Tuesday, February 17, 2009

The late baggage

I no longer think I am 3 years old, may be 3 and a half?

Even though you may not be wondering why would anyone be worried about aging at such a young age, (and even if you are not wondering here is the cue) there was a very specific incident that I am unable to take my mind off.

Well, I did a bit of traveling in the last couple of months. Sleepless nights, and sleepy bus travels, and peanuts from chicks on board were part of my daily life. Daytimes and nighttimes were needless details of timezones for I slept whenever I was sleepy and worked whenever I could.

In one specific flight I decided to travel with some extra baggage even though I usually traveled very light. This flight had a stopover at one of the mid west cities (I think I have stopped over all cities in the US by now). The stop over added a boring 4 hours to the entire travel duration and I was getting tired when I finally deplaned. Now, all I had to do was to grab my baggage from the carousal and head home.

The carousal was circular and made of metal plates that slide over one another. Bags are always thrown onto the carousal with the wheels on top. These observations and many more about the people standing around were made by yours truly as I had nothing to do while I was waiting forever to get my bag.

Only after a full 20 mins and after everyone else had left the baggage claim area, I came out of my denial and realized my bag was lost and I had to log a complaint with the airliner company. I talked to the person in charge of lost bags, and he walked up to the carousal to make sure it wasn't there. We walked all the way back to the office and he asked me to fill out a form.

After all this, he suddenly realized that there were some bags that came a couple of hours before and he asked me to check those. It did not make sense to me because how can my bags arrive before I did? But with no expectations I searched through the bags and tada! there it was. Apparently, my bag found an earlier flight from the stop over point.

He then happened to mentions "Sir, your was the first and only bag to arrive early for your flight". I thanked him for this most valuable information that I got after finding my bag.

Suddenly something struck me. No matter how early the bag arrived, I still got it at the last, after everyone else, after going through all the pain of waiting at the carousal and at the baggage claim. It seemed to tell me something about life, maybe there are many things in life that are like this bag, that, no matter how hard I try, how early it comes, how near it is, I will get it only when I am supposed to get it.

I do not usually entertain such "fate" ideas, but it did give me a different perspective. I realized there is no point in crying over something that I do not get, and I should probably not be dissapointed at some wasted effort, and I should not be too adamant on trying to get things "my way".. it might just be too hard to against realities of life. I guess I try my best at getting something and not fret about it if it is fruitless.

I guess more than I finding the bag, the bag arrived before me and was waiting for me, right there, to get picked up. Funny perspective... isnt it?

This is why I think I am getting older.

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