Written by Stephanie Carmon
Sitting patiently in the wait area watching people line-up to board my flight from Mexico City to LA, I eat my dulce de cajeta and think to myself: “why in the world do people stand in a long line to get on the airplane when everyone with a ticket is going to get on?” As the line gets shorter to maybe ten people or so, I gather my things and head over. I get to the gate and the check-in agent says: “where is your immigration slip to leave the country?”. I promptly replied that I am a permanent resident and don’t need one. He looked at me with a miffed look on his face and proceeded to tell me that I needed to go to immigration and get my permission to leave. I tried arguing my way out of it telling him it made no sense since now I am a permanent resident and my mom was scheduled to have an operation the next day and I had to get on the flight, but to no avail. I was struck with a sense of panic and asked him if the plane would wait. He nonchalantly says: “No, I suggest you run.” ¿¿Cómo?? I took off running like a crazy woman through that CDMX airport shouting “¡¡con permiso, a su izquierda, favor de dejarme pasar se me va el avion!!” I am positive I looked like a gringa who was completely out of her mind, hair flying, bumping into women and children, gripping desperately to all her belongings, probably leaving a trail of dulce de cajeta in her wake. Finally I arrived at immigration flustered and the officer looked at me with the same indifference as the check-in agent. I felt like I was in the movie Zootopia in the scene where the rabbit and fox go to the department of mammal vehicles and the clerk agents are sloths! The officer says to me: “Lo siento señora, pero no es mi culpa”. I didn’t even have time to be offended he called me “señora” and just said: “Yo sé, yo se…pero POR FAVOR que se apure”. I got my slip and raced back to the gate absolutely sure I had missed my flight. To my utter surprise, they were still boarding! A huge feeling of relief came over me and the same check-in agent smirked as I handed him my boarding pass and my immigration paper, which I am sure will be put in some irrelevant pile never to be seen again.
Crisis averted and panting heavily, I head towards my seat in economy class. As I am passing by business class, I look to the left and lock eyes with a man sitting in the fourth row. To not be rude or suggestive, I look away, but then I kept sneaking a look back to him and he looked right back at me. I recognized him. I looked away again and then looked back. He finally asked me if I was sitting in the seat next to him. Pensively I just shook my head and said, “no”. The line continued on and I get to my seat, quite happy to have made it. I ask the man next to me if he had seen a Mexican rock star in first class. He said he hadn’t seen anyone. So, I shrugged it off and as we took off I went to sleep.
We landed in LA and after disembarking the plane, I headed over to the luggage claim. Again, standing right next to me was the man, the rock star. I knew who he was, but I had that annoying familiar doubt that comes over me sometimes when everything inside tells me I am right but I still question. Again I gazed at him nonchalantly and he glanced back at me. I am sure he was thinking “¿Que le pasa a esta mujer? ¿Porque me mira?” Finally, I said to myself what`s the worst that would happen if I approach him? So I turned to him and shyly uttered: ¿Discupla, pero tu eres musico? He smiled: Si soy musico. Como te llamas? I sheepishly asked. He replied: Alexs Syntek.
In one moment I was filled with excitement and total emotion.
