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She looked like an aircraft carrier, she walked like one too; and by the way, she was eating peanuts”. That’s how a funny story is written from a disaster.
It was on that rainy day and mommy had just made hot chocolate. As I was eating my second piece of cake she was staring at photos of our last trip to Florence, Italy. I could hear her mumbling, as she always does; ‘I wish we could travel abroad again.
-In fact, my favorite part is when we’re at the airport, I said, biting in a third cookie.
-Oh, that reminds me of a story when my father died, my father responded. It was twenty years ago, when I came back from his funerals, he began to narrate.
-Well, that’s not a joyful story then…
-You’ll see, you’ll see, he said, with a mysterious look.
He began to narrate:
I was coming back to France from Chile and had booked a flight with one layover in New York. I wasn’t looking forward to the fact that I had to stay in America for five hours in a row after I’d lost my father, my buddy, my best friend. On my first flight, as I was coming from the country where I daily live, I didn’t have any VISA problem however now that I was coming from South America, I was more suspect. For a very long time, America has feared immigration. So, for unknown reasons, I was unable to go outside, to town, or even in the airport’ shops. My English wasn’t that bad so I tried to explain to the officer that I was living in France, but he wasn’t me. I was losing hope of coming back on time when someone tapped on my shoulder and said,’¡Hola! I’m Juán and I’m also trying to go to Europe.’
19/01:
Juán was from Brazil and he was traveling back to Portugal where he lived and worked. “They won’t lemme go” he said, with basic Spanish and a weird accent, “but this chick right here is Mexican”. He was pointing to a small woman talking loudly on the phone who was an officer. We waited for her to finish her call and we politely went to ask her whether she could help us.
‘I don’t understand a single word of what you’re saying’ she replied with an arrogant smile. It was obvious she was ashamed of her origins and was trying to hide that she was Mexican. What was so mean of her was that she was acting in her own interest instead of helping us. “What a stupid woman, Juán started to shout in Spanish. She can’t stand we’re asking her questions in her maternal language and she believes she will be more powerful than us if she pretends to be an American citizen. That’s racist! She didn’t answer but we could see on her face that she had understood.
Five minutes later, a police officer brought us into a small room. It was so hot inside (the air conditioner wasn’t working). I went to ask for something to drink to the policewoman that was sitting on a chair and keeping an eye on us. Nowadays, it’s very rude to say that someone is fat but she was enormous. She looked like an aircraft carrier, she walked like an so, and by the way she was eating peanuts. It was the fifth time that I was trying to explain to her that my father died and I needed to go to France;
“I don’t care, it’s your business man” she was telling me, enjoying the fact, that she was more powerful than me.
-There’s nothing to do in here. We can’t have water or anything, intervened Juán.
-Of course, there is. If you’re thirsty, you can have Coca-Cola. If you wanna eat something there are peanuts. And there is TV, with Disney Channel, Aircraft carrier said.
-At least can we watch the news? Juán asked.
-No. Daniela is going to marry Stan. I can’t miss this.’
At that point, we wanted to take revenge. So, over the next 3 hours, we spent our time suddenly running to the toilets so that she was forced to stand up and run after us, as she believed we were trying to escape. Then it was lunch time. And, seriously, this was the more epic scene I’d ever seen). She sat at the table and started taking out her lunch box. She but a tablecloth on her desk, a burger as high as a skyscraper with a bucket of French fries and a bottle of two litres of coca cola. She was about to take her first bite of her sandwich, with her mouth wide open when Juan suddenly jumped out of her chair and tried again to “escape”. I could barely see tears of exhaustion rolling her face. She had to “abandon” her food and sprint out to get my new friend. 'Why did you jog out? Aircraft Carrier yelled.
-Well, I’m hungry, it’s noon!' he answered. She called her colleague, the Mexican woman (I think her name was Magdalena) so I could get cash. Now, it was turn to be mean. Instead of putting a credit card in the machine, I introduced a metro ticket. The ATM broke. As the only other one was on the other side of the airport, we had to walk by every sing shop and for sure I stepped in every single of them. When I went in the fifth book shop to read the same newspaper as in all the other bookshops, she violently pulled my arm for us to go. Now, it was my moment, my revenge. I screamed out loud “DON’T TOUCH ME OR I'LL CLAIM YOU FOR SEXUAL HARASSMENT!” I think that at this moment she would have loved to go underground. When we finally returned to the place we were supposed to be, there was only one restaurant left, with pork ribs. “Well, I can’t go, I’m Muslim,” whispered Juán with an angel face. “And I’m vegetarian,” I added with that same look. They were so bored that 3 hours later I took my plane without a mess and so did Juán.