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| The Official Seal of Australia |
What do you do to make your home secure, but still welcoming to guests? I had almost two hours to ponder this question as I waited in the “Other Visitors” Customs queue at the Melbourne airport. When my Kiwi friend Ailie and I rolled off the plane and saw a line snaking up almost to the end of our terminal, we wondered what kind of huge tour group had just disembarked from what giant aircraft. I rolled my bag of quilts through the terminal, up through the ubiquitous Duty-Free shops, chatting with Ailie and glancing at the line, trying to figure out what kind of tour group would appeal to 50 Japanese teenage boys, a group of Muslim women, and a patchwork of Asians, Europeans and North Americans of all ages and colors. Then I looked up to the signs instructing Ailie to head to the left, to the short line for Australian and New Zealand passport holders, and me to the right, being one of the “Other Visitors.” I looked to the right, and the light dawned. Yes, I would have to head to the right, but I’d also have to head back down into the terminal, past the group of Japanese teens, past the polyglot crowd who had not in fact signed up for a multicultural tour of Oz, to the end of the now even longer line in the Customs Twilight Zone.
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Killing and stuffing the animals honored on your nation's official seal to create a life-size diorama of it is the definition of either irony or cluelessness. |
Two hours in a queue without access to a book or other amusement gave me lots of time to watch people perseverate over Angry Birds or ignore the prominently displayed no cell phone placards to call friends who apparently needed a description of the length of the line in which they were standing (advice to cell phone users: being bored in a purgatorial line does not give you license to call someone to describe your boredom). It also gave me time to compare my various experiences in Customs. The first few times we arrived in NZ, back in the 90’s, the Auckland terminal was small and funky and manned by volunteers offering you travel info and a cuppa while you waited for your passport to be stamped and your luggage to be sniffed. The Customs agent in Amsterdam joked with me about why I was attempting to show him my passport when he was simply waving me through. Post 9-11, I had been so schooled about the perils of joking with uniformed officials in airports that it was a few beats before I realized he was waiting for a laugh rather than an explanation. Then there was the mobile Customs agent on the bus into Switzerland from Lake Como who disappointed me by not stamping my passport at all. Here’s just another experience, I told myself as the minutes slogged by in the under lit, barely air conditioned Melbourne queue. I began to hope for a bit of excitement, perhaps an appearance of the security force the placards threatened would come and fine anyone using a cell phone – especially since the fines could easily have bankrolled the salary of a few more Customs agents to move us through at a less deathly pace.
Wouldn’t it be nice if the Tourism Boards who spend a mint enticing visitors to enter the country could work hand in hand with the government employees who comprise the first impression of your visit? It’s a bit like extending increasingly plaintive invitations to a friend to visit, then going off for a bit of a ramble, leaving your socially awkward third cousin at home and not telling him to expect a guest.
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While morphing the seal to provide instructions on the use of a hand dryer might be the definition of the Australian sense of humor. |