I’m battered and bruised—the victim of a Briggs and Riley suitcase that is unsafe at any speed!
I was in Austin, Texas last week and when returning on Sunday, I took a tumble between the Hertz car return and Southwest check-in. I survived with a good size bruise over my right eye and a few other bumps and abrasions. But, I trashed my glasses which took the brunt of the force as my head hit the pavement. The scratch marks on the lens give you some idea of the surface I fell on.
It is all the fault of my new luggage. It is a Briggs and Riley soft side expandable case with four-wheels verses two-wheels. The case is one of those EU sized carry-on designed to go in the overhead of international airlines.
Carry-on cases for U.S. domestic airlines are a little longer and narrower; whereas, the EU cases are shorter and fatter. The advantage of the new generation four wheels cases over the earlier two-wheel design is that with four wheels your no longer have to pull the case. The four-wheel luggage stands on its own. Supposedly, you simple walk along with your hand on the extended handle as the case just glides along beside you. The problem, at least with my Briggs and Riley case is that if you pack wrong it becomes top heavy. Put another piece of luggage on top, as I do with my computer case, and that top-heavy condition is exacerbated. Encounter any size defect in the surface and the case goes down and you with it. That is what happened to me in Austin.
Everyone else with a four-wheel suitcase seems to be doing fine. Happily walking alongside their glide along luggage. I’m not going to give up, but I’m going to replace the soft sided unsafe and at speed Briggs and Riley with a hard side case. Maybe that’s difference. It needs more weight down below.
By the way, 60 Minutes devoted a significant portion of last Sunday’s program, October 15, 2017, to the diversion of pain medication to recreational use and street drugs. For more on the impact of these drugs, you will want to read my new Mark Rollins adventure mystery, DIVERSION.
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For signed copies of books by Tom Collins, go to the TomCollinsAuthor.com. Unsigned print and eBook editions are available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other online bookstores. For an audio edition of The Claret Murders go to http://amzn.com/B00IV5ZJEI. Digital editions are also available through Apple iTunes’ iBook’s Store and Smashwords.com. For the newest adventure novel on Amazon go to Diversion: a Mark Rollins Adventure.
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