Getting a handle on things

I find that to be a rather interesting colloquial expression - getting a handle on things. Think about it for a moment... Imagine getting off a long flight, and going to the luggage return area, only to find that all of the handles on your luggage have been broken off. Now this is a bag that you had to pay the excessive weight penalty for just to get it on the plane, so it's going to be no picnic pulling it off the track.

Your first attempt includes reaching out to grab the corner of the bag, but since it's both moving and rather heavy, it slips from your fingers for lack of a solid grip. So your bag does a lap around the carousel and on the second round, you derterminedly grab both sides of the bag and loft straight up. However, dedicating both arms to this venture has thrown off your center of gravity, and you are unable to summon the requisite moment arm to extract the bag off of the carousel.

And the bag makes another lap. However, throughout all this time there are more bags have been coming down the shute, and packing your bag down onto the track. By the time it gets around to you this time, there are countless other bodies crowding the edge of the carousel, pushing, shoving, trying to get their bags, which have been tightly lodged in with your own, from off the track. Game over. Your only hope now is to either find a shark hook and snag your bag out from among the masses, or wait until the vicinity is clear, and the carousel has stopped since there is no more luggage coming.

But if you just had that one handle on the top, to have been able to seat yourself and get that massive case off the track the first time, or any of the succesive trips around the track, your chances of success are greatly enhanced by the addition of that single grip.

In this example, I feel like the bag is full of lesson plans and a more simple life, one where I'm not required to spend 80 hours a week writing lesson plans and preparing for my class. One where I actually have a life that exists outside of my classroom. Now I'm not saying I have gotten that bag off of the carousel yet, by I feel like I'm making headway.

Thus far I've just been watching the bag make its rounds for the last 18 weeks, continually attempting, unsuccessfuly, to extract it from the track, where it is buried under a mountain of other bags and people. But I can see it now, and I feel that i've at least set anchors on the bag. And the handle is in the mail. We're making progress here people, prepare yourselves.