Beware the luggage eating locker December 20, 2007
Posted by Jörg Michael inThis actually happened on July 29, 2007. I wanted to post this sooner, but I managed to replace the pictures. So sue me.
I was on my way back to Cologne on a Sunday night. Unlike most other Sunday nights, I had plans to meet somebody in Cologne, so didn't head straight to my home away from home. The central station in Cologne has this high tech luggage locker system where you insert the money, a door opens, you put in your bags and hit a button, the door closes and the system whisks away your bags to somewhere down below the station. You get a paper ticket that you'll use to claim your bags later.
It's a really neat system. It justs works. A small miracle. No matter which of the magic machines you used to deposit your luggage, you can get your stuff back from any one of several of these around the station.
About 10pm, I come back to pick up my bag and head home. So, with my ticket in hand, I approach one of the miracle machines. At first, I didn't think anything about the rather large number of people standing around. So, what do you think this means:
Yep, it means exactly that.
There was quite an interesting bunch of people hanging around:
One guy needed to catch a train to Bonn where he had a job interview the next morning. And he had some documents he needed for his interview in his suitcase.
Another guy, some sort of contractor, needed to start work in Stuttgart early the next morning. Of course, he had his tools locked up in that crazy machine.
That weekend, there had been a HerbaLife convention in Cologne so a lot of HerbaLife sales droids needed to catch their trains back to Spain, Italy and Switzerland. Some of them had their passports and tickets safely locked up.
And of course, there was I, the dumbest of them all. You see, I would normally have said "ScrewIt! I'm going home and will pick up my bag tomorrow." But nooo, I had been so clever to leave my keys in my bag. Safely locked up.
Much fun was had by all, and just before midnight, the machine started working again.