Happens All The Time

I'm just a little sleep-deprived this week, and my 6:45 a.m. flight to Toronto this morning didn't help matters at all. I packed last night, woke up at 4:30 (thanks Memphis, I really didn't need that extra half-hour of sleep AT ALL), and checked in at the LaGuardia at 6. There was a bit of a line at security but no big deal. I got to the gate as my flight was boarding, found my seat, and promptly fell asleep.

After we landed, and as walked off the plane towards Canadian immigration, I had the following thoughts:

"I need to brush my teeth. Where's my toothbrush, again? Oh yeah, in my blue suitcase. Hm, where is that suitcase, again? I don't remember putting it in the overhead bin. Did I check it? No, I definitely didn't check it. Hm. What did I do with it?"

Then it hit me: I left my suitcase AT SECURITY AT LAGUARDIA.

Oh. My. God. It was quite possibly the stupidest thing I've ever done. I am usually pretty good at handling mild-crisis situations (I have yet to blog about last weekend's rental-car-towing experience, but I totally rocked that ordeal). This morning I managed to calmly get myself to the Air Canada bagage inquiry counter and relay my story to the kind (and rather good-looking) gentleman working there. He directed me to the GTAA lost and found. I kept it together as I left the bagage claim area, then I called DLang to report the news. As soon as he answered, I lost my composure and had a minor breakdown at Pearson International Airport.

Eventually I pulled myself together enough to go to lost and found, where a very sweet GTAA employee did everything she could to help me track down the bag. She was unsuccessful, but she gave me a bunch of numbers and I called them back to DLang.

Agent DLang accepted his mission with great gumption, and trekked to LaGuardia this afternoon, where, to my great relief, he successfully recovered my bag (which fortunately had his name and address on the luggage tag). Apparently this happens all the time, and airports have a whole system to handle this situation. (DLang did get the impression that it was good that the bag hadn't yet been moved to the "Operations Room," which I imagine is fully of drug-dogs and detonation devices and burly security agents rifling through peoples' unmentionables.)

I can only hope that my breakfast date will forgive me for standing her up this morning, and that DLang's patience stretches far enough to FedEx me the paperwork (that was in the suitcase - why couldn't it just have been underwear and a toothbrush?) that I'll need to get home next week.