LONG BORING POST ALERT. DO NOT READ UNLESS YOU WANT TO BE BORED BY A LONG STORY ABOUT ME...
Boatraceface wrote:
Did customs give you any slaver on entry to the US of A Biggy?
It's always a pain in the nipsie, no question. The girl in front of us made the schoolgirl error of telling the Immigration Officer that she was in a hurry to make a connecting flight. Maam, I can't go any faster or slower than I need to to follow due procedure, he slurred, then took about 15 minutes inspecting documents, and making a meal of the fingerprint scan, photo and stamping the visa cards. Immediately after her another girl on her own was through well within two minutes and my family and I took less than five.
HERE IT COMES - IT'S LONG AND REALLY SHIT...
The best (worst) thing to happen to me at a US airport was when they swabbed my laptop and found traces of something it as I was going through security to leave Florida. Then they took my camera and mobile and they tested positive too. By this time I had been moved to a roped-off area (red ropes on gold stands like you expect to see at a cinema, bizarrely) with two hyooge security chaps standing over me. I didn't have a clue what was going on, they just kept pulling things out of my hand luggage, wiping them with a little cloth, putting the cloth into a machine which immediately started screaming and printing out little strips of paper like till till receipts.
After a bit, as the guard was rubbing his bit of cloth over my fingers, I decided that a bit of man-to-man chat might help the situation. He wouldn't tell me what they were testing for, despite my persistent questioning, but did offer that it was 'probably a mistake'. He also asked whether I'd been on a farm during my trip. 'It's explosives, isn't it', I said, but he wouldn't budge. Then I asked him whether he would relax at all if I told him that I'd spent some of the previous day firing handguns and that I could prove it. Excellently, I was able to turn on my digi camera and wave a picture of me doing just that in his face. Talk about an atmosphere changing. I went from Most Wanted to Most Excellent in the blink of an eye. All they wanted to know then was what guns I'd shot and what I thought of them. They don't carry guns, don't you know - it would interfere with the explosives detection equipment.
WELL, I WARNED YOU!