Jonny McCambridge: The curious case of the missing cases

But sometimes it only takes one thing gone wrong to sour the memory of the whole experience. In our case, it all ended badly.

The trip home involved a flight transfer. We were scheduled to fly from Rome to Amsterdam, then change planes to fly onto Dublin from where I would drive home. It was a cumbersome arrangement, but not overly daunting.

Except that our flight from Rome was delayed by several hours. A delayed flight is annoying at any time. A delayed flight when there is a transfer to be caught and a bored child in the departures lounge is even more trying.

When we eventually boarded, I was convinced we would miss our transfer. In fact, I was quite sanguine about it because I knew that it would be the responsibility of the airline to find us accommodation for the night and then organise a new flight the next morning. A night in a Dutch hotel seemed a bearable hardship.

But as we neared our arrival in Amsterdam a flight attendant informed us that the Dublin flight was also delayed and had not yet taken off. She told us that we could still make the connection – but only if we really, really, really hurried.

Schipol Airport in Amsterdam is huge. I know this because I ran with my wife and son from one side of it to the other, from where the Rome flight landed to where the Dublin one was waiting to take off minutes later.

At my very best, with the right preparation, diet, conditioning and warm-up, I’m an acceptable runner. After two weeks of holiday gluttony and wearing flip-flops and trousers which no longer fit at the waist, I am not at my best.

Soon I was a sweaty desperate mess and falling behind the rest of my family. I considered just giving up and collapsing on the terminal floor as my wife and son moved further and further into the distance.

Then, they began to slow.

‘Don’t wait for me!’ I gasped and wheezed heroically. ‘Leave me, save yourself!’

My wife grabbed me by the arm. For a moment, I believed it to be a touching gesture of solidarity.

‘Come on!’ she demanded, ‘you have the flipping boarding passes!’

We eventually arrived at the departure desk where a stern uniformed Dutch woman was tutting and pointing to her watch.

‘You are late and everyone else is waiting to board,’ she scolded in clipped tones.

There were a number of things I could have said at this moment. I could have pointed out that the reason we were late was because the airline for which she worked had caused the delay. I could have said that I had spent 20 minutes sprinting across the airport to catch the plane due to a situation which was not our fault. But the truth is I don’t have the constitution for such encounters. So, instead I meekly whispered ‘sorry’.

We boarded to discover that the airline had seated myself, my wife and young son in different areas of the plane. As my boy whimpered in the aisle, I had to find a passenger willing to swap seats so he would not have to endure the journey alone.

And then I finally took my seat and closed my eyes, content that the worst was behind us. What else could go wrong?

Hours later, well after midnight and I am standing in a huge room full of suitcases. This is Dublin Airport baggage reclaim.

When I say it is full of suitcases that doesn’t really do justice to the spectacle. Just about every spare area of floor space is occupied by a case. They are every size, shape and colour and the vast majority are not attached to any owner. They are lost suitcases, many covered in a thin film of grey dust.

The room is full of cases, hundreds of them. What is not in the room are my cases. I know this because I have watched the baggage reclaim carousel belt go around 346 times. At first it was full of cases, then there were fewer and fewer. Now there is just one case going round and round, a small blue item that, no matter how many times I pick it up and examine it, refuses to metamorphosise into any of my three missing suitcases.

My wife puts her hand on my arm.

‘They’re not here honey, they haven’t made it from Amsterdam.’

‘Just a few more minutes.’

But I soon have to concede she is right. Now, in the depth of the night with a tired nine-year-old, we join the end of a long queue full of angry and frustrated people at the lost luggage booth.

A uniformed man walks up and down the queue telling people that they don’t have to be here, they can register their lost luggage online. Each time he does this, the woman in front of me tells him that this is impossible as the website has crashed. She says this over and over, but he seems not to hear.

We wait in the queue for some time, long enough for me to think about what has happened. The truth is that I have lost nothing valuable. It is equally true that most of the items of clothing I own are in the case. I do not possess a large wardrobe.

As I stand in the queue, I find myself considering that the only pair of pants I own that are not missing are the ones I am currently wearing.

What seems like hours later, we finally reach the desk at the front of the queue. I am tired and beyond the reach of logic or reason. My wife does most of the talking, but there are three missing cases, so we have to fill out multiple forms.

One of the sections on the form includes the request ‘Describe five distinctive items in the case.’

I think about this for a few moments.

Then I write ‘Blue pants, red pants, green pants, pink pants, grey pants.’

The exhausted man behind the counter takes our forms and tells us that our cases will be delivered by courier to our front door the next day.

This all happened six weeks ago. As I write our cases have not yet been found. They may be in Rome, they may be in Amsterdam, they may be in Dublin. For all we know, they could be in darkest Peru.

As I said before I don’t really have the constitution for this sort of thing. I have full admiration for my wife who has for several weeks fought an ongoing battle with the airport, airline and baggage handlers for any scrap of information about my missing pants.

Left to me, I’d probably still be standing in that large room watching the carousel belt go round and round.