I took someone else's suitcase by mistake when I arrived in Brazil in January. It was a first, after hundreds of flights. I had never seen a suitcase exactly like mine on the luggage belt before and I was about to miss my flight to Ribeirão Preto. Ok, I know it's unexcusable to grab someone elses's bag. Anyways, I open my suitcase when I'm already at my parent's home and think: why would the customs leave purses inside my suitcase when they checked its contents? Sort of a gift after the mess they made? Yes, it took me 5 seconds to realize the suitcase wasn't mine. And mine was waiting for me at the airport where the owner of the suitcase I took by mistake left it (he grabed my suitcase but being smarter than me, he figured the mistake before leaving the luggage area at the airport).
Ok, I cut short my visit to my parents and go back to São Paulo to switch suitcases. And the other suitcase's owners' pregnant wife had to wait one more day for the vitamins and purses that I prevented her from getting right away. How embarassing.
But how's that for a coincidence? When I arrive back in New York, no suitcase is waiting for me. I had decided to leave my jacket in the suitcase, meaning I had to walk outside horrible Delta's terminal in the freezing cold wearing only a short-sleeve shirt in order to reach the Air Train platform (no, I have no money for taxi rides out of the airport). I think: it's payback.
My suitcase arrives the next day.
Ok, it doesn't end here. I wouldn't be telling such a dull story if it did.
Days later, the guy I took the suitcase from when I traveled to Brazil calls me. I think to myself: ok, you deserve to withstand some bashing. He calls to tell me that when he arrived on Wednesday (one day after I did), he grabs his suitcase from the luggage belt, his wife says: "check if it's really yours, remember what happened!", he checks the tag: it was my suitcase, that arrived one day after I did. He ponders if he should take it or leave it at the belt. But the little angel spoke louder: he was not one to take revenge. The strangeness of the situation led him to call me and let me know what happened.
I then decided to invite him and his wife for a drink. After all, I have to make up for the confusion and... one never knows if this sort of coincidence happens for granted or if it's destiny's hand operating in mysterious ways. Anyways, if I don't post anything else in the coming months, maybe the guy was after revenge after all. Maybe his wife lost her baby because she didn't take her vitamins for one day, or maybe they had this huge fight that led them to break up, because her mother and her aunt were deeply disappointed at not getting the purses that, she thought, her husband gave someone else, like a mistress or something, or maybe the guy decided to rid the world of someone like me after he saw what was inside my suitcase...
