Yesterday a box showed up in the mail.
This is what it looked like after I lugged it into the living room.
You’ll never guess what’s inside.
Seriously.
You’ll never ever ever guess.
I’ll give you a hint.
It’s not a piece of furniture.
It’s not pillows.
It’s not a rug or a table or a lamp or a piece of art for the wall or dishes or a milkglass pitcher or an overhead light or a new mahjong set.
But what it is—is actually SO MUCH BETTER.
Because this box is part of a story.
A story with highs and lows and super sad news and then the happiest of news EVER.
A story that started like this.
// I love this luggage set so much //
I may or may not have mentioned this before—but I can’t STAND to fly.
Yep.
I have fly-a-phobia.
When I think about it, I start to shiver and I try and remind myself how safe it is and that driving is so much more dangerous, but I am NOT ABOUT flying AT ALL. I mean, I’ve flown before and I would fly if I have to, but if I don’t have to fly—I don’t.
So for our vacation, we DROVE from Texas to Cape Cod.
And then drove back home again.
(total aside: for anyone keeping track of mileage, it’s 1791 miles–or three days in the car).
// polka dotted make-up case (I monogrammed this on the front) // large striped travel bag // large polka dotted travel bag // polka-dotted packing cubes //
On our way back from the Cape, we stopped in Hagerstown, Maryland for the night and stayed at a local hotel.
We got up super early and got on the road. It was the perfect day. The coffee from the hotel was so good and the sun was shining and we were listening to the best podcast episode of This American Life.
We left Maryland and traveled through West Virginia and then we crossed into Virginia.
(total travel aside: we have a song for every state line that we cross and West Virginia’s song is, “Take Me Home, Country Roads.”
And somewhere between Wytheville and Abington, Virginia, my phone rang.
It was the hotel we just left.
“Mrs. Wood? This is the hotel in Hagerstown. Did you leave your suitcase behind here at the hotel?”
WHAT? MY SUITCASE. OH NOOOOOOO…..
“My suitcase?” I said in a panic. “Is it white with a leather-colored strap?”
“Yes,” the hotel employee replied.
“Did it have cute polka-dotted and striped organizers inside?”
“Yes,” she said.
“Were there polka-dotted packing cubes?”
“Yes,” she replied again.
// polka dotted make-up case (I monogrammed this on the front) // large striped travel bag // large polka dotted travel bag // polka-dotted packing cubes //
“That’s my suitcase,” I said with a sigh.
(total aside: it actually wasn’t just a sigh—it was despair wrapped up with regret sprinkled with utter despondency).
“Hold on,” she said. “The manager wants to talk to you.”
This is the part of the story where my heart was sinking into my chest. I had no idea what to do. I had no idea how to get my suitcase back.
Maryland was four hours away.
There was no way we were driving back and the distance between me and my suitcase was growing larger with every mile.
// polka dotted make-up case (I monogrammed this on the front) // large striped travel bag // large polka dotted travel bag // polka-dotted packing cubes //
And then?
The manager came on the phone.
“Mrs. Wood? Thanks so much for taking our call. We noticed a suitcase sitting out under the porch at the front of the hotel and we kept watching it and watching it and no one ever came to claim it. So we brought it inside and tried to figure out who owned it. It was hard, though, because there wasn’t a luggage tag or any type of identifying information.”
No identifying information.
My bad.
At that moment I had four thoughts:
- I sent a silent prayer to heaven that I packed everything up to look super cute before I left the hotel. I’ve never been more thankful for the random impulse that made me pack that suitcase like I was a contestant on a game show.
- I KNEW I should have bought a luggage tag. I had been looking at blue and white polka-dotted ones, but I never ordered them.
- I would need to go shopping to make it home and I was not sad about it.
- How in the world did they realize it was my luggage?
“So how did you figure it out? How did you know who owned it?” I asked.
I could hear the smile in her voice on the other end of the phone. “Your monograms,” she said. “Everything in the suitcase was monogrammed, so we were able to figure out your name from that.”
MONOGRAMS?
Three little wonderful letters?
The first last and middle name, all typed up and embroidered onto the front of my organizers?
Sigh.
Who knew that a simple monogram would be the one responsible for saving my suitcase’s life?
Without the monogram, we’d never have been reunited.
Because four days later when this package showed up at my door…
….guess what was inside.
Yep.
YOU KNOW IT.
// this luggage set //
It was my long lost suitcase.
Isn’t it beautiful?
Isn’t it wonderful?
Isn’t it the prettiest suitcase you’ve ever seen.
The sweetest manager of the hotel took the time to figure out whose suitcase it was and then she wrapped up the suitcase and packed it up and took it to FedEx and had it shipped to Texas.
I think Maryland is officially my new favorite state.
So the life lessons learned from this travel tale?
You can forget the suitcase.
You can forget the luggage tag.
You can forget the state song for Virginia.
But never, ever, EVER forget the monogram.
PPS You can see all my best packing tips to travel light here.
PS Edited to add–for all the luggage (and organizer) requests–this is seriously my favorite set. It has gotten me through so many trips and still looks like new.
- You can see my luggage set here
- You can see the polka-dotted packing cubes here
- You can see the large striped travel organizer here
- You can see the large polka dotted travel organizer here
- You can see the polka-dotted make-up case here (I monogrammed this on the front)
AND OF COURSE
- Just ordered these so nothing like this ever happens again
- And I thought these were super cute, too
You can also find everything over on my Amazon storefront here.
disclosure: affiliate links are used in this post
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