Just a Quick Trip

Thursday Morning: I have to be on a plane in an hour, but I am frantically trying to retieve a document from my deceased computer's hard drive. I give up with 45 minutes until departure. I make it to the terminal in time for boarding.

I flew from Lubbock to Austin, via Dallas. Once in Austin, the plan was to take a taxi to the capitol building, but a friend on the same flight offered to let me ride downtown with him and his dad. Once in the parking garage, my friend's dad revealed that his 13 year-old daughter was very ill, quite possibly with swine flu. He confirms that he could be a carrier. On the upside, I didn't have to pay for a taxi ride downtown. On the downside, I may have been exposed to the swine flu.

Four hours later I was back on an airplane, this time headed to El Paso. On the upside, it was a direct flight. On the downside, the 89 year-old man sitting next me was the inspiration for the saying "say it, don't spray it." He was actually a very interesting man - thumb was sewed backed-on after cutting it off with a laso, spent a night wondering the wilderness on his 85th birthday, broke his hip sky-diving at 86.

Once in El Paso, I rent a car. The guy behind the counter scares me into buying extra insurance for hail damage based on bad weather the night before. Does it storm while I have the car? Yes. Does it hail? Of course not.

I stop at Wal-Mart before heading for my resting place for the night. I realized that although I have a B.A., and will soon have a J.D., I couldn't get a job at the Wal-Mart in El Paso because I don't speak Spanish fluently. A few years ago I went to America in Mexico (Cancun); now I've been to Mexico in America.

Fast forward to 9 p.m. I'm asleep on Grandma Cuca's couch, exhausted from my day of traveling and re-learning Spanish. It's raining cats and dogs, but the rain is not what wakes me up. Instead, I wake up to a lady banging on the screen door. Due to my groggy state, I was unable to comprehend the Spanish explanations for why a car was parked in the front yard or why a man with a plastic sack on his foot was escorted to the back room of the house. I decided to go to bed and accept this string of events as normal.

Friday monring: The lady who was banging on the screen door last night slept on the couch. I offer to give her a ride to the hospital, only neither of us knows the way. Like me, she is only visiting El Paso. Unlike me, she is from Chihuahua and does not speak any English. I sucessfully ask her for the address for the hospital and put into my Garmin. The next 15 minutes are a combination of akward silence and me forcing myself to strike up converstaion in Spanish. I discover that her name is Pilar and she is the primo-hermano (cousin-brother) of Chris, whatever that means.

The day goes by quickly and before I know, it's time to head home. Grandma Cuca feeds me a late lunch and tells me that if I ate her food everyday, I would get fat. I thank her for the fattening food, say my good-bye's, and head back to lubbock, via a connecting flight in Dallas.

Three interviews, five flights, possible exposure to swine flu, showered by an old man's spittle, and a refresher course in Spanish: Way too much for just two days.