My Weekly Rant !!

July 18th '98

Ok so I've been back in the States for a while now so I figured I should finally write another Rant, especially after all the trouble I had getting back INTO the States.
Well as you all know, I spent a whole year in the States as a nanny, and so when I finished my year at University, I decided to come back and visit, do things that I didn't manage to do the first time I was here and see any of my old friends that might still be out here. However this may sound incredibly easy but it wasn't to be. Oh NO !! My master plan was to be foiled by one simple thing CUSTOMS AND IMMIGRATION That's right, this is what happened *cue wobbly flashback effect* :
My flight went well, I was allowed to have my last alcoholic drink (sounds like a condemned man right ?) and the movies weren't too bad, they had "The Wedding Singer" on, which I must say is a CLASS movie so I watched that again. The food was typical airplane food, but just edible so that was ok. The flight went without and incident. Then we landed. I should have known things weren't going to be good when they managed to leave us on the plane for 30 minutes because the walkway thingy that joins to the plane to let you off broke down, and so even though we landed early, we were late departing the plane.
This wasn't to be it all however, oh no, fate had something much more hilarious is store for me. For after I had thanked "The Spirit of Sir Freddie", the plane that had safely carried me to the continent where the streets are paved with gold, I was to be accosted by immigration officers. Yep it was not the simple, "How long ya staying?, ok go on then" of before, but instead and hour of the Spanish Inquisition. Those people are MEAN. I had to endure over a whole hour of questioning by this official who wanted me to confess to being an international drug smuggler, the assassin of J.F.K. and the mastermind behind virtually every terrorist operation since the beginning of time. Now I don't know what these people are looking for, illegal immigrants etc. but HEY, I had my University I.D., I was going back to University in the fall, I had a return plane ticket, and an address of people I knew that I could stay with for a while to visit. OK so maybe 3 months is a little long, but hey I have that long off school, what else am I going to do ? Well he read all my letters, which must have been fun for him, he even questioned me about a friend who was a nanny who now lives in London who happens to be from South Africa, why I have no idea, maybe he thought that I had smuggled her there !! he questioned every thing that I was carrying, you should have seen his face when I showed him the Beanie Babies that I had brought with me, and NO they were not gifts for other people, they are MINE, I don't know why, but he didn't seem able to comprehend why a 20 yr old male would have some little toys with him !! He shouted at me (emotional punishment maybe) and said that he WOULD find out what I was doing here, which would be cool, so that if he did he could tell me and save me a lot of searching !! ;0) However, after checking every last detail about my carry-on, including a sales receipt for a laptop I purchased here, which he thought was amusing because I only bought it about a week before I left last time, which was the only time I could afford it, do you KNOW how much laptops cost ??, and having made me undo my suitcases, he got fed up and let me go. I don't know if he realized that I was actually not doing anything majorly wrong or just got bored with me because I wasn't going to get him a summer bonus, but he just told me to pack up and get out !! Nice manners eh ??
Well fortunately I wasn't too long, and the people who had agreed to pick me up from the airport were still there, a little panicky, can you believe no one would tell them that I was caught up in immigration, they just wouldn't tell them a thing !! They were about to leave when I finally emerged, bored and battle scarred, to which Brendan cheered me up by sprinting the length of the airport screaming "DARREN" (awwwww) and to which people actually APPLAUDED when he finally got to me !! Well I suppose it was a happy ending, and that's what counts right ?? All I have to do now is live through the return trip, hope I don't get questioned by the same guy !! ;0)