Leave to Stay

"How much longer Mom?"

"It'll just be a little bit longer, maybe another hour or so, then we'll get our bags and be on our way."

If she only knew...

I asked that question almost ten hours ago, when I was looking out of the window of a Boeing 777 at the verdant landscape below. We were in the final portion of the 9-hour flight across the Atlantic from Dallas to London. The patchwork arrangement of the rolling fields below, separated by dark green hedgerows, reminded me of a quilt that laid out on the foot of my sister's bed at home. I was homesick before I even set foot in England. My parents got divorced a month earlier, and now my mother was embarking on a new adventure. At the age of 9, I was along for the ride.

Other than a tearful goodbye to my dad, sister and brother at the airport, the trip had been uneventful so far. About an hour into the overnight flight, dinner was served and I began planning out which in-flight movies I would watch and ignoring my mom's claim that I would be unable to stay awake the entire flight. Turns out she was right all along--I fell asleep halfway into the first movie only to wake up when breakfast was being served before landing.

After taxiing to the terminal, we got our carry-on bags and proceeded down what seemed like a mile of hallways before reaching Immigration. The whole process seemed absolutely daunting to me when really it's no different than a bank teller. We simply had to walk up, answer a few questions, show our passports and go about our business. So why were we now sitting in a white hallway amidst British Immigration officials? Because of a simple answer to a ridiculous question.

After waiting in a long line of groggy-eyed travelers, it was finally our turn to step up to the counter and pass through as we had watched tens of people do before us. My mom led with a smile and offered a chipper "Hello" to the official as she handed our passports over. A series of questions about our reason to visit England and if we had any contraband items in our luggage (like fruit or illegal imports) followed without any hiccup. Problems started to snowball when the woman behind the counter asked what day we would be returning to the United States. It being 6:00 AM and after a long night of travel, my mom could not recall the exact date from memory, so she pulled out her computer to look at the return ticket. My mom's uncertainty must have raised suspicions because the official followed up with another question.

"Is that a work laptop?"

"I do work on it, yes" my mom replied.

"I see that you have a tourist visa here. You cannot work while on a tourist visa."

"I know that."

"Yet you have your work laptop with you."

"Yes I do."

"I'm going to ask the two of you to step over to those chairs and have a seat while I go see my supervisor."

And with that, she closed her lane and went off into a door behind her. We sat there for a good twenty minutes, unsure of what was happening before being called into a room for more questions. My mom explained that she was just flustered when answering the questions and that she had no intention to do any work while in England, but the supervisor wasn't convinced. He explained that we did not have leave to stay in Britain and that we were going to have to return to Dallas on the next flight and speak to the British Consulate about a more comprehensive visa.

So here we were, waiting to be put back on the next flight with seats available. I fought back the urge to ask how much longer we had to wait and instead focused on my Gameboy. I guess some times adventures don't turn out the way you plan all the time.