The Handmade Bracelets

Until this day I’m trying to figure out where my head was when I almost made 4 people miss an international flight over some handmade bracelets. It was the last morning my family and I were in Cancun before it was time to go back home. During one of our first days there, I came across someone making these custom, handmade bracelets for about five USD. Unfortunately, at that exact time, I only had one made, but I wanted more, and both my family and I knew that before we left that was the one thing I wanted to go back and buy.

The last day arrived and our plane was taking off at 12 PM. We got up early, checked out of the resort and ate some breakfast next to the shops that made the bracelets so that I could have the remainder made, and from there we would leave for the airport. Keep in mind, the first bracelet I had made was neatly done and only took about 5-10 minutes to be made, so going on the assumption that it would be like that anywhere, I thought everything would work out fine and we wouldn’t have any issues. Well, the shops didn’t even open until 10 AM, so that was our first delay, but everything was still okay. My brother and I were going straight to the shop, to get the bracelets made and then meet my mom and sister back in the car so we could take off.

We went up to the first people who we saw who made them, told them what we wanted and began to wait. They were two young girls. They had to have been my age or younger. Not even realizing it, a few shops away was the man that had created my first bracelet, but I had already commissioned the girls and I assumed the creation would be the same, so I didn’t bother going to him.

Time passed and I’m beginning to observe that they didn’t have as much experience as the other man making these bracelets, but I still wanted to give the girls the benefit of the doubt, so my brother and I continued to wait, but as time passed, we began to receive phone calls from my mom asking how much longer it was going to take.

We kept telling her the girls would be finished soon, which is honestly what we thought, but we were wrong. I started to slightly become anxious because these girls seemed to be taking their sweet time knowing we had a flight to make. My brother was also getting one for his friend since it was his friend’s birthday, but these girls not knowing what they were doing, delayed our time even more now, giving me more anxiety.

They finished my brother’s friend’s bracelet and started on mine. I’m standing there nervous because I already knew I was going to get a mouthful from my mom and sister, but I was determined to get these bracelets. I looked up at my brother’s bracelet and noticed they spelled his friend’s name wrong. My heart sunk in my stomach, even more so now. My brother’s friends name is Avner. The girls spelled his name with a B instead of a V. Are you kidding me? But I couldn’t be mad. You could tell these poor girls didn’t have much of an education. They really didn’t know any better.

I said, “Excuse me, why did you put a B instead of a V, when I wrote the names down, it says Avner” The girl told me that it wasn’t possible to make a V. Keep in mind I had a bracelet made for my friend from the other guy, her name was Alivia. The bracelet was still made for my perfectly. I’m guessing since B and V are somewhat similar she thought that it would be an ok replacement but that’s a mistake.

I said, “Well that’s not the name, at all. You can at least make a U that looks more alike to V? I’m not paying for a bracelet that is not even the name we asked for.” She started to undo the bracelet and began again. I was freaking out inside at this point, but was trying to stay calm and collected.

My mom was calling, but I wasn’t even going to answer because I didn’t want to have to hear what she was going to say. I was standing there as the girl was fixing the bracelet. I couldn’t even stand still. I started sweating. I was getting so nervous. I’m even asking the girl to please hurry because we had to go, but it was like she didn’t understand what going at a faster pace meant.

Finally, she’s done. We grabbed our bracelets, paid her and sprinted out of that little shopping center back to the car. We arrived at the parking lot where they were and by this time, it was 10:35 AM. My sister picked up the phone, screamed at me on the top of her lungs, told me that they had left because I was taking too long.

Keep in mind, I’m only 19, standing there with my 14-year-old brother in Mexico and my sister just told me that they had left us. I told them to come back and just get us. My sister was even telling my mom to just pick us up since they had literally just left, but my mom refused. I was honestly speechless. I knew I deserved all that was coming to me, but I didn’t know what to do or say, besides, I hoped my mom wasn’t really going to leave us.

My family finally passed by us on the road, already had the door open, and as they turned, my brother and I jumped in the car. The car didn’t even come to a complete stop for us. As soon as I got into the car the screaming began again. It was still 30 minutes till we arrived at the airport and before that we still had to return the rental car at a separate place close to the airport.

During the entire car ride my sister was crying and screaming at me because we were all going to miss our flight, while my mom was surprisingly staying calm and collected trying to figure out a solution while my sister was calling our airline trying to look for another flight, but there were none available until 2 days later.

My mom ended up dropping us all off at the airport and said that she was going to return the rental on her own. It would be easier if just one person missed their flight rather than 4. We all jumped out of the car, grabbed our stuff and went to check into the airport. At this point it as 1 AM. We were very late, but we knew we would still be able to make it.

We just expected that my mom would have to stay there a couple more days. I was still going to try to find a way to see if my mom could make it. I asked the people attending to us to receive our boarding passes if there was any way they could wait for her to check in, but the man attending us said she wouldn’t make it on time. We barely made it.

When I realized that it was serious, and she was actually going to miss the flight, I started to feel even more terrible. If you’ve ever been on an international flight you know that when you leave the U.S you get an immigration slip that you must bring back with you when you’re coming back into the U.S. Well, when we were checking in, my brother opened his passport and we saw my mom’s immigration slip inside of his passport.

You can’t return to the U.S without it, so as soon as we all noticed that, my sister, brother and I were standing at the desk in front of the man attending us to check into our airline and we all started crying. You could tell the guy felt bad, so he got his manager and ended up giving in. It was probably because my 14-year-old little brother, who’s not so little, was crying as well, and he never cries. How could you say no to that?

The lady told us to call our mom and tell her she had 15 minutes to return to the airport and for her to go straight to our airline check-in counter. Afterward the attendants said to leave the slip with them and proceed through security.

A huge weight was lifted off all of us. We just had to make sure that my mom returned in time. Luckily, we passed through security quickly and our flight had just started boarding. We just sat there waiting for my mom and were calling her so that we could be updated with where she was, but she stopped answering us, so we were still freaking out a little hoping that she would make it.

My brother freaked out the most. He kept calling her phone and walked around to see if he could see her anywhere. Suddenly, as I was sitting down waiting he came up to me looking confused and whispered, “Jumana, look at mom. I got up and turned around and I saw a worker pushing my mom in a wheelchair towards us. My mom had the most miserable facial expression.

I couldn’t tell if she was making it because she was pretending she was handicapped or if she was just really that upset. She rolled up to us and got off the wheelchair. I’m a bit childish, so I thought it was hilarious that she pulled up in a wheelchair.

She told us that the people checking us in told her that if she wanted to make the flight she was going to have to pretend she was handicapped to get through security faster. Aren’t they the sweetest people ever? Since when are people at airports so nice?

After we saw my mom, none of us could be mad anymore. We all made the flight and I guess since I got a picture of my mom pulling up in a wheelchair, we got a good laugh about it. Thankfully no one had to miss the flight because I was going to be the one to be blamed. My lesson was learned. Never again will I do something so stupid. The bracelets weren’t even nice.