As we headed back to the USA from South America, we had our hands full with everything we had been carrying for the past four months, as well as the huge bag of presents that we brought home to give to our families as Christmas gifts. The bag we got to carry the presents was typical of South America. It was a bright, multicolored woven plastic bag with a bunch of Spanish words and a picture of the Lion King on it. Turns out, what is typical in South America doesn't even exist in North America. Because of it's important contents, and it's ridiculously bright exterior, we kept a close eye on that bag of gifts. After travelling with the bag for almost 3000 miles (Quito to Panama City to Orlando to New York to Boston), it had become an extension of myself. Until we put it down on the curb outside South Station, to load our other bags into the car.... and left it there.
We didn't realize that we had left the bag until almost 11 o'clock that night, at which point it was too late to go back into Boston to look for it. Bill Waterhouse, always a man with ideas, suggested that we head back into Boston the following morning to check the lost and found at South Station. After all, it was Christmas time. People have a tendency to be kind at that time of year.
When I arrived at South Station, I realized that each of the different sectors of the station have their own lost and found. So over the next half an hour, I checked in with the lost and found at the bus terminal, the commuter rail and at Amtrak, but to no avail. I was feeling quite demoralized as I walked by the entrance to the Red Line subway. I figured it was a long shot, but I might as well check to see if they had a lost and found.
As I got to the bottom of the stairs, I saw an area with transit workers and asked one of them if there was a lost and found. He told me I would have to go to another train station to check the lost and found there, which, at that point, I did not want to do. I was ready to head home in utter defeat, but then something caught my eye.
In a wire basket in front of the transit office was a bright, multicolored bag. Having just spent four months in South America where EVERYONE has that exact bag, I immediately thought, "Huh. I guess someone else has the same bag." I walked over to the basket and asked the transit worker about the bag. He practically screamed at me, "What do you know about this bag???"
I told him that I thought this was the bag I was looking for, and as I reached in to pull the bag out of the basket I saw the tell-tale Lion King on the back side of the bag. As the realization dawned on me that this was my bag, another transit worker came out of the office and started yelling. He demanded to know what I knew about the bag, how I knew it was here and what I had to do with all of this. I explained to him that I accidentally left the bag on the sidewalk last night, but that I'd like to take it home. Not so fast, he told me.
He opened his cell phone and showed me a picture of a make-shift table and proceeded to tell me the story of my missing bag. At some point the previous night, someone took the bag from the street and brought it down into the subway. They removed all of the contents and set up a display on the subway platform. He displayed the table runners that Mark and I bought for our moms, the silver and mahogany tray, the blanket I bought for my sister-in-law, a bowl for my dad and a few other things... and he tried to SELL THEM!
Fortunately for me, this person tried to be slick and set up the table just outside the line of sight of the security camera. Somehow, the transit authority had been alerted and found this man's activity to be extremely sketchy. So sketchy, in fact, that they called the bomb squad in to investigate. The bomb squad had finished about 10 minutes before I arrived in the station.
As he was telling me all this, I was looking through the basket and realized that every single gift was still there. Not one gift was missing. As he finished telling me the story of my bag, I burst into tears and started screaming at the top of my lungs, "IT'S A CHRISTMAS MIRACLE!!" In that wonderful, gruff Boston way, the two transit workers kept saying, "Lady. Calm down, lady. Lady. Stop crying, lady!" I got the sense that they were going to detain me and try to find out more from me about this bag, which had caused so much trouble, but they couldn't calm me down from crying and screaming about the Christmas miracle. I think they were just happy to get me out of there.
As I collected my things and put them all into the bag to take home, I looked up at the transit worker. "Who would do something like that?" I asked. "Oh, you know these subterranean people." I guess I do now.
So, THANK YOU subterranean people (or Mole People, if you prefer) for stealing my stuff, trying to sell it, and getting the bomb squad to make sure it was all good so they could return it to me, just in time for Christmas.
