Where have you gone George Clooney?

In order to up and leave my remote Patagonian village you need a great excuse and lots of patience. Travelling home to my native Lima, I have to obtain a PCR test. This looks pretty straightforward at first until you hit a Catch-22 wall. The test is only valid during a 72-hour window: The day before the day is not the day and the day after is too late.

Your flight’s gone.

This is Argentina and we have just come out of yet another 4 day-long weekend holiday –here when they say long, they mean it. No banks and of course no labs. Wednesday labs are back but the nice lab guy tells me: “It’s much too soon. If you a travelling Monday you need to come tomorrow. Results will be ready Saturday, at the latest”.

"Promise?"

“Promise”

I don’t believe him for a moment.

Next day I undergo the test and feel the young female lab technician drilling a hole thru my nose all the way to my brain. After a thorough interrogation mostly concerning the identity of my ancestors she forgets to ask me for a contact as to forward the results. I point this out. She wakes up and duly notes it down in a piece of paper she will probably loose in the next five minutes. I make her write it 3 times since it is clear that her untarnished brain has more important things to think about than my silly mobile number. Saturday comes and goes with not a peep.

It’s now Sunday morning; I am going to the airport which is 3-hour drive to board a flight to B.A. with no results yet and a blood pressure reading of 17 over 10. Since nobody works on Sundays I fear my goose is cooked. I make a last-ditch effort just before boarding; blood pressure now probably rushing towards 19, and run into a guardian angel called Luciano whom after several attempts to locate my test -which of course is in a lab in yet another town – confirms that he has it and will email it to me. Two minutes go by and still nothing. The flight attendant is now making desperate gestures in my direction frantically trying to get me onboard the sitting plane when Luciano comes back with this piece of priceless info: “They had your email down wrong”

(This I knew all along, of course. The awful thing about ageing is that life no longer holds surprises; amazement yes, sometimes, surprises none.)

I collapse in my seat and sleep through the entire flight.

When we land and are sternly advised by the flight attendant not to get up, yet. The fat guy in front of me, probably hearing-impaired, does just that. His jeans drop and I find my face inches away –so much for social distancing- from the longest butt crack comprised between the two hairiest cheeks, ever.

I am no shrinking violet but this is truly a first for me. The thing looks like a mutant creature from the Ice Age.

After a long minute -guess he must’ve felt the draft- the guy pulls up his drooping pants, therefore allowing for a huge hairy naked belly to roll out on top of his belt, displaying yet another expanse of very dark body hair.

This no longer looks like belonging to a living being; this is more like a taxidermist piece or a shag rug from the ‘70s.

Where are you, George Clooney, when we need you?

Next morning, rising at 4 am for an 8 o’clock flight from Ezeiza, I queue four times to pass four different controls, the last of which is manned by a graduate, with honors, of the Gestapo school of guards.

“Move! Take off your coat, lady! But keep moving!”

I finally lose it and yell back at her: “I either do one or the other! Choose!”

She stares nonplussed like bullies often do when you hold your ground.

There is no Business Class in Latam, it is now called Premium Economy except they charge the same as before.

Upon boarding they thrust a plastic water bottle in your hands, no juice or welcome champagne. No flight attendant to take your coat. No beds, no duvets, no inflight entertainment of any kind, no frills.

The food is a choice between a zucchini sandwich inside two slices of plastic bread or just slices of plastic ham and cheese, coffee or tea. All this onboard a vintage Airbus 320, who probably never did anything more challenging than the daily run Paris-Nice and return. Boy, they sure must be hurting.

Glamour is definitely dead.

Come back, George! Come and bring back some class!

And if possible bring your plane too.