I Got a Ticket: An Immigrant’s Humorous Journey of Assimilation

By Razia Fasih Ahmad

I got a ticket is a collection of short stories and creative articles based on some of the writer’s experiences. Some examples of these are: I Got a Ticket, Christmas Party, Tornado and My Life Collapsed With My Phone. A few articles are from ideas or funny situations like, My Dear Razia, Who Wants to be a Starfish, Sniffers etc. A few emerged as flash fiction like, The True story, The Dirty Bingo. Change, Change and Change.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Dec 22, 2021
• ISBN: 9781669803010

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Copyright © 2022 by Razia Fasih Ahmad.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 12/14/2021

Xlibris

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CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

Prologue

Foreword

I Got a Ticket

Christmas Party

From Letters to Telephone, Text and What Next?

It could have been worse

Tornado

Cat and Mouse Story

House Full

Gone Are the Days…

A Huge Failure

Everything I Call Mine Has a Mind of its Own

The Sniffer

Note Books

Creative People are Junk Gatherers

Evolution is reversible

Would you like to be a Starfish?

My World Collapsed with the Cell

Oatmeal-More Equal

Double Nobel Prize

Memory, Memoirs and Memory Loss

Advantage of Aging

Flags, Flags Everywhere

Bingo, Bingo

Dirty Bingo

Change, Change, and Change

The Problem with Long Names

Humans and Dolphins

I will be laughing at myself from now on

The Unwilling ____

Bird or Leaf

The Cube

The Whole Story

The ID Card

Words, Words, and Words

Training L

Jet lag

Spring and One Day in July

Tomorrow

Count your blessings

Half-and-Half

The Picture

The Inmate

Bye Bye Balloons

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my family and friends who always encourage me to write.

My thanks to the Writers Group of St. Charles ILL library who edited and inspired me, especially Lisa Macaione a perfect organizer.

I would like to thank my sons Arshad Fasih and Anjum Fasih, who helped me in preparing the final draft.

My gratitude for Sonia Ivy who wrote the foreword.

I am grateful to Asad Abbassi who made the illustrations.

Many thanks to Veena Larry, Joy Daniels and Renee Ashton of Xlibris Publishing who helped me in compiling and publishing the book.

Prologue

WHY DO I WRITE?

I will tell the truth, nothing but the truth, so help me God!

I’m walking since I started walking, I’m talking since I started talking, I am driving since I learned driving, and doing many more things since I began doing them. I never questioned myself why I do those things, as I have never questioned why I breathe, why I eat, why I sleep, why I clothe myself and many other things that I do because I know I have to do them.

Let me tell you my case, as I know it.

I don’t remember, but my mother told me, that my first tooth came out when I was four months old, and I started talking and walking when I was less than a year old.

I remember that I started reading, writing, drawing, and painting when I was five years old. I started reading short stories and novels, written by famous writers, when I was in 5th grade.

My younger sister, who was two years junior, died of typhoid in her childhood. I was not at home at that time and, nobody told me about her death. When I came home, she was long gone and buried. I loved her very much and the sudden news of her demise shocked me. Her not being with me anymore haunted me all the time.

One day I read a story and thought, I can write as well as this writer has written, maybe a little better. I wrote a story about a girl painting her little sister, using her as a model. The little sister died before she completed the portrait. It remained unfinished forever.

I did not show the story to any one and sent it to a woman’s magazine without a return address. In those days, they did acknowledge the submissions, and did not ask for SASE to return your material. As there was no such thing as a private letter in our household, I did not want my parents, and especially the eight siblings, to know that I had submitted a story to a magazine, and the magazine editor rejected it.

The story published. I came to know about it from my fellow students. I was in 9th grade at that time. I have been writing continuously since then. I plead guilty to not knowing why I write. I only know that I have to.

My friend N read this article and asked me, Why didn’t you say at the beginning that you don’t know why you write?

I told her that nobody makes a confession unless compelled to.

Foreword

I Got a Ticket, by Razia Fasih Ahmad is an extension of Americans are Punny People. Razia Fasih Ahmad is an esteemed author who has won several awards and prizes for her writing in Urdu. Now a completed second book in English after writing for several decades!

The author’s willingness to share with the world her gift and passion for writing is admirable. This book is a miniseries of episodes from Ahmad’s personal, family, and public experiences living in America. These episodes are a blend of personal, narrative, and descriptive writing styles are comprised of short essays and flash fiction. The episodes can be enjoyed however you choose. You can binge-read the entire book, meditate on your favorites, or bounce around. It truly is up to you!

I am intrigued by the author’s ability to incite the reader in every episode. Her ingenuity invites the reader into her space from the start. Ahmad is a lifetime writer and a brilliant wordsmith who has astutely fashioned intentional storytelling. Her custom of transparency is the spark that ignites her passion for writing. Ahmad is an admirable example of someone that preserves as a writer and author.

A good vibe-only book. Let’s take a seat, sit back, and enjoy the I Got a Ticket entertainment ride!

Sonia Ivy

I Got a Ticket

Illustration%2001.jpg

My husband was going on a long trip. He advised me to drive his car occasionally to recharge its battery. One day, I decided to drive my husband’s car to visit a friend who lived only a mile away. I had just left my neighborhood when I heard a weird horn behind me. I ignored it. On the second ear invasion, I moved my car to the right