Two years ago I was working with a dishwasher who was finishing school with some sort of criminal justice degree. Today that dishwasher is a Customs officer working for New Zealand Immigration Services (NZIS). Good people to know when your balls are being felt up by badges in the Australian international airport. Let’s call him The Pacifier.
My first phone call upon reaching the hotel is to the restaurant. I tell the owner about our difficulties at the airport and he is immediately as paranoid as I am, if not more. “You didn’t mention the restaurant, did you”? I explain that I didn’t but that I need to get in touch with The Pacifier. It takes less than five minutes to track down his number from the rest of the staff. I tell the owner that I am concerned about being able to re-enter New Zealand and that I will be in touch. His parting words are something like, “Don’t mention my name to New Zealand Customs. It might throw up a flag.” Brilliant. Too bad it is on the initial form I filled out upon entering the country.
While I am on the phone I open my email and find that Travelocity has cancelled our onward flights from Auckland without reason. The tickets were Auckland-Sydney tickets and they were cancelled sometime between our departure time that morning and our arrival time at the hotel. Why were they cancelled? Who cancelled them? It is our only way to show NZIS that we intend on leaving the country and we can't get back into the country without this onward flight.
I ring The Pacifier. And in some sort of mad blurry panic (we are already a few shots into the tequila to ease our nerves) I bellow out the entire airport saga in one long uninterrupted sentence. The Pacifier says, “Why didn’t you just tell them you were there for a passport stamp? It’s not illegal.” And furthermore, “You didn’t do anything wrong.” It was as if Atlas just said “fuck it”, dropped the world off his back, and said “I think I’ll go grab a sandwich.” The Pacifier put a calm in the room and assured me that we probably would not be flagged upon entering New Zealand.
And we weren’t. Not to say that we weren’t nervous. For once I was entering the country with no camping gear. I hadn’t been on a farm or killed any farm animals recently. I had no fruits, seeds, or genetically-modified-organisms. And I was carrying less than $10,000. So I breeze through with only a minor panic attack.
A couple weeks later The Pacifier came by the restaurant to catch up with everyone. I gave him a high-five and thanked him for giving us all some peace of mind. He tells me that I am the only person he personally knows of who has ever been searched. I went into the details of my questioning and he tells me I was lucky. Had we answered a question wrong they could have denied us entry and sent us back to New Zealand. Upon arriving in Auckland, the NZIS would see that we were not admitted into Australia and then would likely send us back to the USA.
He also mentioned that the next step of this interrogation process is to turn us over to Australian federal agents that would promptly take us to a hospital for a catscan to make sure we weren’t drug mules before we were further detained for more extensive questioning. New Zealand, he says, doesn't frisk people. It is against the law. Instead you get to strip. I wonder if there is a fireman's pole in the interrogation room so that you can spin and dance around a bit before you spread yourself open for all to gaze upon your little purple starfish.
Why the horrible coincidence of our Travelocity tickets being cancelled during the same time as our Customs interrogation happened is still a mystery. But we were still able to print the e-ticket itinerary and use it as proof of our intentions to depart New Zealand. So in the end of this happy little fairy tale we saved about $400 on airfare at the sole expense of having my balls fondled in public. Crikey! The cooks win again!
