Translator

We’ve all heard the joke about what happens when you assume…..you’re usually wrong.

We make assumptions all day long, and unless you’re in the science world, you probably aren’t taking the time to create, test and verify a hypothesis. Yet many of the assumptions we make on a daily basis aren’t accurate. Some statistics say that 50% of the assumptions we make are wrong, but I’m only assuming that to be the truth.

Having been raised in a mixed family, I’ve not always noticed race and skin color. So it’s hard for me to predict issues that might be due to conclusions others might jump to. 

My mom is 100% Asian.  My dad is 100% Wisconsin-bred. My five siblings and I have the same dad, but only I have the Asian mom. As a result, I have two nieces who hilariously identify themselves as “one quarter step Japanese.”

I’m traveling via air with my mom and niece Jess, and my niece is the only one of us three who doesn’t have TSA pre-check status.

As we approach the first guardian of the coveted pre-check process, Jess helps her dainty Asian grandma untangle her purse from her walker. Though no words are spoken, it’s clear that Jess and Mom are familiar with each other. What is unclear is that they could be related.

The TSA agent assumes that Jess is this elderly lady’s assistant and ushers Jess through to the forbidden fruit of the TSA pre-check lane, saving her from the shoe-removing, laptop-extracting, general-disrobing sequence of regular TSA screening.

As he gently hands them off to the conveyor belt team, he mouths and points that Jess is the older woman’s interpreter. I suppose there have been more egregious assumptions made in the history of man. Mom has been known to play up the “little old lady with a walker” bit (how do you think she got TSA pre-check status to begin with?) but be not fooled – the woman catches more than she lets on to.

So Jess continues through the TSA pre-check line, Mom stays silent and I watch from the recombobulation area, having already cleared security.

Now I will say that Mom is deaf in one ear and not being a frequent flier, isn’t overly familiar with the ever-changing processes at the airport, so some of the confusion is legit. Jess caringly helps Mom through security, speaking slowly and closely into Mom’s only hearing ear.

For whatever reason, when Mom gets to the scanner, they want her to remove her shoes (so much for expeditious security-ing).  They make some non-verbal signals to try and communicate that request to my Mom. I’m not sure what the gesture for “take off shoes” would be, but I know I never want this guy on my team in a game of charades. Mom looks helplessly at Jess, shrugs her shoulders as she tries to decipher whether the third base coach is miming to slide into home or get a pedicure.

Jess leans toward the man to clarify what he is trying to communicate.  Quietly he nods toward Mom and tells Jess, “Could you tell her to take off her shoes.”

Jess turns to Mom and yells (in her good ear), “GRAMA, TAKE OFF YOUR SHOES!”

As Mom dutifully takes off her shoes, the TSA agent dons an “I could have done THAT” look, and said, “I thought you were her interpreter.”

Jess replies over her shoulder as she expedites through security, “Nope, just her granddaughter.”

This was an innocuous assumption that only led to family laughs (and this story). But so many of the wrong assumptions we make in life can lead to conflicts that can be avoided if we would just take the time to ask and seek to understand.

But if anyone ever needs an interpreter, my one quarter step Japanese nieces are always available.