Disclaimer: This is my friend‘s story, so the credit goes to him... think it‘s funny though.
One time, my friend went on for a "three month trip" to discover the beautiful world of the US of A. Him being him, he made sure everything was planned down to a T. Afterall, he had never flown before and didn’t speak a word of English.
It would have all been fine because he was supposed to fly with another friend of ours, but, since he procrastinated with asking his grandparents to lend him money for the flight, the friend’s plane was already fully booked by then, and so he had to book another one.
I told him the least he can do is buy credit for his phone,
just in case something did go wrong.
I said: „I’ll pay it myself if you want... about 10 times.“ Nah. Nope. Not this guy. „It’ll be a waste of money since I won’t be needing it in the US, m’kay?“ He argued.
We dispatched him at the airport in Wien, cracked a few jokes how he’ll be back in a couple of days, said goodbye, and off he went. And what happened next? He did get to the US, allright... without any trouble actually. Well, he got to the US, not in, per se. Since he didn’t even learn a few lines or words even, the customs and border protection officer became suspicious and thought he went there to work illegally. They then searched him, interrogated him, and threw him into a cell.
So there he was, in a cell, at an airport, with mean interrogators, not knowing the language and not being able to tell anyone what’s going on. In the meantime, our friend was waiting for him at the airport. After a while, he was able to send a message through his iPhone even without credit/internet connection to another friend who has one as well. Later, they took his phone too, but at least we knew what was going on. After about 24 hours, they took him to a plane in handcuffs, and sent him back home. In their defense, they were right (he went there to work)...
He had to quit his prior job due to this trip, lost the potential earnings, and money for the flight. After getting home, he received a letter from the executor to pay a huge bill for not paying the health insurance, and his grandparents thought he’d used the money for drugs, all of which just a month or so after his first sweetheart broke up with him.
Looking at the bright side of things, he did visit the US! + has a good story we can laugh about. Every story has a silver lining😉
