Gary, The Suitcase

I want to talk about the suitcase tracker, because I think we’ve all quietly agreed to a strange new arrangement with our luggage and nobody’s said it out loud yet. We used to just throw a bag on a conveyor belt, cross our fingers, and pray to whatever travel saint handles duffel bags. Now we put a little chip in there like we’re releasing our suitcase into the wild and hoping Animal Control finds it before the coyotes do.

I bought one of these trackers thinking I was being smart, being modern, keeping up with the times. And the second the nice young man at the store explained how it works, I realized I hadn’t bought a travel accessory. I had adopted a pet.

Why A Suitcase Tracker Turns You Into A Nervous Parent

Here’s the thing nobody warns you about a suitcase tracker: once it’s in there, you check it more than you check your own phone. You’re at dinner with your family, somebody’s telling a nice story about their kid’s graduation, and you’re underneath the table going ‘hang on, let me just see where Gary is.’ Gary, by the way, is my suitcase. I named him the minute they told me if he got lost, somebody would call me about him like he’d wandered off a farm. You don’t name a flashlight. You don’t name a phone charger. But the moment an object has the emotional weight of ‘if we find him, we’ll be in touch,’ that thing gets a name, a personality, and in my case, a mild gambling problem, because Gary has been to Vegas twice without me and I still don’t fully trust him.

The Suitcase Tracker Family Group Chat Nobody Asked For

My daughter set up one of those apps where the whole family can see where the suitcase tracker says the bag is at any given moment, like we’re running a small air traffic control operation out of the kitchen. Last month Gary went quiet for six hours in what the map called ‘a facility,’ and I had three family members texting me asking if Gary was okay, like he’d gone into surgery. I had to explain, no, Gary is a suitcase, he is simply being sorted, he does not have feelings, although if he did, I imagine being thrown by a man named Dale at four in the morning would hurt them.

I’ll tell you something else about owning a suitcase tracker, it changes how you argue with the airline. You used to call and say ‘my bag is missing’ and they’d shrug at you like you’d misplaced a feeling. Now I call up and go ‘I don’t want to alarm you, but according to my suitcase tracker, Gary is currently at a Waffle House in Tulsa, and I was supposed to be in Tulsa, so either reroute my flight or send me the Waffle House address, I’m not picky.’

What Happens When The Suitcase Tracker Goes Quiet

The worst is when the suitcase tracker loses signal entirely. No blinking dot, no update, nothing. That is the single most helpless a grown man can feel, staring at a blank screen like he’s waiting on a submarine to surface. My wife walked by me pacing in the kitchen at midnight and said ‘what is wrong with you,’ and I said ‘Gary’s gone dark,’ and she looked at me the way you look at someone who just told you their houseplant ghosted them.

And look, I understand the tracker is for safety, for convenience, for peace of mind. But somewhere along the way peace of mind turned into me standing in an airport whispering ‘come on, buddy, ping me’ to a piece of luggage like it’s a search and rescue dog. If the airline ever does lose Gary permanently, I’ve already decided I’m not filing a claim form, I’m putting up flyers. Last seen: baggage claim 4, answers to Gary, reward if returned, no questions asked, mostly because I don’t think Gary would answer them honestly anyway.