared from nowhere, but I was ready. No medal at the finish line. Only the happy smile of an 8-year-old boy.
George Parker 