How did my bag arrive before me?

On my last flight I was flying home to Joplin, MO from Jacksonville, FL. On the flight down to Florida, I carried my bag on the plane with me. Why I didn't care them with me on the way back I have no idea.

I knew when I landed in Joplin at 3:25 pm on Friday there was a chance my bag would not be there. I flew from Jacksonville to Atlanta to Kansas City to Joplin and only had about a 30 minute layover in Atlanta. When there was no bag at the huge Joplin airport, I figured it was because my bag got lost in Atlanta. Though slightly annoying, my house is 4 minutes away and there was nothing in the bag I needed immediately.

After the bag ladies threw the bags out of the roll up garage door (seriously) and I didn't see my bag, they told me to go the counter. I go to the US Airways counter and the other lady looks at me like they have never lost a bag before. Before looking anywhere for my bag, she gives me a paper to fill out. I hand her the filled out form and ask if there is anything else I can do. "Well, here is the US Airways number - you can call that in a little bit and they might be able to help you." I had two phone numbers on the bag and one of the phone numbers was my cell phone which was dead - no big deal right, surely they will call both phones?

I waited until noon the next day (almost 24 hours later) to call the US Airways number, and they gave me the phone number the the US Airways baggage claim. I call the US Airways baggage claim but because I don't have a claim number (I never received this information from the lady behind the counter) and because my first flight was on Delta and because of some "baggage claim agreement" , I needed to file a claim with Delta also. They were so kind to give me the Delta number. I call Delta, they give me the number for Delta baggage claim. I call Delta baggage claim and after about 10 minutes I find out they can't help me because of the baggage claim agreement." I kindly let Carlos know that I don't care about any "baggage claim agreement" I just wanted to talk to someone who would help me find my bag. The only thing he could tell me to do was to go back to the airport.

Fortunately, I live close to the airport, but when I arrived there was no one at the US Airways counter because there wasn't a flight coming in for another couple of hours. So, I would need to come back. Why did I not carry on my bag? One of the rental car workers I think felt bad for me , and told me they would call the security officer in the barn. She did say though that if he was mowing, he would not hear the phone. This just keeps getting better. My luck, he wasn't mowing at that moment, he came out and what do you know but my bag was behind the counter.

I get in the car, pull out my charger, plug in my phone, and there was a message. It was from US Airways. Thanks US Airways for calling only one of the two numbers written on the bag. But this is the real twist. The message was at 2:43 pm on Friday. That means that my bag was in Joplin 45 minutes before my flight landed. That means my bag was behind the counter when I filled out the sheet that apparently lacked a "claim number." She didn't even look for a bag.

Now my question is, if my bag arrived at 2:43pm, why couldn't I have arrived at 2.43pm?