Puntitas has had one of those experiences that makes her think, “Fate,” “Kismet,” “punishment from on High.” She normally doesn’t hold with such truck as her understanding of matters of this type is that every moment presents an opportunity to put one’s moral/ethical/philosophical beliefs into practice, but there are times when logical explanations and the fruits of other kinds of reflection don’t quite add up.
Puntitas’ big interpreting exam was scheduled for Monday at 15:30 in a city that is three hours north of where she lives. She and a friend left her home in time to arrive at the examination site ninety minutes early, but fifty miles away from their destination, traffic came to a two-to-three-mile crawl because of an accident involving a big rig whose trailer blocked northbound lanes and whose cab was being sprayed by fire crews as Puntitas and her friend crept past two hours later.
Once traffic regained its sixty-five-mile-per-hour flow, Puntitas used her cell phone to call the number on the official exam site map, the one provided by the examining organization, to let proctors know she was running thirty-minutes late. She was too preoccupied about whether she’d be allowed to take the test or made to wait for the next cycle to notice that the area code on the map didn’t jibe with her recollection of the area code of the city she was heading toward. The person who answered her call gave the name of the right hotel, so she left a message, which the employee was diligent enough to get to the test administrators, once she ascertained that Puntitas was “one of the testes.”
At about 3:30, Puntitas’ official starting time, she received a callback. Puntitas had left her message with test administrators in the wrong city, a testing site that was eight hours south of where she was at that very moment. So Puntitas tried again, using Information to get the number to the right city. That hotel employee was far less diligent than his southern California counterpart. The best he would offer was to put Puntitas on hold for ten minutes while he found out whether such a test were indeed being administered in his hotel, then transfer the call to the banquet room, where the solemn event was presumably taking place and where Puntitas had a lovely conversation with a befuddled hotel server. She called the switchboard again, speaking again to Less Diligent, who transferred her to the specific testing room, where the phone rang fifteen times before Puntitas hung up. Since it was 3:50, she didn’t try again, believing her proctor to be out having a cup of coffee, a swim, or a pack-up prior to going home.
She decided to press on to the hotel anyway, in the hope that someone would have been scheduled after her. Her friend drove on, following the Test administrator’s map from Highway 99, to the 110, to the 9th Street exit through town in search of J Street. After driving fifteen minutes, they came to streets with letters for names—G and H or maybe M and L—but no J and the letters didn’t continue, so after fifteen more minutes, they stopped to ask for directions. Puntitas digresses to observe that convenience store clerks are a surly and vague group. After another fifteen minutes, they stopped again for Puntitas’ friend to check the big fold out map that had nothing to do with the testers, and fifteen minutes later, they were at the hotel, trying to find parking and discussing the fact that they could have gotten off Highway 99 at J Street and arrived much sooner.
At the hotel entrance, Puntitas realized that it was 5:00, that the proctor wouldn’t be anywhere near the testing room, and that there was no point in going any further. She and her friend walked down the street, had dinner, and drove back home.
That night, she emailed the testers to ask for a new time, explaining that she’d been seriously delayed by the accident and by being lost for thirty minutes. Surprisingly, the testers were willing to allow her a new opportunity, scheduling her for southern California on Wednesday. Then the testers contacted her again to cancel the offer as the ADA version of the exam was not available there.
The next exam cycle is in two years, so missing this one is a serious setback. Puntitas doesn’t think she planned poorly. She left her home with more than a reasonable margin of error. She made efforts to telephone the examiners to notify them she’d be late. She emailed to request a new date and time, and her request was granted. But to have her margin blown so incredibly and to have been given a new time only to have it rescinded tries the most ardent follower of real and rational thinking.
After some tears, sulks, and other kindred mood swings, Puntitas has decided she’ll request a new date since the reason she wasn’t scheduled for one was lack of reasonable accommodations, in this case an additional cassette, which would not have been hard to include in the standard kit or to deliver from one testing site to another. Puntitas thinks the law is on her side in this matter, but she gets extremely tired of having to take refuge in that fact, as so much of her life is shaped by the ignorance or kindness of others. This particular issue will involve more than the usual amount of effort since getting the accommodation approved in the first place involved more effort than she had expected. Even thinking about the process is exhausting. Puntitas would let it go if the next testing cycle weren’t so far away.
Puntitas reads _Transportes González e hija_ by M. A. Escandón.