Going home

Did I say how exhausted I was after my flight from Munich to Philadelphia? In the previous nine hours I could neither sleep or stay fully awake, dozing off between the movies on the plane. And then my back, my neck and other bother parts were either in pain or asleep when I couldn't. I wanted all of this to be over, to finally touch down in Gainesville, but I wasn't quite there yet. Welcome to customs. Before boarding a domestic flight you need to pick up all your checked luggage from one carousel, wait in long lines for what seems like forever and put it on another one. Couldn't they just have gone through my things in Munich since they pre-check my admissibility to America over there anyway? But I didn't even care if they did it anyway. Do with my bags what you will, but with me being  tired, irritated and sweaty, why does it call for me to be involved or do anything? Why can't the bags just check themselves for the next flight? Turns out they can. "He can run with the luggage for you"- said the man with disability services, pointing out a kid with a baggage cart. "But you'd have to tip him". Let me tell you, it was the best spent spare change ever and I was so happy that my mother decided to stick a few extra dollars in my manpurse at the last minute. I just went straight for immigration and then for my connecting flight. This was the first time I have used my green card to cross borders since I got it in 2010. In my mind I could see them telling me that there's something wrong it, that it was all a mistake. Or that they would focus on the now expired visa in my passport instead. I wasn't quite familiar with the drill. Do you show them at once or one after the other and what do you say? My headache was growing and with all the loading, unloading, waiting in lines I didn't even care about the luggage anymore, I was glad I didn't have to think about it anymore, I was done. When I got to the gate to fly to Charlotte where I would catch another connecting flight I went into the restroom and determined I have no strength to go back out. I was too sleepy, my head was killing me, I didn't care what happened next I had no energy. Luckily, modern medicine came to the rescue. I found some leftover APAP pills in my bag and it did the trick. My headache was gone after a few minutes and I could focus on getting something refreshing on the plane. When I got home I found that immigration has gone through my bags. I guess it's standard that they cut the locks, but at the time I didn't know it.  Either way I'm always randomly chosen to have my luggage gone through. Luckily I didn't have anything illegal, but I still worried that some items may be missing and I would have no way to know- the alcohol, the candy- but nothing was. Did I say how much I hate flying? How there doesn't seem to be a way to make a little less stressful, more pleasant experience? How it always turns into this exhausting, taxing production. I wish I could just take a pill and wake up delivered at my destination hotel every time I have to go somewhere