opinios

I thought it was being friendly.

The customs officials asked me to take my pack over to a side room and give my immigration card to the officials over there. Ok, I thought, they're opening up a second line to hurry people through.

How naive I can be at times.

The grumpy, abrupt old bastard there treated me like a lowlife junkie scum:

"You know why you're here?"

"Nope."

"Well, that dog there smelled something on you. You carrying any drugs? You know if you tell us about it now there's only a $500 fine... but if you don't and we find something, it's a $5,000 fine."

"But..." I interjected.

"Now wait! Let me finish. You understand that we take this seriously, if you have anything on you, you should come forward now!"

He was getting all angry and authoritative. "How dare he?" I thought. Thus began 45 minutes of humiliation. The customs officer began searching through my entire backpack, asking me about each and every item and skimming every page of my journal.

"I've got nothing to hide, really. You're wasting your time", I kept telling him.

I tried to show some degree of politeness despite the fact that I was furious about both this invasion of privacy and the fact that my flight had announced its final boarding call. What could the dog have smelled? The chewing gum in my pocket? Maybe it really was being friendly, I am a bit of a dog-person... I remember seeing a guy smoking a joint at a coffee table up in Gibsons yesterday, but I didn't hang around for long at all, was at least three metres away and had showered since then anyway, dammit!

Another power-hungry blue suit came by and was getting frustrated that his colleague couldn't find anything. Are these guys on commision or something?. He turned and confronted me:

"When was the last time that you used?"

Fuck you, I thought.

"Never", I lied. There was no need for this jerk to know about my experimental years at university. Besides, that was 4 years ago.

"Never? I don't believe that!"

Fuck you.

"That dog picked you out of the line. That means there is a 99% chance that you are carrying weed, and we're going to find it".

You dickhead. Those jocks are dirty.

"Did you go out to any bars last night?"

What is he reading my journal for? That's private. "Nope."

"If you were around any friends that were smoking, then that scent is going to be on your clothes."

I had spent the night in, chatting with a friend and packing. They continued the search; dirty underwear, guide book, Turkish drum, piling my many shirts and jackets on the bench. I was getting really worried about the time, but something far worse was nagging at the back of my mind... what if they pulled out the rubber glove?

"C'mon, when did you use last? You've never used?"

"Nope" I smiled sardonically. "Have you?"

No response.

Eventually the old man must have begun to realise that he had made a mistake, and began to treat me a little more civilly. He could see that I was no smuggler, no more than a young traveller seeing the world with his whole life crammed into a backpack. He was actually becoming really interested in all the shit that I had accumulated since I left for Europe five months ago as he neared the bottom of my pack. I had just about lost all energy to protest, extremely tired of the ordeal.

"You know, if you hurry up and pack all that in, you may just catch your plane. I hope you understand that we need to follow these things up..."

That was it. I was finally free to go. They had screwed me around immensely at 5 in the morning and they still made me repack all my stuff, without an apology. I scrambled to throw and fold and stuff everything back in. I don't normally pack well in a hurry and had to throw a couple of things that wouldn't fit in my carry-on luggage. I shook my head in disgust and hurriedly pranced through the gate in a huff.

And to think I hadn't even entered the country yet.

Submitted by Matthew Magain