Got Jesus?

As I was handing my ticket to the flight attendant the girl in front of me turned and said “¡Hola, Denise!” … Yes, of course, from high school! “Patricia! ¡Hola!” It turns out we were seating next to each other’s row and Raquel, another friend from college was seating behind us. So we all decided to occupy a row, so the people around didn’t have to listen to our loud complaints about grad studies, long trips, final papers and common friends who either are married, or have kids already. Raquel studies Literature in Philadelphia, Patricia Biology in Pamplona. We had a lively conversation for a while. However, none of us had slept for the past two days so we took a nap for the rest of ride, leaving the others around us at peace.
We woke up when we could see the lights on the shore. Raquel said she dreamt something about me becoming a soccer mom and laughing like mine. Patricia had gotten over her dizziness and wondered how her boyfriend would spend the night sleeping on a bench back the airport in Philadelphia before coming home tomorrow. I just wished I could be dropped home and not have to go by car all the way back.
As we were approaching, I thought of how anticlimactic it is to arrive so soon. Raquel asked me if I would applaud; a very difficult question, indeed. Upon landing, just as the cabin lights were turned on again all three ladies sitting in front of us took out a comb and fixed their hair. They then finished with hairspray. Yes, in an airplane.
We grabbed our bags and said goodbye. I looked around for my family. I expected my sister to have stuck her nose to the glass window, but, alas, they weren’t there. I called my mother. They were still home! I was abandoned at the airport at midnight! So I did what all abandoned children do: I went to Wendy’s.
An hour later, as I was putting my bags in the trunk, I realized that our car now has a sticker that says “Got Jesus?” I thought it was tacky, but I got five hugs after that, so there are no hard feelings.
And then we arrived home. I’m pretty sure the dog was about to have a heart attack. There was dessert in the fridge, which I had with the lactose free milk that they now drink. There is, for the first time, a real tree (technically dead now), creatively (?) decorated by Camille, which beats anytime the lifeless, dusty, smelly, crappy tree from Kmart. I got a plastic cup in the bathroom on which my sister wrote my name even though I never use those and a very ugly t-shirt from the pediatric center of diabetes, that I can’t but wear proudly. My mother already made me part of a million appointments for which she feels she needn’t ask my permission. The chair in the office still squeaks. My closet still makes me sneeze. My old books are still piled up everywhere. I can hear the crickets and coquíes outside. I guess I got home.