And how do I hate thee? Let me count the ways.

1. There was the way you mistagged our luggage when we departed for Long Beach, CA from Chicago’s O’Hare. It wasn’t a busy day, there was no one else in line ahead of us. Did the quiet cause you to sleep on the job? When we got to California and found a small black suitcase with red trim with our tag on it instead of our large black Samsonite, you made it seem like it was our fault.

2. You at first pretended you were going to fix the problem, chase down our luggage in New York, maybe even get it to us before our trip was over. But then you didn’t call when you said you would; you bounced us from person to person and left us hanging. Even though there was supposed to be a record of our case, we had to explain the details anew to everyone we spoke to. Glad technology is working so well for you.

3. We returned to Chicago with no answers and no luggage. Attempts to get answers, updates, anything about the likelihood of getting our things back met with vague assurances and a string of “I’m sorry”’s and “we’ll get back to you”’s.

4. And then the lies. Oh, the lies! Or was it further incompetence? Or indifference? Who’s to say? You told us that the person whose bag had been switched with ours had taken our bag home with him. This seemed hard to believe – why would someone take a suitcase that was obviously not his? And yet, you said, this sometimes happened. You were trying to get in touch with this person. More phone calls (from us to you), and finally a message that our bag had been located and that a courier would be picking it up and putting it on a flight from NY to Chicago. We could expect the bag to be delivered on Thursday, May 1. What a relief, we naively thought. I even wrote an e-mail to our neighbors asking them to bring the suitcase into the lobby of our building should they see the bag in the unlocked entryway before we got home. For several hours, I actually expected to see our things again. Alas, when we called you back (for the umpteenth time) the following Monday, we were told that the bag hadn’t been located, that the courier hadn’t picked it up, it wasn’t on a flight back. No one could tell us where our bag had disappeared to. Were you just making shit up?

5. At this point, you turned our case over to the special claims department in Central Baggage, and assigned us one Jennifer G, who sent us a claim form to fill out with assurances that she would do everything she could on our behalf. This claim form asked us to provide original receipts for the contents of the lost bag. Original receipts? Who keeps original receipts of clothing bought months or years ago? Original receipts for cosmetics and toiletries? Underwear? What about the suitcase itself, which we’d bought at a Sears in another state? To get clarification, my husband e-mailed Jennifer, who didn’t respond.

6. Next, unable to reach Jennifer, I talked to a Craig, who, in conciliatory tones, said, “oh I wish the wording were different on that form.” It was meant, he said, for any very expensive items that we wanted to claim, but that shouldn’t keep us from itemizing all the things that we’d packed. For example, he very helpfully pointed out, if I wanted to claim that I had a Louis Vuitton purse in my luggage, I’d have to produce an original receipt. Very nice, Craig – you made JetBlue sound so reasonable. And when pressed about the still confusing details of our case, you revealed that by the time a claim comes into your office, the likelihood of getting the lost luggage back was quite slim. Which was news to us, because the last time we talked to one of you, you were still claiming that you were working to locate the bag, giving us the impression that it could be returned to us any day.

7. And, to top it all off, having lost our bag not just once, but twice (or having let it be stolen by one of your employees), you refused to compensate us fairly for your fuck-up. Filling out that claim form turned out to be a farcical exercise, which by this point we could have predicted.

Oh, but JetBlue, you knew it would end this way, didn’t you? You knew you had the lawyers on your side, that tucked away in the fine print was a clause about how customers packed such items as eyeglasses, dental devices, electronics, medicine, ceramics, and so on at our own risk, whether in checked baggage or carry-on. (So, readers, now you know. If you don’t want your orthodontic nightguard to be misplaced or stolen by the airline, you better carry it on your person, along with your glasses, cellphone charger, prescriptions, and anything else a sane person might pack in a bag. Of course, none of this would have been an issue if the war on terror didn’t dictate that all carry-on toiletries need to be in miniature 3-ounce containers. Yes, no possibility of liquid explosives being carried on board, and the reassurance of knowing that JetBlue security is so tight that a suitcase can just disappear into thin air.)

JetBlue, now I see that the only reason you ask for original receipts is so that you can more accurately calculate the depreciation of value on all claimed items. And exactly how do you calculate the depreciation of a sports coat bought 6 months ago? Are well-made leather shoes assessed differently from cheaper versions? Does the brand new blouse you stole depreciate in value as soon as I carry it off the lot?

It would have been so easy for you to keep our business if you’d only backed up your “sincerest apologies” with actual customer service, if you’d decided that what we’d claimed on the form was reasonable for a couple traveling to California for a 3-day academic conference, and compensated us accordingly. Instead, you made us jump through hoops only to trot out the legalese and tell us that if we wanted the settlement you were willing to squeeze out, we and our descendants had to release you of all liability forever and ever and ever.

Oh, Jennifer G, I’m sure you think you’re just doing your job. And what a job you’ve done. You’ve succeeded magnificently in saving JetBlue a couple thousand dollars and cheating us of our lost belongings and guaranteeing that we will never fly your airline again. I release you.