The flight home was uninterrupted this time, which was a shame. I had been kind of hoping to be diverted to another Caribbean island or at least get to spend a night in Iceland (and maybe take another trip to the penis museum), but Richard Branston had no doubt seen how much of his money I had spent in Barbados and personally ensured that the plane was not about to go on fire again. The pickle-bearded fool.
We got into Gatwick about 7am (only 22 hours late) and my bag was on the carousel by the time I got to baggage retrieval area. It looked like I would be getting home in super quick time. But as I got to the “Nothing to Declare” channel I saw a gaggle of customs officials waiting for some unsuspecting prey, snapping at their rubber gloves and staring gleefully at the trickle of passengers walking into their channel. I looked at the floor, hoping that they wouldn’t notice me, but of course, my weakness was spotted immediately.
In front of me was a family with a couple of young daughters and a trolley piled high with suitcases of adult and child varieties. I saw one of the customs men peel off and make his way into the channel. There was a chance he was going for the family, but I realised this was unlikely. If only because they had so much baggage it would be too much work. I was alone, with a weekÂ’s growth of beard and only two bags. I looked suspiciously like a terrorist drug dealer with no friends. Sure enough the weasel faced man stopped me and with a John MajorsÂ’ voice asked me to step to one side so he could look through my bags.
“Where have you come from today?” he asked.
“Barbados, but we’d been diverted from Tobago.”
“Why?” he asked suspiciously, already convinced I was a master criminal.
“There was smoke in the cabin, so we had to go back.”
“Ah,” he said in his weasel nerd voice and then told me what that was called in the industry. I was tired and not interested and I am afraid I can’t remember. It might have been somethingn as unimaginative as "plane malfunction", but if it wasn't it was something equally boring and not worthy of passing on to another human being, unless you are a sad weasel-faced, John Majors voiced idiot who thinks it's a good idea to devote your life to being a customs officer, in which case you will try to pass it on to everyone in an attempt to make friends with them, even though you are accusing them of being a criminal by talking to them in the first place.
I just wanted to get this experience over with as quickly as possible with as few bodily cavities encroached upon as I could get away with.
“Are you aware of your duty free limits for alcohol and cigarettes?” he asked.
“Yes,” I confidently replied, “I don’t smoke and I have one bottle of rum.”
“Ah, well, you’d have to have that, coming back from the Caribbean,” he joshed, trying to be may mate. But I didn’t want to be his mate. Even if he hadn’t been a customs officer I wouldn’t have wanted to be friendly. I knew I had nothing illegal and so didn’t want to waste any more time than necessary. And I didn't want a man's fingers probing my anus. Not again.
“Are you aware of the laws regarding illegal drugs in the UK,” he then asked.
I was tempted to play stupid and say “What? Drugs are illegal in the UK? Even cocaines?” and look all guilty before saying, “Not that I have got any cocaines so you don’t need to check my baggage.”
But instead I wearily sighed and said, “Yes”.
He opened up my suitcase and started prying around amongst my dirty clothes. The white sands of Barbados had found their way into the case and there was a thin layer of it all over my stuff. Again something the customs man felt the need to comment on rather than getting on with proving that his suspicion of me had not been justified.
As he removed my possessions he came across the several books I had taken with me. It was one of the main things I had been looking forward to on the holiday and I had maybe six or seven books in my case (four of which I had read). “Oooh, someone likes his reading,” he said to me, in a hollow echo of the title of my last year’s Edinburgh show. Now whilst I think it is unprofessional for a check-out woman to comment on your groceries, I think it is unforgivable for a customs officer to say anything about what is in your suitcase that is not against the law. He is looking around in your most personal things and rifling through your dirty pants and so discretion would dictate that you don’t talk about what you are looking at. Yes I do like reading, it’s none of your fucking business weasl-o. Not unless the government makes reading illegal, which with old Tony Blairs and his lot I wouldn’t be surprised about, you know what I am saying. Yeah, watch it Tony Blairs. If you ban reading then you will have me to answer to, though if you answer in a letter I will obviously not be allowed to look at it, so you’ll probably be OK.
It was none of his business whether I liked reading or not. I worried that he would start passing comment on other items, perhaps noticing my 12 pack of condoms and counting up the condoms inside, revealing that there were still 12 there and commenting, "A dozen condoms? Someone went to Tobago with unrealistic expectations of how much sex he would be having, only to discover that no condoms would have been enough on this particular occasion. Did you really think you would be having nearly two sexes a day while you were away? You make me laugh you idiot. I bet you didn't even talk to any girls."
He didn't say that and if he had I would have had to tell him that I had in fact taken a dozen boxes of twelve condoms to Tobago and thus had only over-estimated my condom useage by one twelfth. Yes I had 132 sexes in the eight days I was there. Yes, so so much for your silent judgement of me weasl-o.
The customs official looked disappointed that his suspicions of me had been incorrect. He kept looking into various pockets and pouches in the suitcase, though he didn't look in my washbag (luckily as it contained a hundred cracks), but he was confounded. Finally he found a bag of coffee that I had bought as a present for a friend. "It's just some coffee," I said, suspiciously. This was all the evidence he needed. Why would I tell him what was in a packet that was clearly labelled, unless I knew that it didn't actually contain the thing it said it did. "I am just going to X-ray this" he told me triumphantly, probably expecting me to confess immediately to the crime he knew I had committed the minute he had seen me.
But the dull man was thwarted when he xrayed the coffee in a big machine and saw on the screen that it contained nothing but some kind of powder. Coffee powder surprisingly, but not sure how you can tell that by X-Ray. I was allowed on my way. I thanked the man sarcastically. I had triumphed and no amount of incorrect supposition about the amount of condoms I had was going to ruin my victory.
