Green Bag Takes a Powder

22 December 2023

Well, folks, if you’ve been following my journey, you know the bane of my existence has been that blasted heavy black bag. My giant green bag is both too big and too heavy for me, but at least I can strap the green bag to my back and power through like a turtle carting all of her belongings on her back. But with space on my back spoken for, black bag doesn’t really have anywhere to comfortably fit. It’s too bulky to wear on my chest, so it usually gets shuffled from one arm to the other whenever I’m roaming.

I frequently question myself how much I truly need its contents and whether I can ditch it entirely. Among the residents of black bag are my scuba mask, snorkel, and my extra pair of shoes, none of which are heavy, just taking up space. Even my laptop, which lives in black bag when it’s not in a day pack or open on my lap, is a magnificently light model. Attributing to the heft of black bag are my beloved notebooks. They contain my notes from various life coachings and advice on publishing my book when I finally finish it. They contain jotted reminders to myself about thoughts I want to develop for both my book and my blog. They contain my most personal, private, intimate thoughts. Maybe archaic and problematic to lug around, especially when I have a much lighter laptop, but there is something about writing long-hand, even in my childishly sloppy print, that more effectively connects me to my thoughts.

Long-winded way of explaining why black bag is heavy, unwieldy, and yet indispensable. Nevertheless, if you’ve been with me since the beginning, you’ve heard me threaten its longevity on this venture since early days of dragging it all over Europe.

So imagine my dismay when it was not black bag but green bag, containing every stitch of my clothing and all of my toiletries, to come up missing.

It was my own fault. I enjoyed the perks of the VIP lounge accompanying my United Airlines black credit card just a nip (or four) too much and missed my connecting flight out of Singapore. That story will not be on my blog. That story will be in my next book about depression, anxiety, and suicide. It is forthcoming. Right after the book about how religion traumatized me.

United Airlines was good enough to get me on the entire domino line of connecting flights for the very next day, all the same flights, just one day later. But my bag went on ahead to San Francisco without me. Not a major concern, really, because I’d still connect in San Francisco and be able to retrieve my bag from wherever they store unclaimed luggage.

Except when I got to San Francisco a day late and with a tight connection, United Airlines personnel told me that the bag showed in their system as still in Singapore. In deference to limited time to make my connecting flight, especially in the midst of holiday traffic, with overfull flights and little likelihood of being able to secure a different flight if I lost my seat, they urged me to go catch my flight and file a claim for a lost bag once I reached my final destination of Medellin.

Not missing another flight during holiday season, check. So off I scurried to my gate. Where my flight was delayed. But of course by now I couldn’t conveniently go back to further investigate my bag’s whereabouts without necessitating coming through security a second time. And we all know what a crap shoot that can be. My first time through, edgily watching the clock when my flight was still on time, I heard the TSA agent in the line next to mine tell passengers to leave everything in their bags, electronics included. This was new, but yay! One less delay. Except the TSA agent in my line insisted everyone must remove electronics and toiletries. Losing end of that particular crap shoot and not in a hurry to play again.

Why I did not think to pack just a little smarter, knowing my plans had me in the air and in airports for about 48 hours even before I missed my flight and cost myself an extra 24 hours, is a bit of a hazy mystery. When I used to travel for work, I kept a spare pair of underwear in my equipment bag, for hell’s sake. But not this time. I did think to grab my hairbrush and little shower kit out of green bag to put in my carry-on. But that was it. No change of clothes or even underwear. For 72 hours. Disgusting.

Especially coming through the Cancun airport. By now it is 23 December, and the place is a zoo. And while I booked the entire journey through United Airlines, they were only my carrier for two of my four flights. The other two they punted to other carriers where they did not provide service. None of this is a problem, of course.Except by the time I got to the right terminal in Cancun, I found myself in a terminal where all of the A gates were on one side of the extensive mall of the Duty Free shops, and the B gates were on the opposite side. When I say extensive mall of the Duty Free, I mean extensive. Every international airport has a Duty Free shop or two. Cancun has a mall of Duty Free. The shops take up more space than. the actual gates in the terminal. And this mall of Duty Free is located, oh so inconveniently, between the two wings of gates.

Complicating matters, the announcement boards not only did not display my flight, I couldn’t even find my airline. Anywhere. I walked back and forth through that cursed mall no fewer than five times, dragging cursed black bag along for the ride (at least now it had a home on my back). Because Avianca, the entire airline, wasn’t displayed on the A gates boards, so I went to the B gates. Only it wasn’t there either. So I went back to the A gates. As my flight time approached and I still could not find my flight on the announcement boards, I began frantically asking everyone, from gate attendants to shop attendants to janitors to the attendants guarding entry to the VIP lounges… oh, and my United Airlines black card held no power in Cancun. No VIP lounge for me, though I could buy my way in for about 23 bucks if I really wanted to, which I didn’t, because I couldn’t figure out where my cursed flight was going to board.

The answer I kept getting from everyone I asked was to check the boards. As though I had not been frantically doing this for well over an hour.

I finally posted up in the B wing under an announcement board and intently watched, along with a throng of other stressed-out travelers, while the board grudgingly offered up one new flight every 15 to 20 minutes.

25 minutes before my flight’s designated departure time the board finally spat up my gate… in the A wing. No, the flight is not delayed, and, yes, it is slated to take off on time, so please make your way, immediately, to the gate on the opposite side of the terminal. Exasperated sigh, haul that stupid, stupid black bag housing all of my heavy thoughts to my back, and hike my way back through that miserable Duty Free mall, all the way to the far end of the A wing of gates, to be one of the lastpeople attempting to board my plane.

Where I faced down an incredibly unhappy gate agent. You see, I opted to use the self-service kiosk for my boarding pass, which means I unwittingly circumvented the ticketing agents checking my proof of vaccination and verifying my ticket out of Colombia. Which means now, annoyed gate agent needs to check these things. I showed her my proof of vaccination, but I hadn’t booked my ticket out of. Colombia yet.

“It’s impossible!” she snapped. She sharply gestured me to a table next to her.

“The plane leaves in five minutes. You have five minutes to book it and show me proof of a ticket away from Colombia or I cannot let you on this flight.”

Let me tell you, nothing takes the indecision out of booking a flight like a five-minute time limit before a flight leaves without you, especially on the heels of around 72 hours of travel and crowded airports and confusion and stress. I should have this kind of guillotine hanging over my head every time I am faced with making a decision my brain wants to overthink to death.

Three minutes later angry gate agent stood menacingly over my shoulder while that cursed wheel of death spun on my computer, both of us waiting for it to display my confirmed ticket out of Colombia.

It finally splashed on the screen, and she shoved my boarding pass into my hand and gestured down the gang plank. “Get on the plane. It’s leaving now.”

So that was Cancun.

In Colombia, bored and unfriendly immigration agent perused my passport and asked me how long I would be staying in Colombia and where. I told him I would be here for two months and that I had my first address but not the address I would be moving to in a month. “I’m going to need that address,” he demanded, still analyzing my passport. I pulled out my phone, despite all of the warning signs against using a phone in front of the immigration agents, and frantically began scrolling through my emails looking for my Airbnb confirmation. I had just found the email when immigration agent found a blank page in my passport, snapped his stamp on it, and shoved my papers back across the desk at me.

“Yeah, I don’t need it. You go now,” he gestured me away. Confused, I held up the phone. “You don’t need my add-”

“No. Go now.”

Okaaaayyy…

I spent the next two hours wandering back and forth through the Medellin airport asking questions in broken Spanish until I finally found a baggage claim agent to take my lost bag report.

I have hit exhaustion many times during this journey of mine. But standing there in Medellin, 75 hours since I left Phnom Phen, in the same clothes, stinky, dirty, frustrated, and minus all of my worldly possessions (except my stupid heavy notebooks), I have never felt quite so despondently alone and weary.

I dejectedly but sincerely thanked the baggage claim agent for taking the report and grudgingly left the airport sans green bag or clean clothes. Got in a taxi, headed to my new temporary home, and promptly faded out for the next two weeks as a raging case of strep throat destroyed my body. I mean, if you’ve got to live without. clothes for a while, why not be so devastatingly ill you’re unable to leave your bed? 

When I finally quit living in denial and telling myself it was the flu and I’deventually get over it, got myself some antibiotics, and was able to stand up straight for longer than a minute at a time, I made it to the mall to replace some clothes. And the very next day, here came my lost bag, via courier, directly to my door. So now I have too many things to fit in my bags. Again.

But green bag is back. Yay! And I gave black bag away to a new friend. Done with that bastard (the bag, not the friend). And in less than a week, I must figure out how to compact my life into less luggage to get on the next flight to go to the next country. Because this is the life I chose for myself. And I love it.