My White Polka-dotted Pink Ribbon Bag

At long last I was packed to leave for a city I had wanted to visit for the past many years – Lisbon, the capital of Portugal. I picked up my bag and then put it down thinking that if I put a label or a ribbon on it, I would easily spot it on the luggage carousel. I found a beautiful pink satin ribbon with tiny white polka dots on it and I wrapped it around the handle and made a pretty bow with the ends. Satisfied, I headed to Gatwick airport in UK where I said good bye to my bag at the check in counter knowing I would see it soon.

The plane landed at Lisbon at 9 p.m. and I found myself in a long queue at the passport control counter as there were several flights that had landed around the same time. My turn came in 45 minutes, following which I made my way to the luggage carousel, eager to collect my bag and get to the hotel. There was not a single bag on the carousel and no passengers waiting for their luggage. I was perplexed and reached out to an airport staff nearby who said that the passengers and had already taken their bags and left.

To my dismay, my bag was not there – the white polka-dotted pink ribbon bag was missing.  I made my way to the lost baggage reporting office. The officer on duty was very helpful and asked what my bag looked like and then asked me to wait. After about ten minutes, I saw a staff person bringing a bag with a white polka- dotted pink ribbon with him and I was excited that I had found my bag. But my joy was short-lived.

What looked like my bag turned out to be a slightly bigger, faded version of my bag but with exactly the same white polka-dotted pink ribbon on its handle. On learning that this was not my bag, the officer  went to his computer and punched in some number from the security baggage tag on the bag. He then picked up the phone and called and spoke with some one in Portuguese for a while. When he hung up the phone, he informed me that he was able to find a phone number through the booking number printed on the security baggage tag. This number belonged to a doctor in UK who said that he had booked this ticket for his mother, Maria, who had been visiting him and that it is likely she made an error in picking up the wrong bag. He told the officer that he would call his mother and let her know the situation. The officer said that as soon as they hear from her, they would call me. I left for my hotel in Lisbon minus my bag.

The next morning, I got a call from the airport staff that Maria will come to the airport at 11 a.m. with my bag. I reached the lost and found baggage dept and I found Maria waiting there with my bag. She spoke in Portuguese with smatterings of English and apologized for the mishap.  She told me that in order to spot her bag easily at the carousel she had put this white polka-dotted pink ribbon on it.  

I could not help but smile when she said this and we both started laughing. The first thing I did when I took my bag from her was to remove the ribbon that had caused so much confusion. Maria wanted to make amends for her mistake and insisted that I join her for lunch and I accepted.  I was treated to an amazing Portuguese meal that included caldo verde, fish fritters, duck rice followed by a delicious Molotov pudding. As I left Maria’s home, I thought that the white polka-dotted pink ribbon had played its role but in a different way. Had it not been for the white polka-dotted pink ribbon, two women from two very different worlds would have missed out on the joy of getting to know each other.