On a recent business trip to Toronto, United lost my luggage. It’s been 2 weeks now, and I’m finalizing the paperwork I’m sending in for reimbursement of everything that was in the bag.
Now, of course, I mostly remember just packing clothes, toiletries, and some books. But my wife (who didn’t accompany me to Canada) is absolutely positive that a diamond pendant for our 8th anniversary (later this month) was also inadvertently rerouted to Rochester, never to be seen again–and thus, perfectly appropriate to include on the reimbursement list.
So naturally, if I forgot about this pendant, I don’t doubt for a second that there may have been other things in the bag that I packed that I don’t remember either. This is where I need your help! What other items were in my lost luggage that United should start planning on cutting me a check for? My mind seems to be going in these advanced years, so I’m sure my fellow Dopers will come up with other things that I’m likely to have overlooked in this itemization (;)).
I’m pretty sure that someone about to commit fraud does not publish the details on a message board read by thousands of people as the first step in their cunning plan. (Well, OK, if that message board is Myspace.com, they probably do. But not the SDMB.)
I suspect ArchiveGuy also packed the object of inconceivable value from Pulp Fiction.
The whole wink-eye thing was part of what led to my suspicion. Let me help you out and show you what this looks like to me:
(the second bolded sentence is my emphasis)
I read this as “Hi, I am about to get paid for items that I lost which I cannot prove I ever had (nor can it be proved that I didn’t have them). My wife has “reminded” me about an expensive diamond pendant that I lost, and by golly, I didn’t even remember I packed it! What other items might I have lost? (GRATUITOUS WINKWINKNUDGENUDGE)”
IIRC, you had found complete prints of the Bara Cleopatra, Daughter of the Gods, and all of the missing two-color Technicolor films, and were transporting them on your person.
Apparently nobody told you that ***your soul ***should always travel in your carry-on, never in your checked baggage. And once lost, you can’t get a replacement.
