3 a.m. home invasion? No, it’s American Airlines
Posted: Friday, December 07, 2007 8:08 AM
By Don Teague, NBC News Correspondent
DALLAS – I sat straight up in bed, unsure why, but knowing deep down something was terribly wrong.
"Why am I awake?" I thought to myself. I looked at the clock: 3:10 a.m.
The sudden movement woke my wife. "What are you doing?" she asked.
"I heard something," I said.
Before she could ask what, we both heard it again.
DING-DONG.
It was the doorbell, and this time the dogs heard it too. The house erupted into chaos.
"It’s three o’clock in the morning," my wife said. She has a flair for the obvious.
"I know," I almost shouted, while scrambling out of bed. "This can’t be good."
‘Are you Don Teague?’
I headed for the bedroom door as thoughts collided in my head: Where are the kids? Did my dad have another heart attack? Is the house on fire?
I could think of no good reason for my doorbell to ring at 3:10 in the morning. My daughters, thankfully, were asleep upstairs.
A friend of mine was once the victim of a home invasion robbery. Two armed gunmen kicked his door down in the middle of the night … after first ringing the doorbell. He grabbed his own gun and scared the intruders away.
I, on the other hand, grabbed my pants, and struggled to put them on while stepping over the dogs that were also converging on the front door.
In retrospect, I should have at least asked, "Who is it?" But in my rising worry and panic, I simply flung the door open.
There was a woman standing there. I was glad I had pants on.
"Are you Don Teague?" she asked. She was holding a clipboard, and sitting next to her on the porch was a suitcase…MY SUITCASE. Through the fog of sleep, my mind made the connection.
"Are you kidding?" I replied. "It’s three o’clock in the freakin’ morning."
"American Airlines," she said. "We found your bag."
This, by the way, was something I already knew.
The airline had called me earlier in the week to inform me that my suitcase was discovered spinning wearily on a baggage carousel in Atlanta. They had somehow managed to lose it on a non-stop flight from Dallas to Colorado Springs several weeks before.
I had been forced to wear the same pair of pants for three straight days in the mountains. Coincidentally, I was wearing those same pants while staring in dumbfounded disbelief at the woman now standing at my door.
"It’s been a month," I said. "I could have waited another six hours."
"It’s been a long day," she said. "Do you want your bag?"
I signed the clipboard and took the bag.
"Thanks," I said. "You people are really into returning luggage."
She offered a tired smile, then headed to her delivery van, no doubt to scare the be-jeepers out of some other unlucky traveler.
There are plenty of them out there. In November, The New York Times reported that U.S. airlines lost one in every 138 bags checked in the first nine months of 2007. That’s 3.4 million bags, a 17 percent increase over the same period in 2006.
And during the holiday travel season the situation is usually even worse. The overwhelming majority of those lost bags are eventually found and returned to their rightful owners – but still.
As I dragged my wayward suitcase toward the bedroom, I remembered reading somewhere that you’re supposed to tip the people who deliver lost luggage.
"Too late for that," I thought.
Instead, I stopped in the kitchen, and grabbed the box of dog treats.
"Next time," I said earnestly to the assembled canines, "wake me up before the doorbell rings." I’m pretty sure they understood. Either way, they got their treats.
And I got my suitcase. Better late than never.
