time to calculate the odds

For the trip home, I did something I haven't done in at least a decade of travel between Las Vegas and Los Angeles: I checked my bag.

"What are the odds," I thought, "of Southwest losing my bag when it's the first time I've checked a bag on one of their aircraft in over a decade?"

It turns out that the odds of that happening are 1.

Comments

[theOlster]

So what have you learnt from this experience? Not to check your bag. Well at least one thing you can rely on is certainty.

[MatildaZQ]

Ouch. Well, when I managed to pack everything into a bag that I didn't need to check, they canceled a whole flight to thwart me. Sorry about that, fellow passengers.

Hope your stuff shows up.

[GetSheila]

Okay first there was the whole bus/limo fiasco and now the airlines have lost your luggage. You have clearly annoyed one of the gods, I just cannot figure out which one. Time, perhaps? Or maybe it was the god of Convenience and Smooth Sailing.

Hope you get your mojo back soon. And your bag.

[MacBros]

Well, you gotta' look at it this way. It's better than a kick in the bag. Right?

[alan]

Actually, the odds that it happened are 1.

The odds of it happening were probably a little lower than that, though possibly not much...

[AmandaB]

I totally feel your pain. They lost my bags at Christmas; at least I got them two days later. Was still better than my flight in, where I ended up staying overnight (Christmas Eve) in my connecting city thanks to huge delays. (At least the airline paid for my hotel.) Merry Christmas to me! Hope everything else about your trip was great!

[Andrew]

That really sucks, Wil. Good luck getting the bag returned.

One of my co-workers was an unfortunate whose bag -- actually, whose daughter's bag -- was swiped at the Houston airport, rifled, and dumped elsewhere. Or at least that's what we think, since it hasn't turned back up yet. She hopes the thieves enjoyed the Crown Royal.

(No, it was in the daughter's bag because that one had the most room. It was not the daughter's booze.)

[Dewey Sasser]

They've been waiting for you Wil. They've been making lackadasial practice on the rest of so just so they'd be ready to pounce when you finally caved...

[AT]

If there was a real Murphy (you know, the guy who didn't really write the laws) he'd be laughing at you right now.

My take on the silver lining: It gave you a story.

[Chuck]

My parents used to have awful luck when it came to the airlines losing their bags. I mean, it happened to them at least 6 or 7 times, over the years. They always got their bags eventually, though. I recently joined the club...I thought my bag might be lost forever, but I got it the following day. The good thing was, you were home, so you didn't have to worry about having only one set of clothes and no toiletries, at least.

[SenseLess]

Well I hope your good fortune wasn't In the Bag.

[Justin]

On the bright side, it happened on your way home. So you at least have clothes and, hopefully, a toothbrush.

[Mac Guy]

When I traveled from Raleigh to Milwaukee for Christmas a few years ago, the plane was overweight from all the luggage. They ended up leaving two bags in Raleigh without telling us whose bags were left until we were in the air. The woman next to me was fortunate enough to have glanced outside while we were still on the ground and noticed that both of her bags were yanked. She begged and pleaded for just one bag, which initially fell on deaf ears. However, she then informed them that in one of the bags was a 20-lb frozen turkey she'd gotten from work, and she explained to them that if they wanted an office smelling of rotten turkey, they should go ahead and leave it.

That bag was immediately placed back in the plane. Just so happened that the bag they took off in exchange was mine, and all I got was a complimentary crappy beer in a can for my troubles.

Lame butt pirates!

[Ash]

"As long as we are lucky we attribute it to our smartness; our bad luck we give the gods credit for."
-Josh Billings(1818-1885)

You must of rubbed a god the wrong way this week. =P

[R]

Noooo! that's the worst. Fingers crossed that you get it back--I'm still mad about my bag that Northwest "lost" several years ago. It had a screwdriver set as a gift for my dad in it but it was after 9/11, so I had no choice but to check that bag. Grrr.

[Kristen]

Grrreat. Checking the bag to avoid the whole 3 oz. limit then they go and lose the bag. Ya can't win.

[triple-e]

I would welcome losing my bags on the way home. You have clothes still and probably some spare essentials. Losing a bag on the way out would be so much worse, because then you have nothing, not even 1 oz. (in a 4 oz tube) of hair crap, since you couldn't carry that on the plane :)

[Nadia]

Damn. I travel a lot as well I always stress out over my checked luggage. Lost it once a few years ago. Got it back a week later. Lost it again last year, got it back the next day. I hope you find yours as well... back home or not, it's always frustrating when you lose stuff.

[brothershamus]

I have traveled to Vegas and met a friend there. Both times he flew Delta, both times he arrived, his luggage did not. Last time he went to the Gap in Vegas to get some non-business clothes to wear. When he told the sales person his luggage didn't arrive. the salesman said "You flew Delta, didn't you?" Amazed, my friend asked how he knew that. The salesman said "We get Delta customers all the time. Didn't you know the Delta stands for Don't Expect Luggage to Arrive." Good luck getting your drawers back.

[Faerie Brat]

Let me see here. I was begged to work the last weekend of a Southern RenFaire and had to fly out. Since my costume had things like knives and other eating utensils, I figured it was best to check it. Oh boy. I showed up at Ontario, and found my bag not on the conveor. For several flught arrivals. Finally I ate my pride, went to the baggage cubicle and asked where it was. ( Mind you already a very long day at work) They found it was sent to LAX, and had to wait for something to come over so I could get it. That was going to be about four more hours. They even offered to have it sent to my hotel. Um... no hotel, I was camping onsite. I had to explain the whole fiasco of what a Renfaire was and where THEY were going to drop it off, when I realized, I did not know how I was getting there. Luck was with me though, a friend was flying in from NY the same time. Go figure. Then of course the manager who begged me out, forgot to gate pass me, and I had to get snuck in, and then send someone for my luggage. The next day was not a great one for the manager. Considering I am the morning cook. The second lost baggage was actually me staring at my luggage on the conveur for about half and hour, fearing a replay. Then I realized it was flipped upside down. My mother laughed all the way home on that one. But Hey I got Ice cream out of it!!!

[starshine_diva]

Well then. That sucks.

I hope you didn't have anything important - other than emotionally - in that bag.

When I went from Montreal to L.A., I had a connection to catch in Chicago. So I ask the lady at the baggage check-in in Montreal if I need to get my luggage in Chicago and re-check it for the LA flight. She said, nah, don't worry about it, it'll be done for you.

Well... that's not exactly what happened. My luggaged was tagged for Chicago, but NOT for LA. And it was sent down the luggage chute. So when I got to LA, I had no luggage and I couldn't understand why.

I had to quickly go shopping - and of course, nothing fit, although thank goodness for Macy's!

Four days later, my stuff was delivered to the LA home I was staying at, free, and full of all my stuff!

[brazos605]

I've been flying Southwest since the early 90s, regularly check my bags, and have never had a problem. They're usually pretty good. Hopefully someone didn't walk off with your bag at the airport.

[Poet with a Day Job]

OMG I am cracking up so hard. Not in a shaudenfreudist kind of way, but in a "I've totally done that before and lost my bag too" kind of way. What ARE the odds, indeed.

[meredith]

I fly Southwest all the time, and have never had a problem (knock knock knock). However, many years ago I vowed never to fly Continental again, after the 5th straight flight where they lost my luggage. (You'd think on a nonstop flight it would be pretty hard to lose a bag, but no.)

I travel for a living tour managing a band ... we're not yet at the tourbus stage of our career, so we end up having to fly a lot on tour. My ultimate nightmare is that we'll arrive but our gear will not. It's bound to happen someday.

I've already lived through the lovely day when the baggage handlers in Houston decided it would be a good idea to leave our gear (and my not-exactly-waterproof duffel bag) sitting on the tarmac during an apocalyptic rainstorm. Thank the gods we were headed home, so it didn't matter that everything I'd brought with me was soaked through. And doubly thank the gods that the flight cases did their job and kept our gear from getting wet. But when I called to complain, I got totally blown off. "Is anything damaged?" "Not permanently, no, but-" "Have a nice day, then." *click*

Sigh.

I hope you get your bag back soon, Wil!

[Jack Johnson]

A guy I met in college had his luggage lost flying home at spring break, from Fairbanks, AK to Anchorage, AK. By the time his luggage turned up, spring break was over, and it had been to Tokyo and back.

Fairbanks has no significant international flights, the flight was non-stop, he flew on an airline that didn't fly internationally, and Anchorage's international flights are isolated in a physically separate terminal. We were just baffled.