Jan 11
You know that gut-wrenching feeling you got when you were a guest at someone’s house and accidentally broke one of their cups or glasses while doing dishes? Try being a guest and accidentally walking through their sliding glass patio door.
I was just drifting off to Neverland after a long day of classes when a giant crash awakened me. It startled me so badly that I couldn’t figure out what day it even was and whether or not I was late for class or if I had already gone to school! So I ran down the stairs to find Joel standing in the living room covered in glass.
In his attempt to quietly sneak out of the house for a run while I was sleeping, Joel had closed the sliding door. He didn’t want the wind to bother my peaceful nap. So, he closed the door and was getting his things together when he turned to leave and ran into the door with his head and knee, breaking the bottom half of the door into pieces so the rest of the glass panel came crashing down.
Talk about stress.
Joel is trying to explain (in English because we’re too frazzled for our own “Tonto” version of Spanish) that we’ll pay for it all, while we frantically sweep shards of glass into the dustpan.
Grandma wants everyone to know how dangerous this is and what a huge draft it will cause in the house.
Mama wants to make sure Joel is alright.
I’m on the phone with our “Big Brother” fellow student, trying to get a game plan and she’s telling everything to her tutor and then giving me a response, phase by phrase in Spanish.
And the daughter is saying how expensive this will be.
I think that within 4 minutes we had worn out our welcome and we began wondering if we are ever going to be able to make peace with our new family.
Needless to say, Joel missed that opportunity to meet a group of Tico triathletes who invited him to train with them.
Maybe next time.