If you’ve never been to Tasmania, I recommend you go there. They have wombats.
Of course Tasmania has many other drawcards, and I thoroughly enjoyed my holiday there earlier this year, but my sole KPI for the trip was seeing a live wombat in its natural habitat. And I did. It was awesome. Yay!
The less awesome thing about my trip was arriving home in Brisbane to find that my luggage hadn’t made it back. The gentleman at the baggage counter took my details and assured me that my luggage would be couriered to me later that evening. Luckily I was staying in Brisbane that night, so the luggage didn’t have as far to travel as it would have if I’d been returning to my own digs in the country.
It didn’t arrive that night though, so I was on the phone to the airline the following morning. I sat on hold for an hour and twenty-six minutes before anyone answered. I explained the situation to the lady who assured me that my bag would be delivered that day.
‘Great,’ I say. Then, wondering how long I might have to hang around waiting for my delivery, I ask, ‘So where is it now?’
‘I don’t know,’ she replies.
Confused, I say, ‘You don’t know?’
‘I don’t have that information on my system,’ she says.
‘So, if you don’t know where it is,’ I say, ‘how can you be sure that it will be delivered today?’
‘That’s just what happens,’ she says. ‘You know, for further updates on the status of your query you can go to our website and type in your reference number.’
I’d already done that. I had hoped talking to a person might yield some further insights.
You, dear reader, have probably guessed that I am now on a new journey. Not the fun kind where one sees wombats, but the torturous kind where an airline has no idea where your luggage has gone but won’t admit it.
After three days, I contact the airline again to ask if I can be reimbursed for the clothes I have had to buy while I hang around in Brisbane. Nope. Even though I’m not in my home, Brisbane is considered my home port so too bad, so sad.
Another three days pass before I steel myself for another encounter with “Baggage Services”, which at this point I am convinced is a misnomer. This time, instead of calling, I test the texting option and I’m asked to supply more details about my bag – because the fact that it is bright orange is apparently not enough. They want a list of the contents as well. It’s in my best interest to be helpful so I try to highlight items that set my bag apart from the other hundreds of bags that this airline potentially has.
Among other things, my luggage contained “a cooler bag with HUMAN ORGAN FOR TRANSLPLANT emblazoned on it; as well as a small, red, hardback book with the title F*cking Apostrophes embossed on the front in gold lettering”. I half expected to get a text asking if I was serious, but I didn’t. I confess that I secretly hoped that curiosity might prompt them to put in a bit more effort to find my bag – just to see if I was for real.
I won’t bore you with the agony of the next ten days, but finally – after eighteen days in total – I got the phone call I’d been waiting for. My bag had been found in Melbourne! The airline baggage tag had somehow become detached and, since I didn’t have my own nametag attached, my blisteringly orange bag had been unidentifiable. Lesson learned … not only does my suitcase now have a nametag on it, but I’ve also scrawled my mobile number on it in permanent marker!
Ideally though, I think I’ll ditch checked-in luggage and only go places where I can get away with carry-on. I thought my first challenge would be school camp this year – five days in Canberra in winter. COVID has put paid to that and probably just as well. Carry-on baggage probably wouldn’t be enough for the supply of jelly snakes I’d need to get me through a week with sixty kids.