Thursday, March 30, 2006

The Case of the Missing Luggage

I had a nice phone call about an hour ago from my hubby's sweet secretary. Seems they found my missing piece of luggage and it would be delivered in 15 minutes. Ohhhh I was happy! And lo and behold my doorbell rang and there was my orange baby, looking no worse for wear.

"Thank you so much" I said to the delivery guy as he ran down the stairs.
I rolled the luggage into my room, looking forward to unpacking it.

BUT.....
(can you guess what happened?)

Someone......... somewhere.... has broken the lock off my bag and replaced it with a combination lock! I cannot open my bag... I want to scream at someone. So I call the airport lost and found guy who speaks minimal English and I control my need to rant.

"Hello. You delivered my missing luggage today and thank you for that, but someone has broken off my lock and put on a lovely new combination lock. I can't open my bag. Can you give me the combination for the lock?" (I know it's quite pointless to ask but I do.)
"Madam please call the Austrian Airlines office and report the damage. Someone was probably suspicious of the contents and the customs office in Vienna required it to be opened."
(Yeah right)
"Arggg... yes okay I will."

I searched through all sorts of papers to find the phone number and I called but no one answered. Of course, I called at 4:01 and they close at 4. I am doomed.

This is the same airline that completely broke my extendible handle off last years brand new Samsonite. (I must give them credit because they did fix it for me without charge-how nice of them).

So here I sit, staring at my bag, wondering what is missing from inside?

7 comments:

ITS said...

Ok, it's terrible... but it's also funny as hell. I never heard of such incident before.

Also, I never lock my luggage. In the US you are not allowed to do so anyways, and what's the point, if they are going to break in if they need to...

Keep us posted on the developements.

Also try 000 for combination, and 666, and 123, ... who knows...

Ms Mac said...

Oh wow! How considerate of them to put on a new lock for you though. I never lock my suitcase because once a check-in chick told me that if anyone wanted to get into the suitcase they would simply stick a ballpoint pen through the zip ans ruin it completely.

Now of course I am completely paranoid that someone tampers with my stuff. It seems it doesn't matter what we do to protect ourselves there's always someone who will mess it up!

Hmmm.... that's a bit of a negative comment for the first time, isn't it? Suddenly I am the harbinger of doom!

Hope your case is full of everything you packed!

christina said...

Oh wow, we've never had that happen. We have combination locks on all our luggage and nobody's ever broken them off, thank goodness. I can't believe they put a whole new lock on it though! That's just nuts and how totally inconvenient for you.

Ginnie Hart said...

What a bummer!ITS is right--here in the States we don't lock our luggage. If they inspect it, they insert a piece of paper that says they've done so. I'm sure you'll let us know the outcome!

Unknown said...

wire cutters! Where are the tools...

Let us know when you get it undone...

Kim/Thomas said...

damn airlines!!!
Glad you have the luggage back, bet you wish you had some dynamite right about now huh? ;)
kim:)

EuroTrippen said...

ugh, lufthansa has lost our luggage three time now... and each time it comes back ransacked.