Luggage

In Washington, I used to spy on Logan Circle from my princess balcony. This morning I was doing the same thing from the apartment window where I’m staying. But I currently live above the street market, so its pure Technicolor chaos down below – most of the time you have to walk in the street with the cars because the vendors take up the sidewalks. The airport called this morning to say they had found my missing luggage and would deliver it in the next few hours. So in addition to spying at the window, I was keeping a lookout for my big brown suitcase. Mainly the only cars that pass are taxis (usually old Corollas), minibuses (Toyota vans) and a few delivery trucks. Occasionally you’ll get some sort of Montero looking SUVs, but that’s rare. I figured they would bring my suitcase in a taxi, but was sort of hoping American Airlines had their own clean, secure SUV in which to navigate the cobblestone confusion.

Down below a chola indigenous women is walking with her bowler hat and a bright colored blanket holding bundles on her back. A businessman hustles by in an old suit. A crowded minibus stops to let people out. The mean guy downstairs selling propane walks out to spit on the sidewalk. A short stout older man has a huge case wrapped in cellophane tied to his back with rope. Wait, what? Double take…that’s my suitcase!!

You have got to be kidding me! The thing weighs 70 pounds; I even had to pay extra at the airport because it was over the weight limit.

I ran downstairs just as he was setting it down and another man – who didn’t look much better except for a dirty sport coat, seemed to pay him then asked me to sign something from American Airlines. I started to tell him that it had wheels – but that would have been a joke on these streets, especially since the grade on most of them would stop a runaway 18-wheeler.

When I came back down with a pen, the sport coat guy was lifting it up the stairs for me. I had planned to tip him, but before I could, he stuck out his hand and said, “Propina?!?” I wanted to tip the poor guy who carried it on his back for god knows how long, not the AA employee, but he was gone already.

So in addition to REI, I now have a burly man and some rope to thank for my much needed long johns and boots.