Suits me

The little slip inside the fortune cookie wasn’t exactly correct. At least not about this trip. At least not so far.

It was only when I got to the hotel that it hit me, crept up my spine, and froze my thoughts. Temporarily I was short of breath, my heart skipped, and my eyes felt like watering. The realisation, then the despair, followed by a sense of guilt, to be replaced soon thereafter with the insight that it was pointless to worry, pointless to get upset. However upsetting it may be to lose a brand new suit that I had worn only once two days earlier.

I tried to retrace my steps, tried to picture the places I have been since this morning. Taxi to the airport, check-in desk, security check, the restaurant where I had pancakes (explicitly without the sausages or bacon), the lounge where we sat and waited for the gates to open. Up till then I had it with me. After that it all became a blur. My co-counsel assured me that she had seen it on-board the flight. But the excitement of turbulence in those final moments of descent, and of looking out the window to watch the Pentagon fly by overwhelmed my normally careful self.

I tried to imagine the times, locations, moments wherever it may be possible that my suit may have lost itself (or that it has lost me). Air Canada promised to look for it, and if found deliver it to my hotel if I’m still in Washington. If not, the lady on the phone assured me, they will keep on searching for the next two months. A black suit with matching pants, a white long-sleeve shirt, two ties (purple and shiny blue), and an orange astronaut pin that is only available at the souvenir shop of ESA’s ESTEC (which is only open a few hours on Wednesday afternoons). My mind wandered to the curious image of baggage handlers with sniffer dogs, scouring every inch of the two airports and of that little fragile Embraer I was on to live up to their promise.

I felt bad needing to buy a brand new suit, and the shirt and tie to go with it. Even worse as I walked down M Street carrying my bright, big colourful bags. A Vietnam veteran, with unkempt hair, wielding a sign scribbled with “God help me!”, together with half a dozen with empty, sunken (or drunken?) eyes ogled at me as I walked on by.

The “envoy of McGillkind”…