A Case of Mistaken Identity

As I stepped off the plane onto the tarmac in Alice Springs, an insignificant dot on the map in the middle of the desert in the middle of the outback in the middle of Australia, the first thing I noticed was the heat. Blinding, knee-buckling, stifling heat. After the cool breezes in Melbourne, the weather in this tiny outpost in the middle of nowhere hit me like a punch in the face.

Before leaving on my round-the-world odyssey, I had carefully researched an infinite number of luggage options. I envisioned a magical mystery bag of unlimited capacity, with wheels and a handle, light-weight and ruggedly constructed and which, in the blink of an eye, could morph into a backpack.

A tall order for sure…like something on Edmund Hillary's wish list...but I found exactly what I was looking for in the Osprey Sojourn. Futuristic, sleek, water resistant, with a capacity of 80 liters and equipped with all-terrain in-line skate wheels…it is truly a design marvel and a thing of beauty. AND, it comes with an almighty, lifetime guarantee. Intellectually, I know it’s just an inanimate object, but my feelings for the Osprey Sojourn approach the love I feel for my iPhone.

In all my travels, I’ve never seen another one like it. In the movie in my head, as Journey plays "Highway run..into the midnight sun...wheels go round and round...you're on my mind...restless hearts sleep alone tonight", I am certain that I am the envy of every other traveler.

I hurried to the baggage carousel just in time to hear the angel chorus singing as my Osprey emerged from behind the clear plastic curtain, and before a mob of adoring admirers could rush forward to touch it, I proudly grabbed my one-of-a-kind, badass backpack and feigned nonchalance as I walked towards the airport shuttle bus.

A few minutes later, a German woman who was as steamed as an over-heated Volkswagen boarded the bus and wanted to know who had taken her bag. Knowing that mine was the only one in existence, I paid little attention as she grew more and more irate.

Suddenly it occurred to me that in order to remain profitable, the Osprey company would probably have to manufacture more than just one bag, and as the realization penetrated the mind-numbing heat inside the bus, I asked her what her bag looked like.

Turns out it was identical to mine...well, black instead of brown. And with a bright red luggage tag. Unmistakably hers. I apologized profusely and jumped from my seat, leaving my carry-on bag behind, and ran inside the terminal to find the baggage carousel completely empty. My heart sank. Not only had all of my earthly possessions disappeared, but more importantly, I had lost my Osprey.

Like Kwai Chang Caine, I was doomed to wander the earth with nothing but a cloth satchel and a wooden flute. And I don't play the flute.

All the airport employees had vanished as if squirted out of the universe like watermelon seeds. I sprinted down to the far end of the terminal to the airline counter. Nobody home. By now I was really beginning to panic, because I thought my bag had either been stolen, or locked away in the lost luggage room by someone who was nowhere to be found, and I had left my other bag on the bus without telling the driver, and any minute it would leave without me.

Just then I turned to see my bag on the carousel, disappearing through the rubber flaps back out to the loading area. I sprinted down the length of the terminal again, and like an Olmypic hurdler, leapt onto the center of the carousel, barely catching the tip of my shoe, but regaining my balance in time to narrowly avert a face plant when I landed on on the other side. My Sojourn had returned.

When I finally made it back to the bus, breathless and sweaty, my other bag was still in the aisle, and I plopped down next to a guy who was reading a book entitled Theological Aesthetics After Von Balthasar. And I thought the Osprey Sojourn was one of a kind!

As luck would have it, the still infuriated German girl was also on the bus, and gave me the stink-eye through her über-hip, expensive glasses. All I could do was shrug my shoulders and give her a hang-dog look, certain that I had set back relations between our respective countries to about 1944. I made it to my hostel without further incident, where I was met by Rosco, an ebullient fellow who loaned me a rusty bike from the era when Australia was still a penal colony.

As I rode around, I heard the strains of “Sweet Baby James” coming from a cobble stone street, and being die hard James Taylor fan, I followed the sound to a hole in the wall restaurant...where a blind guy was sitting in a chair on the sidewalk playing the guitar. I knew this was the place for me. While I waited for my lunch order to arrive, I went over and introduced myself and we had a nice chat. It wasn't until I got back to my room that I realized I had asked him if anyone had ever told him he sounded like José Feliciano...which he did! But that's like telling a really smart person in a motorized wheelchair that they remind you of Stephen Hawking.

Note to self: Open your eyes. And think before speaking, genius!