My Navy Blue Sports Jacket
I haven't been writing much about traveling lately. The main reason is that starting in April, I had a 2 month period where I flew more miles than I have ever flown in an 8 week period ever before in my life. It was a tough stretch of hitting multiple cities in a week and doing it week after week, often getting home late on Friday or leaving Sunday night. Not fun. I did write a pretty interesting piece about my trip back from Vegas. I took the red eye home on a Thursday night and knowing I would not get any sleep, I chronicled what sleep deprivation did to me as I was up for 40 hours straight. Not pretty. I never posted it though. Now it's so far in the past its irrelevant.
Anyway, yesterday morning I was on the Delta Shuttle heading to NY City. I take this trip almost every week and love it. I know what to expect and Delta is very consistent with the Shuttle. I love the Shuttle.
So I was just in time for my flight and had to take a window seat. Since it was hot, I took off my navy blue sports jacket and put it on top of my briefcase in the overhead compartment. The flight took off, I ate my bagel, read the paper, and we landed. I got up to get my jacket and bag and my jacket was gone. Not there. My briefcase was there but someone walked off with my 6 month old, very nice, kind of expensive go-to sports jacket.
Let me explain something here. If you look around an airport...
Let me explain something here. If you look around an airport or a commuter train station, the uniform of a typical business person is light color dressed slacks, blue stripped shirt and navy blue sports jacket. It’s standard. There must have been a hundred dark blue sports jackets on the plane that day. And while I looked around for my missing jacket, I saw another, lesser brand, more wrinkled sports jacket sitting on top of a seat. Someone took mine and left their own. Innocent mistake or thief??
So I got a flight attendant and told her. She immediately called someone, to do what, I don’t know. While I was holding the jacket I quickly looked in the pockets to find identification. Personally, I keep my business cards in my jacket. Not so much to ID my jacket but to hand out if I meet someone. So in the side pocket of this stranger’s jacket I found a ticket stub, with the guy’s name and his Delta Skymiles number. GOTCHA.
Now, at this point, my mind told me it was a mistake. Two jackets that look alike. But I have to be honest. Even though they look alike, the material was different, the texture of the cloth felt different, and in a strange way, everyone knows which jacket is theirs. Mine has gold buttons on the sleeves, this one did not. My was one brand, this was another. When there is a backyard party with 30 kids playing in the yard and the parents sitting on a deck talking, as soon as one kid starts to cry really loud, the parents suddenly become quiet, look at each other for a second, and one parent gets up to take care of their kid. The parents instinctively know the sound of their own child’s cry. Same thing with looking for a standard black pull bag that is coming around a carousel at the airport. People know the little things that make a piece of property their own. So it could have been a mistake and I am sure it was, but I had my doubts.
So armed with the guys info, I got off the plane and talked to a Delta rep. True to form, the Delta employee who is associated with the Delta Shuttle took immediate action. She looked up the guy’s info in her system, got his cell phone number, called and left a message. She said she will call me as soon as she heard from him.
I had a client meeting and felt naked without a sports coat, but left his jacket since the gate agent said he was scheduled for a 3:30 return that day and I was not coming back until the evening. This way he could pick up his jacket and return mine the bastard.
About 10 minutes later the woman called me and said she talked to him and he will return the jacket later that day and I could pick it up at lost baggage.
During the morning I thought about what I had in my jacket in case it was lost for good. For example, if that guy didn’t leave his ticket stub in the pocket and he just wanted to keep mine. We wear the same size, 44L. Coincidence? In one side pocket I had 4 Hertz rental car receipts – two from Newark, one from Chicago and one from Boston. I also had a receipt from an Indian restaurant in Boston Patti and I went to. In the other side pocket I had a packet of green tea. I can’t remember how or why I put it there, but I drink green tea so I probably took an extra at a buffet line or something. In my breast pocket were about 6 of my business cards. And on the inside pocket was the one thing that I would have a hard time parting with. It’s kind of a good luck charm that I keep in all of my suit or sports coats, and I have been doing it since Emily was 3 months old. When each child was christened, the Pastor used a soft piece of cloth with a cross embroidered in it to dry the child’s head after putting holy water on it. He then gave the cloth to me. I have one for each child. I keep one with me in my jacket and had Emerson’s this time.
So later that evening I got back to the airport and picked up my jacket. It was there. I checked the pockets and everything was there. The guy wrote a short note on the back of one of my business cards.
“Not certain for the mix-up. I was pleased that we were able to correct the problem. Very pleased your jacket fit me.”
Well, Bill Parker (not his real name), I know how the mix-up happened. YOU took MY jacket. Second, did I give you permission to wear it? I feel violated now. I don’t know what kind of person you are. If you have the cooties. If you have dirty hair. Probably not but who knows. I didn’t keep your wrinkled jacket to wear to MY meeting, so why did YOU wear my jacket? It’s not fair. And if you put the jacket on as soon as you stood up in the plane, didn’t you realize it was not yours? Oh, you must have carried it all the way to the cab stand and got in the car without touching the fabric.
In the end I got my jacket back and he got his. I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume it was an honest mistake. Things happen and no harm done. This is the first time something like this has happened in my years of taking the Shuttle and I doubt it will happen again anytime soon.
Just thought I’d share.