Over the weekend I went to Chicago with one of the choirs I play for. We left early friday morning. Well, when we got to Chicago friday morning it was pouring. I asked our bus driver if I could get out my umbrella which was in my bag in the cargo hold. I got it out and tried to shut the hold, but I wasn't quite sure how to do it. I was going to ask the driver about it but he was talking to our tour director. I figured he'd get it, and left. That was the mistake. He totally forgot about it.
We went shopping for about 3 hours and when we got back he pulled me aside to ask me about my bag. He wanted to know if I put it back under the bus which I had. Well, he never latched it and he was driving downtown and apparantly some motorist flagged him down to tell him it was open. We searched for my bag, it was gone. He re-drove the route, but no bag. So we got back from shopping and I found out all I had literally were the clothes I was wearing The tour director (Trudy) said well I need you to make a detailed list of everything in your bag, and I was just staring at her thinking.. EVERYTHING! EVERYTHING IS IN MY BAG! I was wearing jeans, flipflops, a cotton 3\4 length shirt, I had my spring jacket an umbrella, and a zip up sweatshirty thing in my bag on the bus.. THAT WAS IT! She asked about the number I had on my identification tag. I had our home number written on this tag. Then I got a lecture about how it should be my cell number. I only had the tag b'c they passed them out that morning, and I kind of haphazardly filled it out, thinking, why do I need this, we're going on a bus for crying out loud! THANK HEAVENS I did.
The tour company was virtually unhelpful. Trudy said I could go shopping in Chicago for some new clothes... um... yeah, okay! I'm in downtown chicago do you have a target around, oh wait no, all you have are these crazy high end stores. Rox (the director) said well what is she supposed to do, and that was when the lady said well you'll have to wash out your underwear in the sink... ah... thank you for those kind words of wisdom, everything is better now..... so anyway, them being totally unhelpful, I called my mom and asked her to run to our house to check our answering machine, and God bless the woman who found it.. had called.
I called her and said that the tour company would be contacting her to get my bag back and passed along the information. Not before however the tour lady told me I could just catch a cab to go pick up the bag, and I said.. no, this isn't my problem, I'm not the one who lost my luggage... so turns out that a guy who worked at the hotel where we were staying wife worked with the woman who found the bag, so she passed it off to this lady who then brought it to the hotel when she picked up her husband at 11:15 at night I might add... but I was never so happy to see my pajamas in my entire life!
And that is the story of the lost bag on a bus!