Last night, my husband and I went to see the South African comedian Trevor Noah in San Francisco. We had looked forward to the show since tickets went on sale a few months ago, and bought our tickets and parking pass beforehand.

Since it was raining, we checked Waze beforehand to see how long it would take us to get to San Francisco. For the uninitiated, California has lovely weather almost year-round, which means that rain is A BIG DEAL. Although we get quite a bit of rainfall each year, people forget how to drive at the first sign of rain. Cars that can go upwards of 140 mph suddenly develop an inability to go past 25mph.

Certain bats from hell, who, I assume, are brain surgeons racing to perform life-saving procedures, fly past everyone, darting in and out of lanes, cutting in front of cars and braking suddenly when confronted with the reality of the rain-paralyzed drivers. This, of course, results in enraged drivers lowering their windows, angrily flipping out the offending bat from hell. Because, make no mistake, the rain may have paralyzed their driving skills, but their fine motor skills are weather-proof. Whenever incidents of road rage appear to start around me, I usually slow down and move away from that hot mess because this girl did not fly all the way from Kenya to become embroiled in road rage incidents that have nothing to do with her.

After a very long drive, we finally arrived at the swanky Chase center (new home of the Golden State Warriors), which was bedazzled in Christmas decorations. A ginormous Christmas tree greeted us at the entrance, with hundreds of selfie-taking couples crowding the area around it. Instagram will be lit- literally.

It was while we were standing in line ready to get into the arena that the comedy began. The security guard checked the ticket app on my phone and asked me, “Who are you here to see?” I responded, “Trevor Noah.”

“Oh, he’s in Oakland today.” the guard deadpanned.

I wanted to scream. We had looked forward to this day, hired a babysitter, driven in the rain for hours, had our car sniffed by a dog at the security check, finally found parking, only to find out that we were in the wrong city? Naturally, this alarmist train of thought was not a soliloquy. Outwardly, I froze and stared at my phone to make sure we had the right tickets. They were the right tickets, I looked up to find my husband and the guard laughing. They got me good.

Next, we went through airport type security and stood in a line where there were two very interesting characters. One was what we would call “mtu wa vitabu” back home. Meaning, a bookworm. Because who shows up to a comedy show bearing multiple tomes, requiring multiple passes on the scanner before they were cleared. I wondered if at some point during the show, while the rest of us were laughing so hard our faces hurt, this scholarly gentleman would open up one of his books and start to read, or if he would wait until the we, the general public, left, to lose himself in the latest volume of “The mind of the gentrified modernite” (he looked like the kind of person to read such esoteric literature).

I have encountered cheap people in my life. But the gentleman who was screened after the scholarly one takes the cake. If the cake is free of course. This guy had a water bottle, and as we all know, water bottles are not allowed past modern security screening stations. At first, I thought that maybe he hadn’t traveled anywhere before, and was unaware of this very basic rule. But I would very quickly be disabused of that notion.

He spent the next few minutes arguing with the security guard, asking why he couldn’t bring his water. She patiently answered his questions before giving up and rolling her eyes. She told him that he was holding up the security line ,and delaying others from entering the arena (I will take this moment to applaud Trevor Noah fans. Despite this inconvenience, no curse words were uttered, no middle fingers were flipped, and no fists were shaken in anyone’s direction.)

The guard told  the thirsty man that there was water for sale inside the arena, which finally revealed his real pain point. You see, the water inside the arena is very expensive (true, also San Francisco is a very expensive city to live in), and he wasn’t willing to pay for it (also true), and so he had brought his own water (not vitamin, ionized, sparkling) to drink. I should also add that the contentious water bottle was a plain plastic bottle- not the fancy UV light self-cleaning and self- sanitizing variety. The combination of the non-special water and the standard-issue plastic bottle added to the confoundment of all who witnessed the drama unfold. He was strongly encouraged to dispose of his water- and by strongly encouraged I mean two burly security guards showed up and assisted him in the task. He sullenly walked away from his beloved water bottle, ambling towards the arena, where, I hope, Trevor Noah was able to cheer him up.

Have a happy Holiday season, see you in 2020!