Down on the Ground

I tend to conduct mental conversations with G-d at unlikely moments. I also don’t always adopt the most appropriate tone for the levity of the conversational participants.

Take my latest rambling, mental dialogue with the one on High. After a hellish day of travel (on an airline that we shall call… PlaneGreen) I found myself waiting at baggage claim. Landing an hour late and desperate to be home, I waited as the carousel began to spin and the giant mouth at the base of the conveyor regurgitated luggage like so much chewed cud. “Come on, G-d,” I begin, silently cajoling. I know it’s crazy, but there’s a subversive satisfaction in talking to the Ultimate Being as if He’s a wayward three-year-old precariously bearing the rings at your wedding. It's like, you're rooting for him, but a screwup just might be inevitable. “Come on, G-d, please, let my bags come through. Come on, I was on time. In fact, I was the first person to check in for the flight. There’s no way they could have lost them. If they’re lost, it would be all You. And you don’t want that, do you? Come on…” I spot a cherry red bag in the distance and my heart lifts for a moment…until I realize it’s a classic style suitcase, not my own large duffel style bag. “That wasn’t very nice,” I mentally grumble skyward. I imagine somewhere great big G-d chortles are billowing across a big blue sky.

Grumpily, I look around. It suddenly occurs to me that I am not the only one wrapped in my own mental barter for my essential earthly belongings. I’m standing before the great equalizer of mankind—the baggage claim carousel.

No one is safe. No one is untouched.

I look at my fellow former passengers who are undoubtedly more sane than I. I see a family with two little children squabbling, a harried mother, and a father talking frantically into a Blackberry, a crazed, sleep-deprived glint in his eye. I see a woman in three inch heels, long blonde hair swaying with every step, toying with sunglasses as watches for her bag in a stance laden with ennui. The occasional fingernail bite is her tell—she’s nervous about her bag too. But she’ll be damned if she’ll frown and ruin the Botox.

I see teenagers chatting, older couples waiting, a businesswoman making small talk with the chauffer picking her up, leaning on the SmartCart. All of us watch and wait who the fates have chosen to favor, and who the fates have spurned.

Later, as I wheel my laden red duffel out of the airport and into the sunlight to wait for a cab, I ponder the odd things that bring us odd creatures together. Something as random and arbitrary as waiting for luggage, and suddenly, the playing field is leveled. It does not matter if you’re rich, poor, ugly, pretty, have 6 toes on one foot, or are an Olympic athlete. You are just as subject to the whims of the airline baggage system as the rest of us.

Life is an individual adventure, but there are roadblocks and signs and bumps and bruises that everyone can relate to.

And as I get into my cab, my bag safely in the trunk, I send a grateful smile heavenward.