I came home after my dancing lesson around 11 p.m. It got a bit late, but that’s okay. The walk from my stop to my house is relatively short. Upon approaching my house I noticed an empty suitcase, standing alone resting against a pillar.
Why is a suitcase standing there at night? It alarmed me. Was it something dangerous? Did some nutcase put something crazy in it and just left it? Or maybe it isn’t something very dramatic. Perhaps someone got tired of having the suitcase in the house, while not using it. Maybe it remembered him of old travels he cannot make anymore. Or travels he made with a special person that is no longer in his life. Or simply that it was taking up too much space.
Not too long ago it was very common to put good but unwanted stuff on the street, the night before trash pick-up day. Many times you would see that someone would walk by, recognize the object as usable and take it with him. Et voila, you made someone happy.
The empty bag may have been waiting for a new owner. Someone to take him on new adventures in the lands of far far away. Yet, due to many bombing event, people think twice before picking up an abandoned bag of the streets.
It was the spring of 2013, when I arrived in Portland’s little suburbia, named Tigard. My host, whom I’ve only spoken to via the couchsurfing site, was kind enough to come pick me up with the car from the bus station near his house. I followed the travel instructions I got from google to get from the Portland central busstation to the specific stop in Tigard.
I got out with my two suitcases of luggage, my camerabag and handbag. This wasn’t the right stop, I said to myself. I tried phoning my host but didn’t get reception. I walk around for a bit, until I found a good spot and contacted my host. He’d be there within seven minutes. Its started raining and I moved all my luggage underneath a tree, orso I thought I had. When my host helped me get my luggage in the car, I noticed one bag missing and had to take a few deep breaths before I could speak.
This is how the chase for the missing bag started. We drove down the street I walked before, but nothing to see. I suspected leaving it behind in the bus and we drove to the busstation, where we had to fill out a missing items form, because the item hadn’t been found on the bus. The driver did mention he found one lady on the bus behaving rather suspiciously. I guess we could go to the police, but there wasn’t enough evidence for me to accuse someone like that. I had to think about it a bit longer.
So my awesomely kind host, who actually left a birthday party for me, thinking he’d be back within 15 minutes, was now gone for almost an hour and driving me to his place where I could stay to relax. Nearly at his house, he got a call from the police: a bag has been found and they would like to verify who’s it is. His name and number were found in my agenda on today’s date. Lucky me for keeping a administration!
Turns out that this lovely lady saw me coming out of the bus with all my luggage and walking away. A few minutes later she noticed the green bag on the streets and knew it had to be mine. By that time I had vanished from the spot, so she decided to take it inside (as it was raining quite a bit) and phone police. Her husband got quite upset when he heard she took the bag inside.” What if there’s a bomb in it?!” he had asked her, she says in an excited voice. Nothing ever happens here in Tigard, who would want to bomb this street with eleven houses in it?
I’m glad she trusted her intuition on it and we could all laugh about the incident. Yet, this is what society is becoming. People are so scared to get bombed, that even an innocent looking ladies bag in the middle of a clean small town higher class neighborhood cannot be trusted anymore. It’s a shame.
I came home after my dancing lesson around 11 p.m. It got a bit late, but that’s okay. The walk from my stop to my house is relatively short. Upon approaching my house I noticed an empty suitcase, standing alone resting against a pillar.
Why is a suitcase standing there at night? It alarmed me. Was it something dangerous? Did some nutcase put something crazy in it and just left it? Or maybe it isn’t something very dramatic. Perhaps someone got tired of having the suitcase in the house, while not using it. Maybe it remembered him of old travels he cannot make anymore. Or travels he made with a special person that is no longer in his life. Or simply that it was taking up too much space.
Not too long ago it was very common to put good but unwanted stuff on the street, the night before trash pick-up day. Many times you would see that someone would walk by, recognize the object as usable and take it with him. Et voila, you made someone happy.
The empty bag may have been waiting for a new owner. Someone to take him on new adventures in the lands of far far away. Yet, due to many bombing event, people think twice before picking up an abandoned bag of the streets.
It was the spring of 2013, when I arrived in Portland’s little suburbia, named Tigard. My host, whom I’ve only spoken to via the couchsurfing site, was kind enough to come pick me up with the car from the bus station near his house. I followed the travel instructions I got from google to get from the Portland central busstation to the specific stop in Tigard.
I got out with my two suitcases of luggage, my camerabag and handbag. This wasn’t the right stop, I said to myself. I tried phoning my host but didn’t get reception. I walk around for a bit, until I found a good spot and contacted my host. He’d be there within seven minutes. Its started raining and I moved all my luggage underneath a tree, orso I thought I had. When my host helped me get my luggage in the car, I noticed one bag missing and had to take a few deep breaths before I could speak.
This is how the chase for the missing bag started. We drove down the street I walked before, but nothing to see. I suspected leaving it behind in the bus and we drove to the busstation, where we had to fill out a missing items form, because the item hadn’t been found on the bus. The driver did mention he found one lady on the bus behaving rather suspiciously. I guess we could go to the police, but there wasn’t enough evidence for me to accuse someone like that. I had to think about it a bit longer.
So my awesomely kind host, who actually left a birthday party for me, thinking he’d be back within 15 minutes, was now gone for almost an hour and driving me to his place where I could stay to relax. Nearly at his house, he got a call from the police: a bag has been found and they would like to verify who’s it is. His name and number were found in my agenda on today’s date. Lucky me for keeping a administration!
Turns out that this lovely lady saw me coming out of the bus with all my luggage and walking away. A few minutes later she noticed the green bag on the streets and knew it had to be mine. By that time I had vanished from the spot, so she decided to take it inside (as it was raining quite a bit) and phone police. Her husband got quite upset when he heard she took the bag inside.” What if there’s a bomb in it?!” he had asked her, she says in an excited voice. Nothing ever happens here in Tigard, who would want to bomb this street with eleven houses in it?
I’m glad she trusted her intuition on it and we could all laugh about the incident. Yet, this is what society is becoming. People are so scared to get bombed, that even an innocent looking ladies bag in the middle of a clean small town higher class neighborhood cannot be trusted anymore. It’s a shame.