opushomes

My name is Polo.

I am the illegitimate son of a Marketing Executive and a factory floor worker. Additionally, I am an illegal immigrant living in the United States, but successfully cross the border every time I travel internationally.

I started life in a factory in Thailand and eventually was sold to a stall at MBK in Bangkok. There my owner (O) adopted me after a cheerful smiling negotiation and the transfer of a small sum of baht. He took me home with him loaded with laundry. I then joined a large family of baggage some of whom are retired, some on disability due to a variety of rips, tears, broken handles and zippers and others who have extensively traveled the world. My job within the family had until this trip been limited to hauling snorkel equipment to various beaches.

I have been to Kona on the Big Island, Maui and various places in Mexico. For the last 2 years I have resided with the others full of the snorkel gear of O and Mrs. O.

In order to make me recognizable I have a certain amount of bling: 2 Hawaiian agricultural stickers, a Hawaiian Air first class band, a Washington Post luggage tag with “Washington Post” covered by a cutesy Bangkok Air sticker for countries that dislike journalists, a Flyertalk priority tag and a NW airlines 747 luggage tag.

Recently O scheduled a trip to Singapore to earn platinum status on NW within a 14 day period. For the past month and a half he has had a stressful time. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trip-...a-version.html Now O does not fly directly from his home in Portland, OR unless he must. Therefore, in order to achieve his goal, he booked a mileage run PDX-JFK-DTW-JAX-ATL-PDX and later booked a nested itinerary again to JAX and on to Singapore. This second trip started four days after the finish of the first warm up trip.

One of my brothers returned from Asia in late January with severe debilitating injuries which will prevent him from ever flying again. He has applied for permanent disability under SSI due to a burst aneurism (his outer pocket is entirely ripped out) and a crippled limb (handle). He flew over 400,000 miles faithfully serving O. He is hoping for approval from the reviewing authorities but fears his application will be denied because he still is capable of serving as the head of the TSA as a replacement for Kip Hawley.

His fraternal twin has been waiting since February, 2004 for his chance but has a small disability in the form of being side opening rather than top opening which somewhat displeases O. Both boys were born in Thailand, but they are totally legitimate bearing Singapore Airline logos and adopted from the Silom Office of SQ. Little brother had previously only flown to Bali and back from Bangkok and then on to his present home in Portland.

Although I am carry-on size, O requires sun screen, aloe, and deet to prevent sunburn and insect bites. These are not allowed by the TSA due to being more than 100ml. and therefore must be checked. Additionally, he believes that bin hogs are bad people so therefore decided to check me.

So I was to be the checked bag with my load of oversized liquids and an additional spray container of SPF 50 sunscreen. Duly loaded with 9 shirts, nine pairs of socks, nine pair of briefs, a few handkerchiefs, 3 paperbacks, a pair of comfortable shoes for walking and two of my siblings-The red laundry backpack and his sister the light day pack for the pool and beach, I weighed in at 29 pounds. This is 2 kilos less than the 15 kilo limit that Air Asia permits between Singapore and O’s ultimate destination of Phuket.

Four days before the big flight, armed only with a Drivers License and little brother, O took the first trip. He had a one hour connection at JFK which went badly. He misconnected because the flight to Detroit was an hour late and his connection to Jacksonville was only one hour. He was rebooked without boarding passes on a DL flight to ATL and on to JAX on another DL flight by a very rude gate agent in Delta uniform, who actually may have worked for NW. Attempting to get boarding passes from Delta resulted in more rudeness and a threat that if he did not show ID, he would not fly. Eventually everything for the first leg was sorted out when he remembered the World Club membership in his wallet. The second leg required another visit to Delta’s Sky Club or whatever they were calling it that week, this time in RudeLanta after being rebuffed at all gates and at the service desk.

Now O is a clever flyer, he has flown commercially for 44 years, has been in multiple instances of irregular operations, has had bags lost and later found, been in a number of emergency landings-only one remotely serious, one aborted take-off, aborted landings and a very minor collision with another aircraft albeit disabling to both, so he has been around the block. The day before the big trip he called Chisholm, MN (NW’s Platinum line) and requested that the two PNRs be annotated referencing each other in case of irregular operations. This was done. Additionally, he asked if I could be checked through to Singapore (6 connections). The agent’s answer was no. So the initial decision was to check me and my two smaller siblings stowed inside me to JAX and repack essentials there.

Mrs. O delivered us to the airport where we proceeded immediately to the DL Medallion line. O had learned on the previous flights that one must talk to a person not a kiosk when checking in for a mixed DL/NW itinerary. The agent, friendly and helpful, stated that he would check me to SIN. That did not work, so I was short tagged to JAX via JFK and DTW. O carefully placed my bag tag in his wallet, walked me to CTX 3 and handed me over to the TSA agent. We expected to reunite in JAX.

Once past screening, I was placed in the hold of the 757 for the trip to New York. O flew in First Class in the cabin above. Once we reached JFK, they removed me, placed me in a baggage cart with rain blowing in around the edges of the canvas (just like normal Portland weather) and trundled me to wait for NW1507 to DTW. And wait and wait.

O took the bus from T-3 to T-4 where he was to board the flight to DTW. When departure time came, O went up to the guy in the bright yellow slicker fiddling with the gate computer who looked suspiciously like a ramper. He asked when the flight was due and was in turn asked what flight. Now this guy was standing under a reader board with the flight number and no other flight was listed at the other gate. O, surprised to be asked, had the answer immediately. “1507” “Oh that is about an hour out.” So O told him that he was a misconnect. The ramper looked at O and told him that he had to help others who seemed to be leaning on the desk waiting for the plane. So O whipped out his cell and called Chisholm to be rebooked.

He had been sitting next to a young Dutch couple on their way to Amsterdam and mentioned that the plane was late. They would also misconnect to their flight so O asked the agent about them first; they had already been rebooked on a later flight. While O was on the bus, he lost contact with the phone agent in one of the cell phone black holes dotting JFK so he went to the now familiar Sky Club where a helpful, but untrained agent tried valiantly to help him. He was originally booked on the 1855 departure to ATL which she noted was delayed until 2330 (way too late to get to JAX that day) so she got him on the earlier flight. During this time he asked about me. She called baggage who told her that I would be dumped at carousel 1, terminal 4 since a positive bag match was required and he could pick me up there. She then told him to run to gate 6 because the plane was leaving imminently. Given the choice, he left me in New York.

After being offloaded, I was taken to carousel 1 where I became quite dizzy and nauseous from going around. I was also quite disconcerted by all the dubious, shifty and nefarious individuals looking to pounce upon an unsuspecting bag. I worried whether those dressed in Delta uniforms were actually employees of either Delta or Northwest or perhaps members of the Brighton Beach Mafia looking to sell me and my contents on Canal Street.

Eventually one of the uniformed people took me off the belt and placed me a somewhat secure corner of the baggage claim area where I sat.

Meanwhile, O was winging his way to JAX. In Atlanta, he was instructed by the Sky Club agent to tell the baggage agent in JAX to send a message to JFK instructing them to place me on DL2641, connecting to NW25 connecting to NW19. He eventually was the last onto another slightly delayed flight that got him into JAX earlier than midnight. Upon arrival he watched the baggage agent send the exact message as instructed.

The next morning he flew to DTW where he asked the World Club agent to try to determine my status. She said that she was unable to do that and perhaps the gate agent could when the gate opened. The gate agent could find no record of me other than at JFK and sent another message telling them to send me to Singapore. It seems that no one in baggage at either airline reads instructions.

Meanwhile, I sat at JFK keeping one eye open for thieves and other nefarious characters. Eventually, I was loaded back onto a cart and hauled out to an airplane. It seemed like 24 hours had elapsed and they had. Soon I found myself at DTW where I was again offloaded and reloaded on a plane to JAX.

The next morning, I was loaded onto a plane to ATL DL1632. In ATL, I was transferred to a container. My container mates made for an uncomfortable ride as most of them were much larger than me. Their corners poked me making this part of the journey more uncomfortable than flying in coach. Eventually my container was placed on DL91 bound for Incheon, Korea. Since my container had no windows it not only was uncomfortable but extremely claustrophobic. We all suffered in silence during this long journey to Korea. Fortunately none of my companions contained any kimchee or other noxious contents making its way to mother’s house in Korea.

I eventually arrived at ICN a little after 2 p.m. on April 23. I had become lost on April 20. I was removed from my container and placed in yet another container. This time Mom’s kimchee was in one of my neighbors. It was pretty smelly in the confined container for this flight. The claustrophobia was overwhelming. We left just after 4p.m. on KE641 which arrived in Singapore after 9p.m. Soon, I had been removed from the container and found myself with Singapore Airlines Found Property in a nicely air conditioned, odorless baggage area waiting for O. Somewhat later someone came by and wrote on my tag “CIAS, T1, L/F”. Eventually, I was picked up and taken to Terminal 1 and CIAS who are the handling agents for Northwest. A very nice young lady placed me amidst a group of similar lost souls in a bright airy area directly in front of their desk while I waited for O to come and claim me.



When O arrived in Singapore at 0130 on April 23, he stopped at the exit from the jet way where an attractive agent was stationed attired in her bright shiny new Delta uniform and Delta ID badge. After a brief discussion, she stated that she would call O at the transit hotel shortly with my status. Shortly after he checked into the transit hotel, she called to tell him that they did not know where I was and she would send a CIAS agent to fill out the lost bag forms. A few minutes later that agent arrived and they filled out the forms complete with a bag description and partial list of contents.

The next morning, after purchasing another brother for me in the form of a Nike Pack,

swim suit, socks, luggage tag, shirt, sunscreen and aloe, he went to Lost and Found where additional items were added to the list of contents. At this time the agent told O that I was arriving at an unknown time and date but presumably on Korean Air via Incheon. A decision was made not to send me on to Phuket with the very probable chance of my becoming permanently lost but rather to let me relax at T1 until he returned from Phuket around noon on the 26th.

So I enjoyed the time in pleasant Singapore until we were reunited.

We were eventually reunited. When it was time to leave Singapore, I was now traveling with 3 others. Red Pack and I were checked while Nike Pack and Carryon went into the Business Class cabin. The transfer at Narita was routine despite a short connection and eventually the two of us reached Detroit. Red Pack was off pretty quick but I was one of the last bags to arrive. Apparently four of us was two much for the 2 dimwitted customs agents manning the exit and the answer to, “what sights did you see", after asking where O had been overwhelmed them when he said, “I sat by the pool for two days in Phuket” so we were ignominiously sent to secondary. A thorough search yielded nothing except the statement, “get out of here you are having too much fun” and yet another misconnect. Prior to bag recheck is a desk that deals with misconnection issues. A very smart and talented agent explained that we were rebooked DTW-MEM-JAX (O’s upgrades on JAX-ATL-LAX had not cleared and LAX-PDX was on a CRJ) O was in first to Memphis but the last leg was on a one class aircraft operated by ASA. O requested that the Red Pack and I be sent directly to PDX rather than going to JAX. The agent eventually rebooked all of us putting O in F and the two of us in the hold DTW-MSP-PDX that evening. We all got home 24 hours early and the 2 of us were #1 and #3 on the belt at PDX-a first for a priority bag there.

We are now home, I need surgery because my zipper is jammed and the stitching has come loose.

All of O's miles have posted and he will be Platinum until February 28, 2011. 13 days with the triple miles promotion was a pretty good deal.

Thanks for listening.

SanDiego1K

Fantastic!

This really deserves a much broader readership - and Robin Williams performing the part of Polo in a comedy store.

estnet

darrenfinan

well done. something very original .

ak333

I loved this. ^ I've always wondered what my bags would say if they could talk.

MarqFlyer

One of the best trip reports I've ever read. Well done, Polo!^

grizu

Thank you very much. I really enjoyed reading it.

SDF_Traveler

Thanks for a big smile this morning! ^

New Twist to a Trip Report!

vulle

Excellent trip report - hope to read more of Polo's (and his brother's) adventures ^

Fredd

Now that's an entertaining Case History!! ^^

lichmd

A great and entertaining read.
Cheers

ccharles

Thank you, thank you! Great report. ^^

TrayflowInUK

My bag would say, "Carousel? What's a carousel???"

It suffers from separation anxiety, you see.

Great TR, the creativity and humour is much appreciated!

wsucougarchick05

I'm pretty sure my family thinks I'm crazy, since I was laughing pretty hard while reading this...

opushomes

Just an update as to Polo's status. Unfortunately Delta Airlines broke his leg returning from a trip to San Juan, Puerto Rico. As a result of the seriousness of this injury, he is unable to continue his travels. He now resides with some of his brothers living happily in retirement.