Flying South

I am still waiting for my underwear. It is somewhere, probably in the belly of DFW, missing me. Of course, it is more than the “unmentionables” that have gone astray. Khaikis, shirts – a particular favorite madras one – a camera, pills that I stashed at the last minute, and a bottle of some cologne that was no more than three ounces. You know how it is with TSA.

I hadn’t intended on checking luggage. I am cheap.

However, the plane from Chicago to DFW was miserably small and the overhead would not accommodate my “Fruits of the loom.” So, despite my better judgement – knowing that the departing flight was almost an hour late in leaving O’Hare and I had only an hour layover in Dallas with a departure from a different terminal than the arrival – I checked luggage. I had no other choice.

The gate attendant suggested “repacking” to make the Briggs & Riley accommodate the unders without the expansion option. Give me a break! It is embarrassing enough that the TSA looks at my stuff on a screen as the bag meanders slowly by an inquiring eye. I refuse to air my “linens and things” among the masses at the gate.

I have not mastered the Rick Steves packing method.

I am a miserable assembler of my clothes. Nor have I mastered the “wash, air dry, and go while traveling Northern Italy” habit. I have even been guilty of taking dirty things home to wash when I was in college. My mom could not understand why I owned 250 pairs of underwear at the end of freshman year. “Mom, I just don’t enjoy doing laundry.”

So, I arrived in a hot and humid Birmingham while my luggage remained in an even hotter part of Texas or on some plane going otherwise.

The airline has given me a code in order to track where my underwear is.

I don’t know why I needed a code. I would think “JB’s personal stuff” would suffice. But no, I have THAGHS. It is close to “things” but not quite there. Just as my luggage is not quite here.

It would have been comforting had the code been "in the top drawer on the left." At least that way I could feel some progress toward a solution. Could THAGHS be an acronym for "This harks of a great horror story?"

Years ago, the same airline lost my luggage and when it arrived it was in a cardboard box with two additional nametags enclosed: a doctor from Wilmette, and a lady from Merced, CA. I have no idea what happened that caused this kind of marriage between my “things” and the luggage of two strangers in the air. It almost as if there is another parameter of existence called “Luggage world.” A place of mad partying and cavorting on carousels and ramps. Calvins mixing it up with “cross your heart bras.” Just imagine what the toiletries are doing. Heavens!

So, maybe before I leave the provinces, my “things” will wend their way back to my care.

I would hate it if my stuff wound up in Guatemala. Not that there is anything wrong with Guatemala.