How I Survived An Airline Losing My Luggage Before A Big Conference

Until my senior year of college, I had always been quite lucky with airline luggage. I’d heard horror stories about vacations ruined when an airline accidentally sent a family’s suitcase to Boise instead of Hawaii. I’d read the harrowing accounts of endless hours spent on the phone with airline customer service, conflicting information as to where their luggage got sent, and the ultimate arrival of the suitcase at their front door two days after their vacation ended.

Growing up, this never happened to me or my family, despite our relatively extensive travels by air. So when I had an opportunity to fly to New Orleans, the Big Easy, during my senior year of college, I had no second thoughts about checking my main suitcase for the flight. Unfortunately, it didn’t go so well…

When Your Big Opportunity Goes South – In More Ways Than One

Visiting New Orleans without any clothes

This trip to New Orleans was far from just a vacation. That year, the international English honor society Sigma Tau Delta was holding its annual conference at the Marriott Hotel in New Orleans’ French Quarter. And I, aspiring scholar that I was, had gotten a paper of mine accepted as part of the conference’s presentation schedule. Thus, I was invited to make the flight from Pittsburgh to New Orleans and present my work in front of my peers.

This was an exciting opportunity, to say the least (Of course, I have since completely forgotten about what the paper was even on. Maybe Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness? I can’t say.). This would be my first opportunity to speak at a major international conference. But, it would also be my first time visiting New Orleans.

Years earlier, my parents had taken a kind of second honeymoon trip to New Orleans, minus us kids, of course. Upon their return, neither could stop talking about how amazing it was, and how much fun they had exploring the city (there are even free things to do, making it affordable for newlyweds and students alike). So, when I learned I was an official presentation speaker there, I knew the trip needed to be more than just a quick stop at the three-day conference. I needed to give myself a few extra days to explore one of America’s most unique cities.

And this meant packing a larger suitcase. One that was probably a bit too big to take with me as a carry-on.

But even though my suitcase contained a week’s worth of clothes, including the suit and tie for my presentation, there was no danger of the airline losing it, right?

Right?

My Luggage Got Lost (And That Wasn’t On My Bingo Card)

What to do when your luggage gets sent to another city

There was no danger of the airline losing my luggage, right?

That, at least, was the thought that echoed through my head as I watched the airline representative glare at her computer and furrow her brow.

“Stephen…Hanson, correct?” she said.

“Yes,” I muttered in the politest tone I could manage.

“H-A-N-S-O-N ?” she spelled out.

I only nodded and murmured something like “Yes.”

As she typed, I glanced out the street-level windows of the Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport. The sun was almost set and evening would soon turn to night. My flight had arrived at 5 PM, and I had hoped that I’d be checked into my hotel by then and be off exploring the oncoming nightlight of New Orleans’ famous French Quarter.

Instead, I had spent a good hour watching the luggage carousel for a suitcase that never appeared, then an additional 90 minutes waiting in line at the airline luggage desk. I had missed the last shuttle that the conference had provided for arriving scholars and now looked at an expensive taxi ride to get to my hotel. Whatever hope I’d had once had all but disappeared by that point.

“And you had a connecting flight in Charlotte, correct?” the airline representative asked. I nodded.

“Ok, hold on,” she said. She picked up a phone. “There seems to be a mix-up in our system. I need to make a quick call.”

“No worries,” I said while forcing a smile. This was a lie. I did, in fact, have many worries. The first of which was my academic presentation that was scheduled in two days, and the fact that my suit and tie, and all formal wear, were now probably on the other side of the country.

I looked down at the shorts and t-shirt I was wearing, already stained with sweat from the travails of airport travel. My small “personal item” backpack only held my laptop, some books, and a few travel-sized toiletries. Nothing that I could wear that would be somewhat passable for my first big-boy conference presentation.

Lost Luggage Was A Major Setback, But Maybe A Funny Story Someday?

Making the most of a bad situation was hard at first

Audubon Aquarium of the Americas and Four Seasons Hotel in historic French Quarter, New Orleans

I didn’t arrive at my hotel until after 11 PM. In other circumstances, this would have been a cause for excitement. The four-star Canal Street Marriott was perhaps the most luxurious hotel I had ever stayed in. And in such a prime position near the intersection of Canal and the world-famous Bourbon Street, I was in a great spot to explore the exotic charms of the city’s French Quarter.

But the opulence of the hotel set my own appearance in stark contrast. The perfectly tailored suits and Windsor knotted ties of the hotel’s reception staff only made me more aware that I had nothing to wear other than a sweat-stained t-shirt and shorts.

Near the elevators, Sigma Tau Delta had helpfully set up a welcoming table for conference attendees. Despite the late hour, the table had one lone volunteer still left to greet any latecomers, though, by her expression, she seemed to be on the verge of closing shop and returning to her room. I would have done the same, except I needed to sign in for the conference registration and get my conference ID badge.

The volunteer flashed a tired smile as I approached.

“Hello!” she said in her cheeriest voice. “You got here just in time! We were about to close down for the night.”

“Hello,” I managed. “Sorry about the late arrival, I…”

“Oh, no problem!” she said. “We have a lot of late arrivals. Airlines, right?”

I attempted a sad nod. She took my name and gave me my badge, plus a booklet detailing the conference schedule. I noted almost immediately that my particular presentation conference was scheduled at 8 AM the day after next.

“Congrats again on getting accepted!” the woman said. “This is so exciting! We hope you have fun here, and make some great connections!”

“Right, right,” I said. I cleared my throat. “So, there, uh, is a bit of a problem. It seems that the airline has lost my luggage, and I don’t have anything else to wear for my presentation. They told me they would deliver it to this hotel if they find it by tomorrow, but I don’t think that’s very likely, and…”

“Oh, don’t get me started on airlines!” the woman interrupted. “One time I was visiting my parents in Oregon, and the airline lost two of our bags! Including the one that had all our baby formula! My daughter was a baby, by the way. Granted, I probably shouldn’t have checked the baby formula, but I was staying for two weeks, and didn’t want…”

The rest of the woman’s story is a blur. All I gathered as I made the sad walk to the elevator and up to my room on the twentieth floor was her vague reassurance that “no one will care” how I’m dressed, and this whole incident “will make a great story someday.”

On the ride up the elevator, I had several floors worth of travel to note the formal ties and dresses of my fellow passengers. That, and the fact that I hadn’t taken a shower since leaving Pittsburgh.

I got an early start exploring the heart of New Orleans

Pubs and bars with neon lights in the French Quarter, New Orleans

Safe to say, my luggage did not arrive the next day. That didn’t stop me from wasting all morning waiting around the hotel in some vain hopes that the airline would come through. Once the afternoon got late enough that I could comfortably abandon all hope, I finally let myself get outside and make my long-awaited walking tour of the French Quarter.

The day was pleasant, at least. The late April season was warm in most parts of the country, but there in the Deep South, so close to the Gulf Coast, the heat and humidity had reached highs that usually only come mid-summer farther north. As a result, my already sweaty and grimy clothes weren’t exactly getting less funky.

I found the well-marked corner of Canal and Bourbon Streets fairly easily and made my way through the city’s most-visited tourist area. As the day approached the late afternoon, Bourbon Street was already filling up with loud and rowdy tourists who looked like they had achieved peak intoxication much earlier in the day.

Every corner was crowded with packs of party-goers clutching their plastic cups of beer or hard liquor and wearing endless loops of plastic beads around their next. Here and there a brass band blared out old-timey jazz music that somehow blended well with the country and rock blaring out from the numerous bars on every corner.

Related

Bourbon Street & Other Tourist Traps In New Orleans, Plus Alternatives

The Crescent City offers great culinary and musical experiences, but when it gets too crowded and pricey, other options are also possible.

Having never had much hope that my lost suitcase would show up today, my main plan for tomorrow’s presentation was to try and find an affordable alternative for sale at one of the French Quarter’s many gift shops.

Unfortunately, I had underestimated how much the kitsch aesthetic of the French Quarter had been infested by upscale brands marketed towards high-income travelers. The only shops I could find on Bourbon Street that sold conference-appropriate business attire only carried high-end designer brands that were several hundred dollars above my maximum college student budget. New Orleans is well-known for being a budget travel destination, but that doesn’t mean everything is cheap.

The thought of calling my parents to ask for a quick loan crossed my mind. But that would be admitting defeat to the situation. Plus, my parents had already given me an extra hundred dollars for the trip, earmarked specifically to buy some souvenirs for the family. Failing in this quest seemed like it would be a major betrayal.

So, having no luck finding affordable clothes at any of the French Quarter clothing stores, I finally stepped into one of Bourbon Street’s many famous “voodoo” shops. I’m not sure what I hoped to find there. Maybe I had some notion that a bit of dark magic would fix my predicament, even if these “authentic” shops were quite obviously little more than tourist traps.

The shop, as per its intended aesthetic, had very low lighting. The floors were dusty hardwood that creaked as I walked, and the shelves lay in the middle of quite narrow aisles that were difficult to navigate. As I entered, the lone shopkeeper at the register glanced up from her phone and shot me a friendly look.

“You need help, hon?” she said in some combination of a fake Creole inflection and a normal Southern accent.

“Uh, do you have any clothes?” I asked in a meek voice.

“Sure were do!” she said. “Back wall, past the love potions.”

Unfortunately, these “clothes” were more fit for a New Orleans Halloween party than an academic conference. The entire back wall was filled with little but top hats, black leather robes, ornate “voodoo priest scepters” (clearly plastic), and random conflagrations of West African/Caribbean colors, and a Spirit Halloween discount bin.

But, it was affordable, at least.

In the dark back room of a supposed “voodoo shop,” I sighed in the dusty air and looked down at the clothes that I would soon be wearing for the fourth day. I looked at the bizarre, tourist-chic clothing stocked on the walls.

A wave of panic hit me. I suddenly felt the urge just to cancel the whole thing. Tell the conference committee I got food poisoning and couldn’t do my presentation. Unburden myself of the whole problem and just spend my entire New Orleans trip in bed, hiding from the shame.

That thought felt warm and comforting, like a soft blanket calling after a long, hard day.

I picked up the fake “voodoo priest” scepter from its display. Maybe I hoped it would give me some kind of dark power to muscle through this? It did not. But it did make me look stupid. And, standing there looking stupid for a minute, I realized that looking stupid did not end the world.

Or, even, my own life.

And if I looked stupid at my presentation tomorrow?

It’ll make a great story someday, I heard the woman’s voice from the other night.

“What the hell,” I thought as I reached toward the shelves.

Rolling With the Punches When Your Trip Goes Awry

How to have fun while impressing your peers

When I stepped onto the stage the following morning for my first big-boy academic presentation, here’s what I was wearing:

• A modified dark blue Polo shirt, decorated with images of snakes, gravestones, skulls, and ravens.
• A blazer jacket with a complete diagram of the human skeletal system decorated on its arms and ribs.
• The cheapest pair of black pants I could find at a nearby used clothing store.
• A Panama hat I had bought just for a laugh.
• The old tennis shoes I had worn on the plane.

“I know you probably think I look a bit stupid,” I squeaked out. The room full of academics and honors students looked back with sleepy eyes.

“But,” I said. “I would like to point out that you’re the ones wearing suits in the world’s largest open-air bar.”

That got a laugh, at least. My opening joke, and my brief apologetic explanation of my lost luggage, seemed to wake up the early-morning crowd a bit. From there, the tension was broken, and I went on with my presentation without incident.

Related

10 Amazing Jazz Clubs In New Orleans That Are Worth The Trip To The Crescent City Alone

New Orleans is the birthplace of Jazz music and has produced some of the most iconic jazz musicians of all time. Here are the top jazz clubs in NOLA.

Realistically, I doubt anyone remembered what my presentation was about. I know I sure didn’t. But, I doubt anyone remembered anyone else’s presentation either.

I did, however, get many affable comments from fellow attendees on their own lost luggage horror stories. Pretty soon, I became something of a “guy” at the conference, the funny guy from Pittsburgh wearing voodoo clothes whose luggage had gotten lost. The following meet-and-greets ended up giving me more contacts with other students and academics than I probably would have gotten had I just been another boring presenter wearing a boring suit and tie.

The next several days were filled with fun excursions around the city of New Orleans. All the while, I wore the cheap clothes I picked up at second-hand stores, plus my now-famous skeleton blazer. By the time I got home, I had a carry-on backpack filled up to the brim with voodoo souvenirs and an email account filled with new contacts I had made across the academic world. Plus, I had memories galore.

On the flight back to Pittsburgh, I had a chance to reflect on what would have happened had I given into my panic, canceled my presentation, and let the weight of my lost luggage predicament keep me trapped in my hotel bed, too scared to go out and face the world.

At the very least, I would probably have looked much stupider than I did on stage in my full voodoo getup.

Two days after I got back to Pittsburgh, my lost suitcase arrived at my front door.