EMMETT: The Meat Catalogue

Before leaving the country, you have to endure a certain necessary embarrassment. Whether it’s undressing for an impatient security attendant or half-heatedly sprinting to your gate only to find you’ve missed the plane – the universe continues to work against you. Next time, skip the under-wire bra and leave your pocketknife with the Boy Scouts lest you be made the fool by the metal detector.

Naturally, in anticipation for studying abroad last spring, I was served a hot, steaming heap of shame. This journey began even before waiting my turn at security. My mission was simple: reclaim my passport and visa at the Spanish Consulate downtown while maintaining the relatively low reputation Americans hold in the eyes of the Spanish. I wouldn’t even attempt a Spanish introduction with my visa lord standing behind her Plexiglas partition. My fumbling would only enrage her. If I’m anything like my mother I would get nervous and spit out no he pedido esto! “I didn’t order this!” Great start.

Instead of letting me try to butcher her language, the señora looked up and said, “Visa? Sit,” through a noticeably tight lip. I mumbled the universal “okay” and did just that, sat. Looking around the gray-padded room I wondered why the walls were, in fact, padded and who was in charge of the signs. The only English ones read “Do Not Loudly Speak on Cell Phone” and “NO Food NO Drink.” Does that mean I could speak normally on my phone or not at all? Could anyone smell the Au Bon Pain asiago cheese bagel in my bag?

Just as I began translating a poster about two American girls who had been arrested for smuggling drugs, I noticed a handsome kid. He had great eyelashes and even the courtesy to match his full grey sweat suit. Winning. The odds appeared to be in my favor; he carried a Suffolk University folder, which meant he was a student and not fighting deportation.

After a similar order that I had received, he sat down behind me. My hair was in a bun and I started to get nervous that he would spot the “strawberries” on the back of my neck. It’s a cluster of tiny red dots that I’ve had from birth. They’re not really noticeable but to a stranger in a room lit like the DMV this could be a red flag for an STD.

I sat between two girls. The one to my left was reading “Moby Dick” and I could smell her library book from a mile away. The other, to my right, held a Kindle and carried a canteen that read “Green Achiever.” Great, literature and sustainability had one-upped me again. An un-savvy consulate-frequenter, I obviously neglected to bring reading material. My bagel and phone were off-limits, leaving my gangly arms noticeably without purpose. I felt like a blonde. My arms were getting heavier with uselessness and my potential lover’s eyes were burning the strawberries off the back of my neck. When his mother sat down next to him I knew I had to appear productive.

Looking around the room, casually of course, I noticed a stack of magazines called La Tienda: Spanish Eating. Perfect! I could flip through the magazine, pretend to understand the Spanish, and maybe learn a little about the food.

After a minute of mental preparation, I rose with pure purpose from my seat and claimed the magazine. Upon sitting I realized that La Tienda doesn’t outline Spanish eateries but rather offers them. Pages and pages of holiday sausage and gravy spilled over my lap. It was like reading Sky Mall at a Ted Talk. This catalogue was relentless. Pictures of cheese and meat followed by bold prices and “family specials.” Like a pop-up book, the ham legs stared back at me with sullen solace for my good intentions.  While my neighbor flipped through her whale chronicles I entertained the option of purchasing “manchego” or “iberico” cheese.  (As it turns out, manchego is a far better choice if you’re going for the family special. Cheap and calorie conscious).

Needless to say, he never made a move and I never looked up. Maybe I, in an attempt to look sophisticated, picked up the only meat-manufacturing magazine in Boston but he was there with his mother. Caught! Probably for the best anyways, at this rate our children would have been cheese craving mama’s boys.

Kacy Emmett is a senior in the College of Communication and a weekly columnist for The Daily Free Press. She can be reached at kcemmett@bu.edu.