Scenic New Jersey

“What were you doing in Moscow?” the immigration guy at Newark airport asked.

“Transfering planes from China, I was only there for a few hours.”

“What were you doing in China?”

“I was teaching English in Yantai and I had the greatest students ever and they actually paid me money to make up English games and play with middle schoolers! And I — “

“For how long?” he asked, scrutinizing my visas. Then he looked at all the other passport stamps, and started to ask more questions. “And then were did you go?”

“Then I went to Rome for ten days and then I had high romance, because guess what? Stick still likes me! And now I’m going home for Christmas, because honestly, where would I rather spend Christmas than New Jersey?”

“Welcome back,” he said, adding another stamp to my passport, and I was so happy to be home, I almost cried.

My euphoria lasted for about ten minutes, then I found out that the airline sent my bags to the wrong country, and Stick’s connecting flight got cancelled, so yesterday I lost everything (including my boyfriend) to the airlines.