I have only today realized that my digital camera was stolen out of my checked bag.
Bummer.
I’m glad I moved all the pictures onto my laptop before I left Mexico City. Just goes to show what a greedy capitalist bastard I am (not!) — I care more about the (no monetary value) pictures than the (high monetary value) camera.
Am I being too ethnocentric in assuming it was the Mexican security staff rather than the American TSA who stole it? You have no idea (mainly because I didn’t want to blog about it) how much scamming and fraud I saw while I was there, from taxi rides to buying chewing gum. And the arriving airport staff have no reason to open bags anyway other than customs (and I wasn’t searched by them anyway).
As the song goes: “Chapter read and lesson learned…”
POST SCRIPT: What song is that? NO GOOGLING! I would hope the law school students among my readership know it, because it’s a great law school student song.
2 responses so far ↓
Link Will Franklin // Sep 10, 2005 at 4:29 pm
That is a bummer about the camera.
Link Matt // Sep 13, 2005 at 2:12 am
Of course you care more about the pictures than the camera. The camera is just _stuff_…you can buy another one just like it (if not better) any time you feel the need, just by spending some money (of which you have plenty). Whereas the pictures, if stolen, would be gone forever.
And yeah…it was probably the Mexicans who stole it. Not that I think Mexican airport workers are necessarily any more likely to steal than American ones (I've never been to Mexico, but have had plenty of things stolen out of checked baggage at airports), but for exactly the reason you state…_incoming_ baggage isn't routinely opened outside the presence of its owner, and so stealing from it would be harder to conceal.