Yes I do know I can have multiple file handles. Let me try to explain this another way. I have file1 which is the main file. This file is to stay open always. I only access a line in file2 if this condition exist:

if what I'm reading in file1 is true, then I go to file2 and get that line of data. if it's false I want to stay in file1 and print my output.

The problem is once I open file2 it reads the whole file and never goes back to file1. When I look at my output, it prints the first line of file1 because the condition is false. Then it prints the first line of file2 b/c the condition is true. So it goes to the file but it reads and prints the whole file. It doesn't check the next line of data from file1. I never see when the condition is false and stay in file1 again.