Briefcases

I really hadn’t given much thought to briefcase till I lost mine. I mean I carry one to work every day with important papers and often my laptop but mine became confused with other briefcases when I was traveling for work and put it down for a moment next to two other briefcases just very briefly when I was deciding which newspaper to buy to read of the two hour long flight.

What are the odds that three identical briefcases would sit next to each other at the one space on time, though in fact I realized that the briefcases were not identical just very similar and I actually only saw one other of the briefcases at the time that I picked mine up.

I think that I didn’t notice the briefcases difference till I was on the plane because I was in a hurry. I had been looking at the different newspapers when they called my flight so I had hastily bought the paper in my hand grabbed the briefcases handle without looking down and rushed to check through for my flight.

It wasn’t until I tried to open the briefcases locks halfway through my flight that I realized that it didn’t look like my briefcases locks at all and I experienced a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach as I realized that it wasn’t even mine.
I had no idea what to do as I thought about the presentation that I was due to give early the next morning and wondered what I was going to do because my laptop and the handouts with all of the information were in my briefcase so I did the only thing I could do for the rest of the flight and that was panic.

There was a nametag with a number on the briefcases handle so I was going to call it as soon as we landed, odds were that the person that had my briefcase was on the flight because the newsstand had been just near the gate.

My panicking tired me out and I fell asleep and dreamed of briefcases of and of losing my pants, that somehow seemed tied up with the embarrassment of not have what I needed for my presentation. I dreamed that I had arrived at the room where I was due to present and the whole audience consisted of briefcases, all different types of briefcases and as I stood staring at them the briefcases started laughing at me because I had no pants on.

I ran out of the room mortified and as I ran there were other briefcases everywhere laughing at me as well. I was relieved to be released from the laughing briefcases as I was woken up as we started to descend for landing, the thought ran through my head that those briefcases had really been nasty. Now that brought a smile to my face I was going to sort this mess out when we landed.

We landed and I rushed off of the plane as soon as I was in the terminal I rang the number on the briefcases handle. I didn’t even wait for it to be picked up because I could see the guy with my briefcase reaching for his phone so I bounded over to him and said that our briefcases had been mixed up at the terminal before the flight.

He looked so relieved as I handed him his briefcase and he thanked me. But when he handed me the briefcase in his hands it wasn’t mine. It was somebody else’s and it didn’t have a tag on the briefcases handle so I had no idea who it belonged to. I looked at the latches and tried them in case it wasn’t locked and I breathed a sigh of relief when it opened hoping that I would find some identification inside.

I found a bra and some women’s panties, a romance novel, a makeup bag, a blouse and a women’s power suit and an invitation to the event that I was speaking to the next day with no name on it, in fact there was no identification anywhere in the briefcases insides.

I scanned the crowd looking for a likely candidate but if she had been there it looked like she had already left the terminal already and I wasn’t going to find her. All I could hope for was that she would see the tag on my briefcases handle and give me a call when she discovered that it wasn’t hers.

I caught a cab to the hotel, I didn’t want to sit in my room and sulk so I made my way to the bar determined to have a couple of soothing drinks to forget the debacle with the briefcases. I was onto my second scotch when I looked down the bar and saw my case sitting next to a very attractive woman. I felt so relieved but decided to check before I became too hopeful.

I walked up to and introduced myself. I asked her if she had lost a briefcase. She looked at me surprised and said that yes she had did I know something about it. I replied that yes I did and that if she would allow me to buy her dinner I would tell her about the mix up about the briefcases and the stupid day that I had just lived through.