"A Little Bird Told Me" Newspaper

Hi, I'm Troy McClure. You may remember me from such writings as Are you a switcher?, Teaching before graduating: a controversial issue, and Education in crisis: who is to blame? In today’s edition of our section known as True Tales of Argentine Life, I will share with you, my dear readers, a story that depicts one of the aspects of Argentines’ peculiar personality: their fanaticism.

Too Argentine, too fanatical...

This is the story of this handsome but miserable man who was dancing half-drunk at a disco in Flores on a Saturday night when he met this attractive female that drove him totally crazy at first sight. This is the story of Santiago and Mara.

After chatting for a while that night, they exchanged cellphone numbers under the promise of meeting each other the following Sunday. Santiago was thrilled to bits that he had met such a lovely woman since he had been alone for several years when he bumped into her. Mara, on the contrary, had just put an end to a long relationship with dubious prospects, so she did not allow herself to raise false hopes, regardless of how excited she was.

A whole week passed and the so eagerly-awaited date would become real. Santiago woke up that morning, went to the bathroom, looked at himself in the mirror and grinned from ear to ear. Then he made his way to the living room where he flung himself into the sofa and turned on the TV just to come back to Earth with a bump: the most important football match of the semester was being played on that afternoon at the very same time he had agreed to meet the possible love of his life. He could not believe his eyes: San Lorenzo – Huracán, 2pm. His smile immediately vanished. How could he forget about it? San Lorenzo, the reason of his whole life! What would he do now? Like every Argentine, and like every man, he was a football fan as well as a women fan. He was on the horns of a dilemma!

After processing the information for some minutes, he made a decision: he took a deep breath and started to get ready for his date. After all, he did not have tickets for the match, and it would have been almost impossible to get them at the stadium. So off he went. He took a cab to arrive on time and waited for her in the pub they had arranged to meet. Several minutes went by and Mara did not show up. He asked for a beer and started drinking it alone. Some more minutes... half an hour... a whole long hour passed and there was no news about her. Bitterly disappointed, he decided to send her a text message. A minute later, she answered back: “I’m sorry, I completely forgot! :S I had tickets to see the ‘classic’ San Lorenzo-Huracán. I’ll text you back later, I’m in the middle of the match. I know you’ll understand!”

For a moment, he was fuming with anger. He gulped his beer down and stared fixedly at the message for some seconds, until he unexpectedly burst into laughter. Now he knew it: Mara was definitely the woman of his dreams.

PP, Capital Federal, Argentina