Not my bag

We made a roadtrip to Atlanta today to pick up my Aunt Becky who is visiting from out west.

Aunt Becky doesn't get back this way very often anymore, but she has a professional association meeting in Atlanta next week and she flew in early to spend a long weekend with her favorite nephew and his fam. We were all too happy to meet her at Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport.

It isn't every day that I jump at the chance to go to Atlanta. Atlanta is high on my "been there, done that" list. I mean, one traffic jam on I-285 looks like another, and once you've driven down one street with Peachtree embedded in the name you've driven down them all. To me, the only saving grace to the whole city is their mass transit system, known as MARTA.

As soon as I heard about Aunt Becky's trip I immediately began to contemplate the stress-free journey from the Hamilton E. Holmes station (W5) to the Airport station (S7) with no traffic, parking, or other concerns inherent to our culture's obsession with all things automotive. We left our modest suburban driveway a little before 7:00 a.m., and two hours later we were standing in the drafty Holmes terminal, trying to get the token machine to work.

Now, I had already figured out our fare requirements for the day. Lora, being four, could ride for free, which meant that we need three tokens to get to the airport (me, Joan, and Evan) and four to get back (us + Aunt Becky). At $1.75 per, I needed $12.25 to by the seven tokens. I had a twenty, a ten, and a couple of ones in my wallet, and of course, no machine in the building would take my ten. Which meant I had to use my twenty, which meant I purchased four tokens more than I needed. And that griped me. What am I going to do with four extra MARTA tokens? I mentally screamed at the machine(s). Thanks for nothing!

But my private rant notwithstanding, Joan, Evan, Lora, and I boarded the train and were soon locomoting through the Atlanta cityscape. Five stops to the Five Points station, a transfer to the southbound train, and seven stops and an escalator ride later we were waving across Delta's baggage claim concourse to Aunt Becky, who had just arrived and retrieved her bags from carousel 5.

Joan grabbed Aunt Becky's backpack, Evan grabbed her small carry-on, I grabbed her large rolling suitcase, and Lora grabbed her hand and we all traipsed back to the MARTA station. We were in the airport terminal maybe ten minutes, max. Northbound train to Five Points, transfer to the westbound train, and five stops later we were wheeling luggage toward the exit in anticipation of pointing the chariot back to the Magic City.

I was about to hoist the big bag chest-high so I could maneuver through the exit turnstile when Aunt Becky uttered some pretty ominous words. You know, I don't think that's my bag. I screeched to a halt before the turnstile and did a did-you-say-what-I-think-you-said 180 degree turn. I sat the bag upright on its wheels and I noticed for the very first time a small white tag containing the name and address of the bag's owner, which unfortunately did not match the name of my Aunt Becky. We had someone else's bag.

I can tell you that all kinds of questions go through your mind when you are standing at an exit turnstile holding someone else's bag, such as:
1. Is there something illegal in this bag that's gonna land my careless, didn't-verify-the-claim-check butt in the Fulton County Jail?
2. Has [unfortunate owner of bag] already left on his/her flight to Brazil for a month-long Amazon expedition without their life-saving supply of insulin?
3. You mean I'm gonna have to ride the train all the way to the airport and back before I can get to Cracker Barrel for lunch?
4. Is that why neither token machine would take my ten and I had to buy four extra tokens?

The answers to those questions are:
1. I don't know
2. I don't know
3. Yes
4. Yes

So off we went. Again. Five stops to the Five Points station, a transfer to the southbound train, and seven stops and an escalator ride. I began to feel like a MARTA regular. I actually thought at one point, man, we're at Oakland City already? We dropped off [unfortunate owner]'s bag at the baggage service counter and backtracked to carousel 5 to find Aunt Becky's bag still traveling around in circles.

I kinda know how the bag felt.

Welcome back to Birmingham, Aunt Becky.