BUT before I can leave my destination airport there is a ritual to go through which I would like to share with you all.....a detail of modern life that never fails to amaze and mostly amuse me, it the way normal-looking people behave around airport baggage carousels.
We all get off the plane, traipse along endless dreary corridors and queue through Passport Control without incident, but then the weary but still basically civilised crowd hits the luggage-collection area and is transformed into a crazy, wild-eyed mob! Men in executive suits and women in smart-casual clothes suddenly become raving lunatics.
The first sign of this lemming-like fever is the sprint to be as close as possible to the point where the bags appear from the great hidden beyond that is the airport baggage handling area. I always deliberately stand on the far side to try to avoid the really mad people. Having established a comfy spot where I can see what's coming, but where there is no one with an overly aggressive demeanour too close, I settle in for the wait.
But no matter how unappealing my spot in the hierarchy of prime carousel-watching real estate, after about 15 minutes, when I am feeling a certain claim over my territory, someone will come and stand right in front of me, leaning in over the conveyor belt, so it's suddenly impossible to see anything, let alone grab my bag should it ever appear.
I try to rise above it by attempting to understand the behaviour I see around me. I can appreciate that, at the end of a long journey, everyone just wants to get the hell out of there - and then there is the issue of the taxi queue. But, really, is it going to make that much of a difference to the big picture of your journey if you have to wait two more minutes to grab your bag?
Rational thought doesn't seem to come into it. There is a kind of demented group obsession to see the bag. Then get the bag. Woe betide you if you're in the way when Mrs Grabby has spotted her case coming along. She'd club you to death to get at it!
There seems to be a great fear of not getting the bag off the carousel immediately. What do they think will happen if they can't get to it the first time and it goes back through the rubber curtain? Have they confused the moving luggage carousel with the set-up at a crematorium? Do they think their bag will be taken straight into an incinerator? Surely they have seen the strange purple suitcase that goes round and round in every luggage-collection hall on earth? Wait five flipping minutes and your bag will come round again like a tired slice of mackerael in a conveyor-belt sushi joint.
The philosophical me asks could we please rise up and end this collective luggage lunacy? All together now: ohmmmmmmmmm.....
Post Script
Now I was not going to mention philosophy in this post as Roban (Flygirl) commented I was too philosophical for her at this point in time (I totally agree I go overboard sometimes) and Annemarie (McMGrad89) asked does my brain hurt......yes when I don't get enough sleep........BUT I had to slip it in didn't I!!!!
I took this photo while barging in France in June this year......just look how orderly these cows lined up to have their photos taken....we can learn alot from them.
