It looks way better on me then her but whatevs. I bought it at the Baltimore store when I got there on travel for business. So I was scheduled to be in Baltimore until Friday afternoon so I had the dress hanging in the hotel closet all week. I was all giddy with excitement trying to figure out just the perfect place to wear this treasure then it hit me! I had a fundraiser at this really swanky hotel in downtown Atlanta the following Saturday when I returned home.
So, fast forward to Friday. I go to the airport at the end of my work day ready to board the next thing smoking back to Atlanta. I get on the plane, stow the dress that is nicely protected by a beautiful black garment bag given to me by the store clerk. I take my seat and try to relax a bit until we touch down.
Fast forward 2 hours and I am grabbing my carry on's and exiting the plane with the quickness because I am anxious to get home. I get down to baggage claim and as I reach down and grab my red suite case from the carousel I immediately loudly exclaimed, "SHIT!" as I realized I left the garment bag with my beloved white strapless dress pictured above in the over head compartment on the plane! I start to freak out and I run to the lost baggage area to see if they can call someone to go on the plane and retrieve my bag. Simple right? Not so much. They call and no one sees the bag. I was told that after they cleaned the plane if it was located they would bring it to lost and found in a matter of hours. I asked if I could go up to the gate and look for the dress myself. The troll lady at the counter send me to ticketing to get a gate pass to go up there. I get to ticketing and "smiling bitch" looks at me completely clueless as to what to do then goes to find someone else to help. Two other people walk by and after a couple of calls and explaining over again my plight I finally get a gate pass but was informed the plane was currently boarding with new passengers on their way to some wonderful far off destination I'm sure. I go back to the lost baggage area and asked the folks if I could leave my bags there as I would make better time running through the airport without lugging a suite case and a large computer bag in toe. They refused. Good times. I run as fast as I could with all that crap I had to get through security. Aaaawww, the wonderful TSA agents. Gotta love them.
They scan my bag and proceed to pull me over to the side and go through my bag. I scream at them that I am tyring to retrieve my bag and the plane was about to leave. They did not care. They go through my stuff and take out my nail polish remover, lotion, hair spray, hair product and body wash. I am getting further pissed because I need my stuff. You all know how expensive Bath and Body works and hair products can be. They proceed to throw my shit away further exacerbating the issue. I finally get out of there and RUN to the gate and guess what? Go ahead, guess. Exactly, the plane is gone and there is no sign of my bag. I am pissed.
I go back to the lost baggage office. If any of you have ever gone in and out of Atlanta Hartsfield Airport you know that nothing is close by. I had to ride train after train to get to where I needed to go followed by running down long hallways.
Anyway, I get back to the lost baggage office and they tell me, again, there is nothing they could do and all I can do is go on a website and explain what happened. Um yeah. I get home hours later and proceed to do just that.
I get up and call the airline first thing and get a recorded line and nothing else. I decide that I really want this dress for that fundraiser later that night so I go to the White House Black Market store in The Mall of Georgia. I buy the dress again and wear it and look fabulous I might add. Had a great night.
The next morning, today, I get up and head back to the airport to go back to Baltimore for the week and decide to make one last effort to see if they could find my original dress. Lo and behold I found one nice lady that decided to make a few phone calls that were not made that Friday night. While she is making calls she is also filling out a report that was never taken when this whole thing went down. She finds out that my dress is hanging up at the very gate I came in on a couple nights ago. I run over to the gate and viole! my dress in hanging in a cubby. I am beyond thrilled.
I make it all the way to the opposite end of the corridor to my actual gate and hop on my plane to head back to Baltimore. I land and hot tail it over to the original store I first bought the dress and return it for a full refund so after all of that alls well and ends well.
Oy vey!
