Cranky the Baggage Claim

I recently bought my nephew a toy called Cranky the Crane. It's some character from some book or something where there's a magical world of talking trains I think. I have to admit to not paying attention when he tries to explain it to me.


Anyway, as I was standing in DIA waiting for my luggage to show up, I couldn't help but think what a shit show baggage claim is at DIA. I was there one Friday evening, in a hurry, and bags were going around three deep on the carousel and getting clogged coming out of that magic hole that spews our bags. There were 3 other carousels not being used at all. Who makes the decision where the bags come out I wonder, a fucking hamster?

The best part of that particular baggage episode was when this really rude middle eastern guy tried to grab his bag, which was a big black suitcase sandwiched between a green roll on and one of those Swiss bags. He grabbed the handle and tried to pull it free but it was stuck so tight he couldn't. And rather than let go he clung to the bag as if it were the last raft leaving the Titanic. He ended up laying across other people's bags going around on the carousel. People were yelling at him because he was on top of their bags and they couldn't get to their luggage.



Then he started yelling for help, and this big african american guy came out of an office where you go to report missing luggage and told the middle eastern guy to get off the baggage claim and then started throwing bags off the carousel onto the floor. The middle eastern guy turned around and started crawling across the luggage in the opposite direction the carousel was turning trying to get away from the african american guy who was yelling "Sir! SIR! Please get off the baggage carousel! SIR!". I was laughing so hard that I started to cry and I couldn't get my bag off the baggage claim so I just followed it as it went around, and people backed away as I approached them. When my bag got to the African American guy he took it off the carousel and said "Here you go, ma'am" but I couldn't thank him because I was laughing.


If the baggage claim were a person I think he would be from the bronx, a guy of 50 who looked 60, with knotty forearms and saggy biceps, smoking a cigarette and complaining about all these goddamn people who travel all the time. And if someone had a piece of expensive luggage he would kick it ,or drop it in a puddle if it was raining. He usually would have alcohol on his breath at work but no one would fire him because his wife left him after 25 years of marriage and even though he would rough her up from time to time he did love her in his own fucked up way and people felt bad for him. When he would finish his pack of smokes he would crumple the pack up and throw it on the floor and say "it's someone else's job to keep this goddamn place clean".

Occasionally the customer representative would come out and say "why are you so cranky? why don't you try a smile?" and then he would mutter to whoever was standing near "that woman don't have the sense god gave a chicken, and they roll around in their own shit".