In Search Of A Suitcase, Part 1

...Continued from previous post:
​      Over the course of our past few visits to Honolulu, I developed a love for a certain suitcase on the suitcase display shelf next to the escalator in the Longs Drugs in Waikiki.

​      The exterior of this particular suitcase was decorated with colorful stylized Hawaiian flowers and turtles on a red background. ​

It was bright and pretty and would surely be a cinch to find on an airport baggage carousel, unlike my current black suitcase.
         However, I never bought the suitcase, mainly because I couldn't think of what I'd do with the suitcase I brought with me to Hawaii.  (The thought never occurred to me to just pay for an extra suitcase on my flight back home, since thoughts like paying for extra plane luggage never occur to members of my tribe).
          So year after year I'd see this suitcase on the shelf at Longs Drugs and wish it were mine. Until this year, when I decided that I would stop wishing and actually make this pretty Hawaiian suitcase mine, whatever it took. That's when the thought finally did occur to me to just buy the thing, bite the bullet, and pay the extra luggage fee. 
          But then I came up with and even better idea: pick up a cheap piece of thrift store luggage for this year's trip, buy the new suitcase when I got to Honolulu, then leave the old thrift store suitcase behind.
          And so I went out to the Goodwill and  found  this pretty good suitcase for $5.99.

     Now I was finally set to buy the Hawaiian suitcase of my dreams, except for one thorny little thought that poked at the edge of my consciousness: After years of sitting on the display shelf at Longs Drugs, what if this year my dream suitcase was no longer there?
       As it turned out, that is exactly what happened. On the evening that we arrived in Honolulu and went on our walk into downtown Waikiki (see previous post) I popped into Longs Drugs, ​

...with the intention of buying my suitcase then and there. Except that my suitcase was now no longer among the suitcase inventory, which appeared to have turned over. 
      I nursed my non-buyer's remorse for a brief moment before deciding to let it go.  After all, here I was in Waikiki where there was much to be happy about. And besides, there were a lot of stores in Waikiki and a lot of them carried Hawaiian-themed suitcases. Surely there was some other suitcase of my dreams sitting on some other shelf. I had only to find it. 

      To be continued...