OK - so, some of you might already know that today in the Fast household we celebrate "I hate Texas Day".Any of you Texans out there reading this, please don't get offended, it's nothing to do with you... honestly.... it's a light hearted way of celebrating the horrible TX experience I went through this day last year.
Some of you might know that when I came to the USA I cleared customs and did passport control in Dallas Fort Worth, Texas... That's where my initial dislike springs from.
There was a lightning storm that day, and it had already been a very long and stressful journey... I had said goodbye to my family and friends and then had to sit in a teeny little coach seat for hours up on hours. The lightning storm caused us to circle for almost 2 hours over DFW airport and gave me a horrible pressure headache. I was also worried that I would miss my connecting flight to PDX...
OK, my brain probably should have been able to work out that if we were delayed landing because of the storm that meant flights taking off would probably be delayed too, but I didn't get that far in my thinking - I was focused on grabbing my baggage, running through passport control and customs and running like a crazed woman to my gate...
Well, that was the plan and it didn't work out quite like that. For some reason (probably to do with the major headache I had, and the fact that I had run from my seat all the way to the passport processing area) the lady I spoke to at passport control didn't like the look of me. She decided that something about me wasn't right, didn't fit or perhaps she was just trying to fill her quota for the day... I don't know, but within a few minutes I found myself without my boarding pass, without my passport or any formal ID and in a waiting room that was so warm I felt like I was going to throw up.
I was still thinking about my connecting flight - I don't know why, but it was like that was the only thing I could think about. I just hoped it didn't take off without me.
After what seemed like an eternity one of the officers called me over and asked me several questions. He and his colleagues asked me about everything under the sun. I didn't even understand the relevance of half of the questions, but I answered them as best I could for 42 minutes.
Now, what is funny now and we didn't know at the time is that I had graves disease. My pulse was going a million miles a minute and my metabolism was trying to eat away at my body. I probably looked really suspicious... But, after 42 minutes of questions and answers they stamped my passport and gave me back my documents and said I ought to check the status of my connecting flight.
So, I left the unbelievably warm room (which still made me want to hurl because heat and graves disease aren't good buddies) and took a few steps in the flow of people going towards baggage claim and then it hit me. I started crying, I couldn't understand why but I was so overwhelmed by everything (and the graves disease was kicking my butt) and I cried harder than I ever have before in my life.
I sat down on the floor with my back up to the wall next to the water fountain and tried to control my breathing and get my head screwed back on. It was then that an older US veteran guy came over and asked me if I was ok. I briefly explained through the tears that I had just been questioned by customs. He seemed to understand perfectly what that process was like. He got down on his hunkers and told me it would be ok, that I should get some water and relax. They were obviously happy with my reason for coming to the US because they let me in.
I thanked him, got a sip of water and walked to baggage claim. I grabbed my bags, walked through customs and called Cory. He realised something must have happened because he hadn't heard from me since I called & told him I was going through passport control, and now I was sobbing down the other end of the line.
He managed to direct me to the correct gate and told me I had a while before my flights was expected to leave. I was quite relieved, I needed to get something to eat - I felt like my blood sugar was so low and I needed to just sit and relax for a minute.
After grabbing something to eat and regaining my composure I headed to my gate. My flight would soon be boarding and I was excited to get on the way to Oregon. As I'm standing at the gate the very same Vet comes up beside me and says "Going to Oregon eh?" I answered and we talked for a few minutes before we boarded the flight.
I hope he knows how much of a kindness he paid to me that day, helping me while I was going through a really tough time and just reaching out a friendly hand to me. I don't know his name, and will probably never see him again, but I will never forget our little conversation in the security area of DFW.
So, that's the part that relates to our dislike for TX... I can't even really explain how horrible those 42 minutes were, but if you've ever been in a similar situation you know exactly what I mean...
The good part of the story is that I did finally get on my flight to PDX and Cory was waiting there to meet me... We grabbed my bags and headed home...
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