Unexpected Luggage
Kristin went to a Christmas party last night and came home with this story. Some of the details might be a little off because I only heard it once and it was from a third person, but it’s too brilliant to not tell.
There’s a woman living in the city of Chicago. This woman was asked to watch her friends dog, a golden retriever, while her friends were out of town. The dog dies.
So, this woman first has to call the family to let them know their dog has died, then calls the vet to ask what to do with a dead golden retriever in the middle of the city of Chicago. The vet then tells her to “bring the dog in” and they will either dispose of it or keep it until the owners of the dog arrive to decide what to do.
Now, this woman, realizing that golden retrievers are heavy, especially when dead, packs it into a rolling suitcase and hops on the subway train headed for the vet.
While on the subway, a man approaches this woman and asks what’s in the case. Not wanting to say that she’s got a dead dog packed in there, she tells him that she is moving and these are her belongings. You know where this is going don’t you?
So, this man follows her off the train, then decides to pull a knife on her and take all of her belongings packed in this case. She doesn’t put up a fight, but then has to call the family to let them know that their dog was not only dead, but has now been stolen at knife-point.
Now, the only thing that would make this story better is if somehow we are able to follow this guy back to his apartment where he throws the case on his bed and opens it up to reveal a dead golden retriever and his thought process from then on.
How amazing is that?!
Weirdest thing you have every packed in a suitcase or ‘traveled’ with?
Ready? Go.
Wow. That’s just…wow. The funniest thing like that I can share is when I was sued by my former employer and had to spend a week in federal court, in downtown Philadelphia. I had just delivered my first baby about four weeks prior to my hearing, and was nursing, but obviously couldn’t bring a newborn to court with me. So I bought a fancy schmancy breast pump disguised in a nice looking black bag. Well I had to put it through the X-ray machines at federal court, and the 60+ year old security guys had zero idea what it was, except that it had a ton of batteries and wires and tubes. So red-faced I explained that it was a nursing pump. The security guy goes, “Ok, so where is the baby?”
This same scenario happened four days in a row, with four different security people.
WOW. That’s is freakinly… awesome?
When I was visiting my brother in Latvia a few years back, we bought some smoked fish from a food stand. Not able to eat it all then, I packed it in my carry-on for my travel home to eat later. When I arrived in London later that night, the inside of my carry-on (and everything in it) smelled like smoked fish. To say the least, it didn’t travel any farther than London.
Traveled with a micrometer (a mechanical device that measures the thickness of things to 0.001″) in my carry on baggage. I was carrying the instrument to visit a customer who had some quality complaints concerning thickness control on some of my product. It was also carried in a small leather holster that you would attach to your belt so it would be handy while working. Sooo in the x-ray machine it looked pretty suspicious. Let’s just say the folks at the Little Rock Airport were pretty confused. They didn’t freak out or anything, but I spent a good twenty minutes giving them an impromptu lesson about thickness measurement techniques and how to read the vernier scale on the devices spindle. Good thing I make it a habit of being about two hours early for my flights. (I’m also thankful that this happened PRE 9/11.)
That’s awesome and sad all at the same time! Hmmm…I wonder if the dog had a GPS chip?? Now that would be interesting!
Back nearly 20 years ago, my parents gave the 3 kids & families a trip to DisneyWorld for Christmas. We stayed in one of the motels with kitchenettes. To save money my mother made us haul a suitcase (way over 50 pounds) full of food. Glad it didn’t have to go through today’s adventures. Funny thing was when we got to the motel you had to “rent” the plates, silverware, and cooking utensils. No can opener. Nothing but a microwave. Not fun with 2 5 year olds & a 2 year old. They were hungry!
OK, not my story exactly, but it’s my brother-in-law’s, and he actually shares a name with me, so it’s almost the same, right?
travelling froma trade show Frankfurt (I believe) Germany. The scenario is that his co-worker left the show a couple days early, but of course left behind the “oops bag” of assorted cables, connectors, adapters… anybody who does techie things will know exactly what I’m talking about
… Now, the co-worker was the last guy to actually USE the bag, and thus it was left packed after he left.
Another thing to understand about my brother in law is that he is the sort of guy who is always 100% honest and truthful. For example, he once wrote a check, which cleared the bank for 2 cents less than he wrote it for. He went to the bank and they basically said “it’s only 2 cents, the merchant has accepted it”, he replied “MY INTEGRITY is worth more than 2 cents”
So, what’s the first question the security guy at the airport asks (now they ask at the ticket counter when you check your bag)? “Did you pack your own bags?”
“Um, no. My co-worker did.”
Now, at this point, most of us would just leave it at that and not worry about it. But not my brother in law. He HAD to add “… And I’d be really bummed if he put a bomb in it!” Today, he probably wouldn’t fly, but before 9/11 it wasn’t quite as bad. He DID make his flight, but he spent a couple of hours going through not just that back, but pretty much the entire trade show demo package.
My own personal worst story was after going with a band on a tour to Croatia, the local opening act gave us all tapes. Back then, the second question asked was “Has anyone given you anything?” “Um, yeah, I got this cassette tape” You could literally see the alarm bells going off in the guys head. so I added “It’s pretty good, do you want to hear it?” Which promptly diffused the whole situation.
I worked in Daytona Beach, FL the Summer after my sophomore year in college. We grilled out a lot that summer and so I bought a pretty nice steak knife.
I flew home from that trip on August 4, 2001, with a really sharp and really long steak knife in my carry on bag. No one said a word as it went through the scanner.
Just a month later…we all know what happened.
“That ….. Was ….. Awwwwsome!!” – Tommy Boy
HA HA HA
Weirdest thing I have packed …. hmmm, does grabbing the wrong deodorant count? Yeah, I’ll go with that.
Interesting…thinking but have not come with anything yet.
We did mission trips to Mexico for several years building churches. So needless to say, I have carried a hammer, hand saw, crowbar, screwdrivers, etc in my luggage. I can say that every time one of us was selected for a random search it always took a bit of explaining but we always made it through (pre 9/11)!
During our first trip to Italy, we wanted to bring something back for the friends back home. We picked up some cheese from a farmer’s market with 2-3 days left on our trip.
We hauled that cheese through Rome and the various airports back to Florida. I think we broke various customs regulations doing that. I didn’t make a huge effort to hide it b/c I thought it was OK. Later, I learned that transporting food out-of-country is a big no-no.
The cheese was yummy.