Saturday, January 6, 2007

Travel Stories Part XVØ

Much like Blork, I too was on the road recently. Travelling to my destination with my 5-year-old son, it was Bliss in Montreal; the American customs guy waved us through, not even asking for the letter from “his mother” (the term I now use to refer to my ex-wife.)

And then, Houses of the Holy! At the gate, the agent calls me and I’m delivered two boarding passes to First Class. Add to this that the stew in First Class was a Japanese from the same city that my son spends his time in when he’s there. We were soon all three babbling happily in local-area-inflected Japanese while she plied me with Sauvignon Blanc. (Me: “Okay, this is my last . . . “ She: “Well, it doesn’t have to be!”)

But pay the piper we all must, and these days, paying the piper is coming back into Canada, whether it’s through Vancouver or YUL.

I was almost dancing on the luggage carousel last night when I flew in from SFO (not first class) because the immigration dude had waved us through. No questions about where His Mother was or anything like that.

And then Tai-chan lost the customs form. It was in my laptop bag and I’d asked him to watch the bag while I looked for our bags on the carousel, and he said “I’m holding it, Daddy!” so everything was minty. But somehow, his little hand must have removed the customs form, because when I piled on the last bag, it was gooooone. Nowhere on the floor, which was a scrum of cattle seeking their bags, so I resignedly wheeled through to the endpoint—the person who collects the forms and lets you on your way to your loving relatives’ arms . . . and prayed she’d take pity.

She didn’t. It was the Little Room. The dreaded Little Room . . . where they might as well be shining a spotlight into your face as they interrogate you. “Describe the area through which you went through immigration . . . be careful, because I need you to describe it exactly . . . was it to the right? To the left? No, it couldn’t have been the left, sir, because people with children are guided to the right . . . think again, sir . . .” (this is literally almost verbatim as to how this interrogation proceeded, I kid you not.) You can recognise the Little Room (it's actually quite large) at YVR and YUL because they have a large bank of mirrors--one-way mirrors--behind which they retire to ("Be right back") to observe your behaviour while they're not there (and to sneak a smoke, I'll warrant.)

You can imagine the Death Ray that I was aiming at my poor quailing son after this (after 45 minutes of this) but afterwards I realised that it was karma, mere karma that on my fourth entry back to Canada in a row, I get the Little Room. It was not his fault.

You win some, you get the Little Room.

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