It’s about 4:00 a.m. I’m standing on the beach with some good friends- guys and girls that I was close with from Ann Arbor, as well as new friends I made during spring break. My feet are dug under the sand to dry them off and for warmth. I’m wearing wet shorts that I mistakenly thought was a pair of bathing suits when I drunkenly went back to my room to get dressed for the ocean. I’m wearing a nice, white button down shirt- the same one I wore to the night club about an hour or two earlier. The beach is pitch black; I can hear the waves crash and feel the warm Miami breeze blowing into my face.
As I sit in a circle with my friends on the beach, I am grateful that I packed my suitcase and carry-on before soaring into a state of mind where such a simple task becomes so difficult. After sitting in the circle for some time, my friend and I walked up to my room. We grabbed our suitcases from room 433 and took the elevator down to the lobby. At 5:00 we were supposed to meet four other friends in the lobby who were also on our flight. The time was now 5:15 a.m. and one friend- who failed to answer any of our texts, calls, or FaceTimes- was still not in the lobby, so we had to leave without him. We couldn’t spare much more time given that our flight back to Detroit was boarding at 6:15.
Since the UberXL was too expensive, we decided to just get two regular ubers. Three of my friends went in their own uber, and my friend and I were going to go in another. Right after my friend had called the $44 uber (which came out to be $22 each), he quickly cancelled it: while waiting for our uber, one of the hotel workers told us to hop in a taxi because it would only cost us $35 to go to Miami International Airport.
“Nice,” my friend and I thought.
“Only 17 dollars each to get to the airport, what a steal.”
“I know, 5 extra dollars for some airport snacks,” I replied.
As the cab driver helped us put each of our suitcases into the trunk, we hopped in the back seat. I placed my carry-on backpack in the middle seat between me and my friend, and we both closed our eyes. Being too tired and not yet sober at this point, we spent the majority of the ride switching from going on our phones to closing our eyes. As we were on a bridge, my friend said, “Look up” as he pointed to the South Beach skyline. I looked up in front of me, saw four numbers on the taxi’s backseat screen, then gazed to my left to see the skyline. I wasn’t too interested, awake, or conscious enough to be excited about the silhouettes of buildings so I said, “Oh, cool” and continued to close my eyes for the remainder of the early morning ride.
As the cab slowed to a stop, I sluggishly got out of the car to get my suitcase from the back of the cab. My friend and I pulled our bags from the curb, through the sliding doors, and into the airport. Right when we got inside, we began looking for our other friends as well as the monitors that help you check into your flight and print your boarding pass. It was at that moment that I realized I had left my carry-on backpack in the backseat of the taxi. Immediately, I started to panic, but there was no time for that. I began freaking out instantly. My heart began racing extremely fast when I intensely blurted out, “I forgot my backpack in the taxi.” After making that face for a few seconds where your eyebrows raise to the top of your forehead, your jaw drops below your chin, I sprinted as fast as I could. I ran through the sliding doors, which in that moment took unusually long to open, and down the entire terminal.
With my suitcase in hand- too crazed to even think of putting it down before running- I sprinted the length of the whole terminal looking for the taxi. As the suitcase behind me was tilting from side to side about to fall over, I continued my run to find the cab. After running long and hard enough to the point where I was starting to lose breath, I yelled “Yo!” at every taxicab I saw. My legs were no match for the vehicles speeding in front of me. Feeling brutally defeated, I walked all the way back to the sliding doors where my friend was waiting. I couldn’t help but think about all the valuables I had left in my bag: a laptop, reading glasses, my wallet, sunglasses, and other important possessions. Luckily, I had my debit card and photo I.D. in the pouch on the back of my phone, so I was still able to fly home.
I walked into the airport and saw my friend standing there.
“It’s gone,” I said with my head facing down.
We met up with our other friends. I told them what had happened and we tried thinking of every way possible to get the bag back. Since we rode in the taxi and not the uber, we had no record of our driver’s name or phone number. With hopeful sentiments given to me by my friends, I wasn’t going to let the fight be over that fast. After being on hold for 10 minutes with the hotel I had stayed at, I finally told them what happened.
“Hi, my name is Leo XXXX. I was a resident at your hotel for the past 4 days, and I’m calling because I got into a taxi at the hotel, and I left my bag with valuables in the cab.”
“Sorry, there’s nothing we can do for you since you’re not staying at our hotel anymore,” said the guy on the other end. “We can connect you with security, though, and you can tell them what happened.”
With very few other options I said, “Yes, please,” and waited for them to connect me. The conversation went nowhere, and again, I was left feeling defeated.
I texted my parents explaining the situation to them. I knew I would get a response after my flight because we were going to take off around 6:30 a.m. and they were not going to be awake. The whole time in the airport I was trying to get my bag back. I had brainstormed with all my friends, and we only came up with calling the cab company. The only problem was that my friend and I had no idea what the company was called. While on the phone with the hotel, yet again, I desperately asked them to call every cab company in Miami to see if one of their drivers had a bag in their car. Unfortunately, this was very unrealistic and not feasible because there were many different cab companies, each with hundreds of taxi drivers.
I stayed on the phone with the hotel while waiting for the flight to board at the gate. Eventually, it was my turn to board, and I had to turn my phone on airplane mode. I slept on the flight for the first two and a half hours when I was awoken by the announcement stating that we will soon begin our initial descent. I woke up extremely hot and sweating from all the anxiety, I assume. I took off my hoodie and asked the stewardess for two cold ginger ales. When I had reached normal body temperature again, I began re-brainstorming to think of ways that I could get my bag back.
I remembered it. The taxi number. 1036. One digit off from my favorite four-digit number, 1037. Why is 1037 one of my favorite numbers? It’s a strange story but nonetheless a critical side story…
One time when I was younger, about 8 or 9 years old, I had a digital laser clock that shot a red beam up toward the ceiling. It projected the time right above my bed. One night, I was lying down on my bed in the opposite direction so that my feet were where my pillow should be. As I looked up to the ceiling, I saw not the time, but my name. Digitally, the time 10:37 looks like the word LEOI when you look at it upside down. Since my name is Leo and my middle initial is I, 10:37 became my favorite time (I know, strange concept to have a favorite time) and 1037 became one of my favorite numbers. It’s different having a favorite number that is four digits, instead of one or two, because it’s less common to see an exact sequence of numbers four digits long. Not to mention, seeing 4 consecutive numbers is more rare, yet it is also way more special. For example, the phone number (123) 456-1037 and license plate ABC-1037 have a lot more meaning to me than others.
Anyway, for reasons that I am still unsure of, I somehow remembered the taxi number from when my friend pointed to the South Beach skyline. I remembered seeing the four numbers on the screen in front of me and thinking how that number looked familiar or had some meaning.
As soon as the descent was over and the plane had landed, I turned off airplane mode and called my mom. She had been on the phone with the hotel for over an hour. My mom told the security guards what I looked like, and they went to check the cameras to look for the license plate of the taxi that I had gotten into. I told my mom that I remembered the taxi number, and she quickly thanked me and hung up on me. As I waited for my luggage to appear around the corner of the carousel, my mom called me saying they found the bag. Apparently, each taxi number is unique to a specific taxicab in the city of Miami. Fortunately, they were able to piece together the taxi number with the taxi company. The hotel called the cab company and they said one of their drivers reported a lost bag, which fit the same description as my bag.
I won’t go into extreme details, but after paying the cab driver to drive back to the hotel, my friend agreed to take the bag with him and bring it back on his flight later that day.
I picked up my carry-on from my friend’s dorm room back in Ann Arbor, and I was never so happy to see a bag before in my life. Although the driver went into my wallet and stole $200, I knew that the number 1036 (along with 1037, of course) would hold a new, special importance in my life. I told the story to many of my friends back in Ann Arbor, and when asked how I could possibly remember the taxi number hours later, I responded with, “Because my name is Leo.”
Leo || Miami, Florida || March 8, 2020