... ..it is not this ....July 2, 2007   For the second flight in a row, I am standing alone beside a baggage carousel watching forlorn, unfamiliar pieces of luggage appear and disappear behind hanging strips of black rubber.  I had thought I despised my fellow passengers whose hacks and snorts and sneezes made me long for a wire brush and a tub of Purell.  But now that they're gone, having claimed their bags and left the airport, I miss them.  If those bumbling Typhoid Marys were still here, it would mean that my suitcase might yet materialize from behind the rubber curtain. The clothes I'm wearing are sour and moist, my eyes are gritty.  I am tired and I would gladly trade either testicle for my Dopp kit.  I contemplate this exchange as I trudge empty-handed toward the Customer Service counter.  More than two hours have passed since I deplaned and already the trail has likely grown cold.  I want a customer representative who combines the sympathetic attentiveness of Florence Nightingale with the clever determination of Woodward and Bernstein.  Instead, I draw an adenoidal dullard whose secret ambition is to work at the DMV.  She has a cold and her blank expression suggests bovine ancestry.  I could swear she is chewing cud as I recount the horrors of my journey and the missing luggage.  I wonder aloud how this could happen twice and with non-stop flights.  The Customer Service Representative shrugs, pushes a form across the counter, and says, "It is what it is." I am seized with an urge to spike her neti pot with Zyklon-B. "It is what it is? Is that how you have it figured?  Is this the Zen of Samsonite?  Are you shitting me?" "Sir, please lower your voice and step away from the counter.  I'm simply telling you that there's nothing we can do right now except fill out the claim form and wait.  It is what it is." I lower my shriek to a hoarse whisper. "Ma'am, this is not what it is.  It is not this.  It's something else.  It must be."  previous..|..current..|..archives..|..3d quarter index..|..next

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