Peeve Farm

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Peeve Farm
Breeding peeves for show, not just to keep as pets

  Blog \Blôg\, n. [Jrg, fr. Jrg. "Web-log".
     See {Blogger, BlogSpot, LiveJournal}.]
     A stream-of-consciousness Web journal, containing
     links, commentary, and pointless drivel.

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Wednesday, August 27, 2003

00:56 - Thanks! Uh... you too! Wait...
http://gandalf.ics.uci.edu/blog/2003/08/three_weeks_in_france_ten_years_later.html

(top)

Kris mentioned this fellow's blog-- a Frenchman who had been naturalized as an American citizen, and ten years later went back home for a visit. He described the experience, as well as the return trip:

At last, in a clean, air-conditioned, body odor- free room, the US custom agent looked at my American passport. He then raised his head, and after he verified I didn�t bring any French cheese, said with a warm smile something I never heard as a French citizen re-entering France: � Welcome home! �.

Those were the words that came from the suddenly-smiling mouth of the dumpy little blonde woman who stamped my passport yesterday too. I hadn't known what to expect; last year I'd been barked at by a crew-cut column of a man thus:

"WHAT'S YOUR COUNTRY OF CITIZENSHIP?"

"Uh, USA."

"WHERE DO YOU LIVE?!"

"San Jose."

"WHAT DO YOU DO THERE?!?"

"I'm a software engineer."

"WHAT WERE YOU DOING IN CANADA?!!!"

"I was visiting some friends. Something I do every year about this time, you know, sort of a trad--"

"DID YOU SEE THE BALLET?!!?!"

"Uh... no. What?

"I SAID, DID YOU SEE THE BALLET?!?!?!111`1`"

"Uh, bleerg? Glassnorpt. Ah-hoogy hoogy bomb! Allahu akbar! Um, I mean, go Raiders!"

So I had no idea what the customs experience would be this time. The card I filled out said that "controlled substances, obscene materials, and firearms" usually weren't allowed into the US, and I was worried that someone might open my bag and be knocked flat by the smell of a week's worth of wilderness laundry and clap me in irons. (There wasn't anything more incriminating in there. Honest. Certainly nothing from Church Street.) I wasn't sure whether it was more suspicious to put down some innocuous number like "$20" for the amount of goods that I'd purchased while in Canada, and then to itemize it as directed on the back as "camera batteries" or something, and if so if they would demand to see me open my camera and verify that it took $20 batteries-- or to enter "$0" and incur that look of "Okay, nobody doesn't buy anything while on vacation. And we're certainly not buying your story, Ahmed." In the end I found myself scribbling out the "$20", itemizing "camera batteries" and "toothpaste", and changing the value to "$0", then emending it to "$10". In other words, making it as incriminating-looking as I possibly could. I figured that way it would look like I was either a) an amazingly disorganized tourist or b) an amazingly disorganized terrorist, and in either case they might let me through on pity alone.

So imagine my surprise and relief when the little woman's stony face and pursed lips tilted up toward me and bulged into a sunny smile: "Welcome home." (Stamp, stamp, stamp.)

I know they make them say that. I know it's part of the ritual, as rehearsed as any telemarketer's script.

But still.