Unknown Baggage

The modern world is a very cruel place. Sometimes it is the hostile environment that makes its inhabitants evil, and isn’t the evil inhabitants that make the environment hostile. I am currently on a flight to the capitol of Australia for a short holiday visiting friends. I brought my laptop along and all the PDF journals that I need to read, so it wouldn’t be as if I won’t get any work done on the trip. Its just that with all the stress related lab work and design work in Melbourne, this would be a great getaway for me.

I suggest that the hostile environment makes its inhabitants evil because I encountered a scenario that perfectly fits the bill when at the airport moments ago. While queuing up to board the plane, there was this old lady that started lining up two persons behind me in the queue. She was casually dressed and held a very heavy looking hand carry that didn’t have wheels. I personally think bags with wheels are the best invention for ladies that can’t carry the heavy load of their luggage.

This old lady however wasn’t using one of those bags, she was just carrying a normal hand carry. And deep inside me a full-fledged debate immediately broke out. On the one hand I wanted very badly to help her carry her luggage up the flight, because it looked too heavy for her frail figure; but on the other hand, I kept hearing the voices in my head reminding me not to ever carry luggage for strangers in airports, especially the baggage of frail looking elderly folks.



The reason for these is the countless emails and warnings I get from friends and family that says if you mindlessly carry baggage for random folks in the airport, you may end up being a drug mule without even knowing it. And when you do find out you’re carrying drugs for the stranger, it would be too late because its probably the customs that’s telling you about the drugs.

So I ended up not helping the old lady with her heavy bags, and no one else offered to help her as well, probably because of the very same reason I have. I felt very bad not helping the lady as it just wasn’t right. I mean you really don’t have to attend moral classes (yes! I’m taking a swipe at the Malaysian education system) to know you should help frail looking, helpless, people when they look like they need the help. But what happens when there are people out there exploiting this righteous feeling and go around randomly recruiting unknowing drug mules?

Its really a sad sad situation, its because of all the warnings and emails I get about not helping strangers carry stuff in airport for fear of being a drub mule that I didn’t help the old lady. Was I really being a mean person? Or is it that the current environment forces me to be mean in order to safeguard my own wellbeing? Sigh… This post was posted the moment I could get to a hotspot in Canberra...

Signing out.