last day (II)

We sat on the tarmac for about an hour, our time in Iceland slightly extended for de-icing. The flakes were heavy, wet chunks pelting the ground in sheets, propelled by the wind.
On arrival in Baltimore, we were leery of customs. The form asked for all items purchased overseas - we needed extra space just to write the countries visited. Even if I'd wanted to answer completely, I didn't remember exactly what we'd picked up during the year.
No need to worry. Customs didn't even look at the list. They didn't even want to look in the bags, even when we admitted to having food in the bags. We didn't even get an entry stamp in the passport - just a stamp on our customs form and a wave on through.
When we did arrive, my sister was waiting. She had a different idea - she was worried we'd been extensively questioned and searched. The airport had never changed the status of our flight to "delayed." Instead, the board read "on time" for our arrival. We were amazed we cleared passport control, got our bags and cleared customs in a total of maybe 20 minutes. To her, the process apparently took two hours.