3/9/15
New York, New York
This usually where I write about how unadventurous The Return Journey
was quickly close out my trip in a perfunctory manner. That was not the case today. I had two hours to kill once I closed outside
the airport. It was no effort at all to
get my boarding pass and clear security, so I headed to the Duty-Free shop in
search of a box of cigars and Matt’s bottle of tequila. There was an extensive selection of tequila,
but they did not sell cigars. That was
weird. They sold cigars on arrival, and
the shop there was smaller, so how could they not sell cigars on
departure?!? They didn’t.
I was starving, so I needed to get something
to eat, along with another Coca-Cola Light.
I thought I might have still had some cookies left in my bag of
snacks. I got the soda and went to sit
down by my gate. My flight would not be
boarding for another hour, so I had plenty of time to kill. That was when everything started to go
wrong. For starters, the outlets at the
gate did not work, and my laptop was almost dead. I tried all the outlets in the area, but none
of them worked. Fine. I didn’t really need it for anything.
Okay, time for my cookies. Wait. Where was my food bag? No, no, no, all the exotic snacks I had
picked up, they weren’t there. What did
I do with them? The cost was nominal,
hardly even worth recording, but I had been looking forward to savoring them
over the course of the week. I hadn’t
eaten any of them other than a few of the cookies. What a waste.
Well, I was starving, and there was a slight chance I had left them at
security. I told them what
happened. I even explained in flawless
Spanish. There was obviously no bag of
food there, but they wanted to make a federal case out of it. They wanted me to file a report. I kept explaining that it was also possible
that I left it in the taxi, that it was not a big deal, just a few snacks. “Si no tiene, no es importa.” I felt trapped. Eventually, they shrugged, and I walked
away.
I went back to the gate and killed
some time on my phone until it was time to board. The seat next to me was empty, so I slept
extremely well, waking up as we made our descent. I think I actually fell back asleep as we were
taxiing. It was 8 AM when I got off the
plane, and I went to the Global Entry Kiosk.
It had the same standard questions.
As always, I clicked “No to all.”
“Are you sure?” I hesitated. One of the questions was if I had handled any
livestock. Hmm, what about the horse? Did that count? Did I still have horse hairs on my suit? How much of a delay would it be if I answered
that I handled livestock? I was already
going to be late to work. I clicked that
I was sure. There was no issue with
Customs, and the wait for the bus was too long, so I called for a car service,
cheaper than a taxi. I was shocked how
empty the airport was compared to the crowd I usually see at 6 AM.
I fell back asleep in the car, and I was at
the office before 10 AM, the driver cursing out the other drivers once we
reached Manhattan. I spent most of the
time at work working on a spreadsheet project, and I picked up McDonald’s for
lunch, loving their new Chicken Select strips, which used to be a mainstay of
my diet but had been discontinued. I
headed to the cigar store, where I proceeded to write this entry, which I will
now close so that I can head to class, along with formally closing this
trip. Next stop: Jackson, Mississippi so
that I can say “Mississippi Complete,” along with getting the Plaque and Stamp
at our country’s newest WHS, though I might go somewhere next weekend.
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