LUGGAGE!!!!

I called Air Satan this morning to be told that ONE of my bags was in. I told them they'd better well drop it off at my apartment, and she said that because it was only ONE bag, I'd have to come pick it up myself and I said "let me get this straight. Because your airline is incompetent, I have to make TWO trips to the airport, when I'm getting low on money by having to buy things that I had in my luggage, which you have had for FIVE DAYS???" and she hesitated and said "yes, I suppose so," though was helpful enough to say they could drive me my bags when the other one got there, whenever that was. Right.

So I went to take the remaining money out of the ATM from school (after having to go over there to top up my phone since I was out of minutes due to arguing with Air Jamaica), only to have the ATM broken at school. I had to hop the bus to Spiceland Mall to find an ATM (which fortunately did work) to withdraw my rapidly dwindling funds so I could get a cabbie back from the airport. Also got a dish drainer. Got back to my apartment, dropped off the dish drainer, grabbed my passport and the luggage tags, and started stalking to the airport on foot in the rain, because I was in that sort of mood. About halfway there, a cabbie picked me up and offered to charge me 40 bucks to do the whole thing there, waiting and back, with an extra 10 if he had to wait a long time, so I figured what the hell, and with pretty much the last of my money, jumped in.

Got to the airport to be passed between a couple of ticket agents, and wound up in the care of a surly jerk who grunted that I needed my lost baggage form, the one piece of documentation I didn't have, because I'd had to keep pulling it out. I said I didn't have it, but I had my original ticket stub, the baggage claim tags, my customs form, and my passport. He said "no" and half gestured toward the outside door.

Let me clarify that I am not someone to abuses service staff, even usually when they're showing less than service, even to a point of being passive in places because I know that service jobs suck as does dealing with angry people every day.

I threw a fucking fit. It was a solid adult temper tantrum. I refused to leave, told him I had everything that I had on the plane when I should have gotten my luggage and that they weren't taking it a day longer, that I had just spent the last of my folding money on a taxi, and I was NOT, I repeat NOT leaving until they gave me my luggage because it is MY LUGGAGE, and they'd gotten to keep it long enough, that I was sick of calling them, sick of being passed on, and I would be getting my luggage today, and that was that. Add exaggerated gestures and slamming my hand on the counter.

He glared at me, sort of made a dismissive gesture at me that could best be translated as "youse! fuggettabouttit!", and stalked off into the office, which I wasn't sure what that meant, but I sure wasn't leaving.

He came back out to help the other girl who'd lost her luggage, apparently on the same flight I was on, and I trotted right along after them, clutching my luggage tags in my hand, DARING them not to let me through the door, so on their heels I went back through the gate, back through security, with the agent nicely joking "They're finally giving you your luggage, eh?" and back through the "escorted passengers only" or whatever door to the place where the luggage from the flights comes in, including mostly the luggage that was supposed to come in on other flights.

I'm not sure if my coming along was his plan, but it certainly was mine, and he didn't say a WORD to me after grunting at me and waving his hand for me to go away, so who knows. Who cares. When going through all the security checkpoints, he was clearly only gesturing at the girl accompanying him, but they let me through anyway.

They had told me that I only had ONE bag, as mentioned, which was their arbitrary reason for not driving it to my apartment, as they have done for other people whose luggage was this late, such as the girl who had Air Jamaica (that's AIR JAMAICA, folks, a DELTA AIRLINES subsidiary) lose her luggage for three months, but as I looked among the island of abandoned luggage, I found BOTH my bags, cheerfully still wrapped in their fluorescent tape, and put a death grab on them. Lurch took my luggage tags, and ripped the arrival tags off the luggage, but didn't try to stop me from leaving, so that worked. Customs didn't even try to shake me down.

So I am now in glorious possession of both bags, and have all the wonderful things I planned to set up my apartment with in the first place, and clothes... and a razor. Halle-freaking-lujah.

Now, if only I can get my registration taken care of, we'll be all set.

The good part is that this entire process has been so bloody frustrating from missed registrations to no textbooks to broken ATMS to surly gate agents to lost luggage to late buses, to rainstorms, that I'm not even slightly concerned about biochem. I slept like a baby last night. I'm still studying for it, but panicked? Nah. I'm certain I'm going to pass because I'm really well prepared, but if I don't? Hey! I get to go home!