In what I’m sure will come as no surprise, the flights out and back went absolutely fine.

I travelled extremely light, as far as carry-ons go. Normally, I have my shoulder bag filled with all manner of magazines, books, my shaving kit, and whatever-else. This time though, for efficiency’s and simplicity’s sake, I packed it all in the checked bag and walked on the plane with my nerdy book about Rome. That was it.

Served me fine on the way out and the way back. I read some and napped some and everything went smooth as an appropriate analogy.

Until we got back to Baltimore.

And they told us our bags were in Charlotte.

Our bags. Were in Charlotte.

In fact, every bag that should have been on our plane went to Charlotte. This wasn’t a complicated flight – no crazy connections. It orginated in St. Louis and ended in Baltimore. Literally, the baggage handlers from American Airlines put our bags on a Charlotte-bound plane and their bags on our plane. Nice move.

All is well; I drove over to the airport at lunch and picked up our bags. They took a scenic detoir through Dallas, but we have them now and that’s that.

Still though, it was wierd to leave the airport last night with nothing but an 800 number and a promise that we’d see our bags soon – promise.

And now? Now it’s home to change and then over to Golden West for some half-price burgers. And beer. Lotsss of beer.