This week found me in the huge city of Sao Paulo, Brazil. On the way back, there was a strike involving the customs officials/border patrol, known in Brazil as the Federal Police. These are the guys who look at your passport and stamp it as you leave. There were only two guys looking at passports as dozens of flights left. This meant a line of, without exaggeration, 4,000 people. I stood in line, again without exaggeration, 4 hours and 10 minutes (I timed it). Luckily, I had shown up at the airport six hours early, so I was fine. Most of the flights were being held for people to get through the line, so very few people missed their flights. But it’s still no fun standing in line for hours.
Behind me in line was a group of middle aged Asian women who didn’t speak English or Portuguese. And as I got to the front of the line, we went around a curve, and a big Brazilian guy cut in line and started pretending that he had been there, with all of his Asian women friends, all along.
A bunch of much smaller Brazilians started complaining, and he basically swore at them and said he was going to stand there no matter what. He challenged them to come and force him out. Keep in mind there were no police around because they were all on strike, so this was basically “the law of the jungle.” Now, I am fairly big physically and felt I had no problem handling him in terms of temperament or even if things got ugly. Also keep in mind that this was happening behind me in line so did not affect me personally.
What would you do? What is the Christ-like thing to do?
I’ll give you some time to post answers, and then I’ll tell you what I did. (Hint: the guy did not stay there very long).