Speaking of flight, you might not be surprised to learn that I thought of a few other weird stories.
The first one was when Bekah was a baby, and she and I flew up to Dallas for my grandmother's funeral. In my haste I had only packed her Mexican passport without any proof of her American citizenship. We finagled a boarding pass in Mexico City just as they were announcing "final call" but things weren't so simple once we arrived at DFW airport. They took us off in a special room and threatened to deport my little girl, even though I suggested having Jim fax a copy of her "Certificate of American birth abroad." I even offered to sign a legal document swearing she would not take any formal employment from "real" American babies, but no amount of persuasion would work.
Exhausted from the trip and anxious to see my extended family, I finally set Bekah down on the floor with her diaper bag, and started scribbling down our home phone number in Mexico so they could get her daddy to pick her up or bring the documents. Suddenly the official came running after me, begging me to take the crying baby out of his office. Just goes to show you don't have to find a corrupt official like in other countries to get what you need. Not that I would, but.... you know. I'm sure prayer had some effect in this case, too.
The other two stories are rather bland. The second one happened with the same daughter, same airport, six years later. We were returning to Oaxaca after my dad's funeral, exactly one year after 9-11. Things remained pretty tense in airports. Bekah was playing with a Burger King toy, which she discovered had an eject button. Pushing the trigger, the toy went flying, as she loudly exclaimed, "LOOK! IT'S A GUN!" Yeah, that stirred up some excitement! We weren't invisible anyway, having seven kids traveling with us, but still....
The other one is sort of on the same lines, even though it was well before 9-11. Back in the early days there were many food items not available in Oaxaca, so visiting teams would bless us by bringing certain convenience foods to ease in the meal preparations for the week. One team was bringing down real cheddar cheese (which we used to have to drive five hours one way to buy!). To preserve it for the trip, they had wrapped it in aluminum foil. As they were sitting on the plane, casually looking out the window, they saw the luggage pass through an x-ray machine before being boarded. Then they noticed one of the team bags being quickly yanked off the conveyor, and ripped open with a knife. The suspicious item? A metal device that turned out to be nothing but cheddar cheese!
2 comments:
oh, your stories continue to crack me up! More so now that I'm gathering my own -- it helps knowing others have "gone before" and survived! Thanks so much!!
Thanks. It's my pleasure to get some mileage out of things that were stressful at the time. Do gather your own stories. It's important to pass on to our children stories from their childhood. It's hardly worth all the grief if you can't laugh about it later.
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