Friday, June 18, 2010

What's in Your Luggage?

6/15/10

Goodbye old friend

Travel entails risks. We all are aware of that, but the risks we actually encounter may not be the ones we spend billions to reduce. The resources devoted to examining luggage is extraordinary. There are thousands of denials of any unknown persons touching our luggage, inspectors, stickers, waiting lines, x-ray and imagining machines, dogs, and who knows what else all designed to detect contraband. Yet we have little knowledge of what happens to our luggage once its disappears on that conveyor belt into the black hole of securityville. What is vomited up at your destination may not be what went in at your departure.

On a trip to Africa, Mary found a different pair of shoes in her luggage. She was very concerned about the woman who owned the shoes, until she realized her shoes were also missing. Wrong size of course, too small to be of any use. We laughed about the games being played behind the scenes by luggage inspectors with other people's clothes .

On this trip to Turkey, Mary opened her luggage to find a filthy woman's camisole and underpants, probably used to clean the floor or whatever. A couple of days later, she discovered her cell phone was missing.

We drew the only logical explaination to these international travel events. Mary's luggage was cursed. So we did what any other rational person would do, we threw it in the garbage.

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