No Luggage

Emily Thompson took a deep breath as she stepped out of the plane and entered the airport terminal. This was it, the very first page in the next chapter of her life. Free from parental control, everything that happened from this point on was totally up to her, or so she thought.

First order of business was to get her suitcases, which had all of her clothes in them. Having been across the world on numerous vacations with her parents before, she knew what to do. All she had to do was go to the baggage claim and find the corresponding carousel to her flight number. Emily pulled out her phone and opened her digital ticket, which told her that all luggage from this flight would be located on Carousel 8. Following the signs directing her to the baggage claim, Emily eventually ended up at the Carousel 8, where bags had just begun showing up. Emily was one of the first ones to show up to the carousel, beating most of the other passengers, which meant she could grab her suitcases as soon as they showed up, without having to fight through a crowd or risk someone taking her suitcase by mistake.

Watching the suitcases come and go, Emily patiently waited for hers to show up. She was a little annoyed that she was one of the first to show up to the carousel, but her luggage seemed to be coming in last. Not much she could do about that, though.

Soon, the last bag appeared and was immediately claimed by a businessman, leaving Emily alone at the carousel. She began to get worried. Emily waited five more minutes, but the carousel remained empty.

"Maybe I misread the ticket," Emily thought to herself, checking her phone again. But it still said that all luggage from her flight would end up at Carousel 8. After a few more minutes of waiting, Emily figured that there must have been a mistake. She had watched every suitcase come through the conveyor belt, so she knew nobody had stolen her bag. Wanting to solve this issue quick, Emily followed a sign that directed passengers with missing or damaged luggage to an office at the end of the baggage claim. There, she found herself behind a couple of other passengers in a line that had issues of their own, talking with a woman in her mid 20s who clearly did not care, or want to be there at all. Emily sighed. She wanted to get to her new dorm room in time to unpack and put everything away so that she had time to explore the campus and meet new friends.

After twenty agonizing minutes of waiting in line, Emily was finally next to have her complaints heard by the most bored customer service worker on the planet.

"Next..." the employee said, not even attempting to appear helpful. Emily stepped forward and began explaining her predicament.

"Hi, I checked two bags for Flight 0923 and they haven't appeared on the carousel yet. Could you tell me where they are please?" Emily asked politely.

The worker sighed, "Are you sure you went to the right carousel?"

"Yes, I even checked twice to make sure. It never showed up. I just want to know if it made it here yet," Emily responded, annoyed that the worker thought she would be dumb enough to go to the wrong carousel.

"Ugh... alright, let me see your ticket please," the worker said, rolling her eyes. Emily handed over her phone, which had her digital ticket on screen.

"Alright, Emily Thompson, ticket number 9820923, let's see what we got..." she said out loud, talking to herself. Emily stood there awkwardly as the customer service agent looked through her computer.

"Hmm... it says here that you didn't check any luggage. Sorry," the employee halfheartedly apologized.

"Are you sure? Could you please check again?" Emily asked, starting to panic.

The worker spun her monitor around to show the distressed brunette, "Look, that's what it says, see? I don't know what else to tell you."

"There has to be some kind of mistake! I checked two bags, they have all of my clothes!" Emily pleaded, "Is there a manager or anyone else I can talk to?"

"My manager is on vacation right now, so it's just me. All you can do at this point is fill out a 'Lost Bag Report' with details of the bags and their contents. If we find unclaimed bags that fit this description we'll ship them back to you as soon as possible." the agent sighed, handing her the form. Emily groaned in frustration, but took the form regardless. Fortunately, Emily had a good enough memory to know which bags contained which items, and was able to fill out the form very accurately. She handed the form back to the agent, who filed it away.

"When you find my bags, how long will it take for them to get to me?" Emily asked

"About a week, probably," the employee answered, not even looking at the disgruntled freshman.

"A week?!?" Emily gasped. "All my clothes are in there, what am I supposed to do??"

"I don't know, not my problem." the worker responded, blowing a big bubble from her bubble gum, "Look, you're holding up the line, so if you don't have any more questions I'll have to kindly ask you to step aside. Thank you."

Emily groaned in frustration. She was in a totally new city with only the clothes on her back. She'd have to buy new ones if she wanted to wear anything else before they find her missing luggage. For now, there wasn't much she could do other than wait, so she decided to stop wasting time and get to her dorm room. Maybe her roommate would be kind enough to spare her some clothes until this all got sorted out. Emily left the office unsatisfied and upset. If she paid closer attention, she would have been able to hear the 'bored' worker pull out a walkie-talkie and mutter, "Target has left; she's pretty upset but doesn't suspect a thing." to someone on the other end. Little does Emily know, everything is going to plan.

Emily made her way to the terminal exit and pulled out her phone to call an Uber. A few minutes later, her driver pulled up in a white sedan and Emily got in.

"Ok, Emily, right?" the driver asked, confirming her identity with what appeared on the app. Emily nodded. "And you're going to the college, I see."

"Yup, that's right," Emily responded as her driver began his route to her dorm.

"I see you don't have any luggage, visiting a friend or something?" he asked curiously.

Emily sighed. "Well, no... I'm a freshman. But the airline lost my luggage so I don't really have anything for now. Already off to a great start, right?" she **** a laugh, but she was clearly still bitter.

"Oh that's rough, sorry kid. These airlines need to get their act together, am I right? You know, I have a kid in college myself, and..." the driver began rattling off his life story. Emily barely paid attention, simply nodding her head and saying "yeah" to everything he said.

Twenty minutes later, Emily was dropped off in front of her dorm. It was about 6 PM, a little later than she wanted but not too bad. At least she didn't have to spend time unpacking and putting her clothes away.

Emily entered the dorm hall, and was immediately directed to the front desk by a sign telling all new students to get their room key there. She waited behind a couple of other new students, who of course had their suitcases full of clothes. Emily was a little jealous. Finally, it was Emily's turn to get her key.

"Hi, welcome to Presley Hall! Name please?" the peppy blonde girl at the desk asked. At least she was a lot friendlier than the airline customer service agent.

"Emily Thompson," she replied.

"Okay, I just need to see an I.D. please, and you'll be all set." the blonde said with a smile. Emily pulled out her driver's license from the pocket on the back of her phone case, where she kept it for convenience.