Recently when I got home to Minneapolis from my latest trip, I ripped the luggage claim tag off my bag and walked over to pitch it into the trash bin. When I looked in the bin, something caught my eye and it definitely looked out of place.
It was a brand new back-pack, fully embroidered with "Special Olympics China, Oct 2-11th" on it. I took a chance and reached into the trash to get it. It was heavy! Inside were three gold medals for swimming, some swim goggles, a game-boy, a Sony CD Walkman (still spinning on batteries and pumping sound into the headphones that were attached), and an envelope full of CDs. ALL OVER THE BAG, the kid's name was written in black permanent marker, "Jonathan Wright"
I took the bag home and called the Special Olympics. They confirmed for me that Jonathan Wright is indeed a swimmer for the USA and that he lives in North Carolina. I called him and he was SUPER excited to know that I found his medals.
Here's the weird part... He said that all he knows is that his bag disappeared while he was in his hotel, staying overnight in L.A. on his way back home to North Carolina from China. I described the contents and he says that nothing was missing. Did someone steal it? Why would they hump it from L.A. to Minneapolis just to throw it away in the baggage area?
The medals were beautiful and I was happy to return them, my wife makes me donate to the Special Olympics regularly, as a penance for having the license plate "SHORTBUS" on my yellow X. I've started following their games a bit and it really, REALLY pisses me off to think that someone would steal the bag like that.
All's well that ends well, I suppose.
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kjw &
the PNUTMNM
The liver is evil, and must be punished...