Hungary Was Even Worse

"You know what, sir," she asked in a vaguely ethnic southern accent.

I glanced up from my falling blocks of color, missing a key placement, and noted the stout woman angrily hunkered in the seat next to mine. Tight coils of salt-and-pepper hair bunched around her head, and she set her jaw, getting ready to tell me what. The busy terminal gate was crammed full of people, none of whom paid either of us any mind. We could have just as easily been completely alone.

"I was stranded there in Oakland," she announced. "Oakland!"

"You were stranded there?" I queried, puzzled. What an awful thing to have happen. And in Oakland, of all places.

"I ain't lyin. It really happened."

I nodded, more to confirm I’d heard her than to express understanding, and she continued.

"I think I’m going to have them call this time. The, the, you know – them ticket agents. Then I won’t have to sleep at the gate while they wait in the lobby!" She was quite upset. "Nobody told me they were gonna to be in the lobby," she offered. And then after a moment of thought, she conceded, "Although I s’pose I could have gone down to see if they were there."

I nodded thoughtfully, still not clear on what she was talking about. My game had become a disaster while trying to be polite, and my neat rows of squares were now in disarray. I closed the lid.

"And then the stewardess comes up to me and says that three men are waiting for me in the lobby, and I tell her, 'why you wait till I'm getting on the plane back to tell me that?'" I furrowed my brow in genuine concern. Genuine because I simply didn’t understand her circumstance, and because whatever it was seemed to be very stressful.

"I ain’t lying. I’m definitely gonna be tellin them in Honolulu to call so I don’t have to sleep in the, the – the terminal. And maybe they’ll be there this time."

We were no longer alone at the crowded gate. Other strangers – none so strange as my sudden conversation companion – were now covertly smiling and emitting expressions of sympathy. One man seemed to be suppressing the urge to join our talk and he fidgeted forward and back, glancing our way and grinning.

To comfort her, I assured her that they (whoever they were) certainly would have learned from their previous mistake (whatever it was) and would not repeat it. She seemed grateful.

"And you’ll never believe what happened when I was in Europe. You know about Europe?" she asked, her flat brown features scrunched into concern. I wasn’t sure if she was asking whether I knew of its existence, or about how it runs.

"Sure, Europe," I confirmed.

"Passport! Passport!" she yelled above the din of other conversations in the terminal. The newspaper held by a woman nearby seemed to be taken by surprise, and it shuddered just briefly. I looked on, puzzled more than ever.

"And I told the man, 'I don’t understand,' I’d say, and he’d come running after me yelling, 'Passport! Passport!'" With each incantation of the word, she’d wave her hand in the air like a customs official chasing her through the airport.

"And I told them, everywhere I went, 'I don’t understand, what’s this passport?' and he told me he’d arrest me if I didn’t show him a passport." She laughed, but I was unsure if I was supposed to laugh along. "Everywhere I went! It really happened. I ain’t lyin," she explained.

"And Hungary! Hungary was even worse," she warned.

I didn’t have the heart to tell her you’re supposed to meet your ride in the lobby or at baggage claim these days. Nor that you really do have to show your passport at international airports.

I just hope she didn’t really fly back to Oakland just because her ride didn’t meet her at the gate in Honolulu.