Squeak, squeak, squeak. That’s the sound of the wheel on a busted suitcase being dragged through the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport with half the human race watching.
The week before, the Nordic Warrior Queen warned me it was time for a new suitcase. I scoffed. No need for a new suitcase, I assured her. There’s plenty of life in that old boy. I might have actually said, “old boy.”
It’s tough to give up a friend, a fellow traveler who’s accompanied you to Mexico, Brazil, Europe, the former Soviet Union, and even Communist China.
That suitcase was the survivor of countless encounters with inconsiderate baggage handlers and inept ticket agents, dozens of investigations by drug-sniffing dogs and cotton-swiping TIA employees, and endless miles of airport terminals and jet-fuel exhaust coated tarmac.
He was a tired but honorable soldier; how could she expect me to just give him up?
But he began his final surrender that morning, as I made my way across the hotel parking lot. At first, it was just a vague echo of a squeak, a distant warning like that of a Tourette ’s syndrome patient’s first inappropriate utterance of the word “FUCK.”
It was the start of a long day.
By the time I made it to the car rental drop-off, it was a constant, but still relatively quiet, “Fuck…fuck…fuck…fuck.”
But by the time I made it to the security checkpoint, the wheel was emitting a steady WONK…WONK…WONK. The agent standing behind the podium looked me up and down, leaned over and stared at my noisy suitcase, scanned my ID with his little government issue mind-control penlight, looked at my suitcase again, gave me one final suspicious look, then motioned me through.
But I didn’t make it far before the wheel was in full uproar, bleating like a lamb being taken to slaughter.
The sound of it was like nothing you’ve ever heard. People scattered as I approached, certain they were about to be run down by one of those geriatric-laden motorized carts driven by a hollering black man.
I tried to carry it as far as I could, but I had a week’s worth of clothes, several dozen books, and I’ve told you previously how many electronics I have. It was impossible.
Halfway to the gate, he finally gave up the ghost. I was passing Auntie Anne’s Pretzels when the wheels began to smoke. Afraid they wouldn’t let me on the plane with a smoking suitcase, I stepped into the men’s room and dunked the wheels in a urinal to keep the thing from bursting into flame.
When I finally deplaned in Phoenix, my back and arms were aching from dragging that infernal piece of crap through two airports, five parking lots, and a two-story parking garage. By that time, I didn’t care if the thing incinerated itself, as long as it stopped the squeaking.
Home at last, I stepped through the front door and dropped my broken suitcase at the door. The Nordic Warrior Queen looked up with a smug grin. “I told you so.”
This weekend we’re going suitcase shopping. I think I’ll get one of those four-wheeled jobbers. They’re supposed to be easy to pull.