Border Patrol

Sometimes I can’t believe where I work.  Border Patrol is discussed as animatedly in the kitchen as the latest cricket match.  Speaking of Border Patrol, when H and I got back from our vacation last month, there were signs up in customs warning that Border Patrol was filming and we could be on camera.  Very sadly we passed through customs only to find that no cameras were filming.

If they were, they would have found us with our bag of potential contraband.  We had to declare our wooden board game, made in Norway (serious high risk of pests), a chocolate bar, and two granola bars that we had purchased in Australia.  There must be a million other things that would be a better use of the Perth customs agents’ time.

The agent inspecting our items asked us if we’d been to Australia before.  What did he think, that we normally keep a bag of wood and food at the ready for customs checks?  He also could have read our customs form where we checked the box that reads, "resident returning to Australia."

Looks Can be Deceiving

My boss is a wonderful person; she works hard but understands and promotes a work/life balance.  She likes to have fun but not too much fun.  When we got out for drinks after work, she closes down the tab after one (or two very quick) drinks.  She dyes her hair blonde but it's a shade that's more gray than sun kissed.  She's young and thin but wears conservative slacks and orthopedic shoes.  I guess the point that I'm trying to make is that she's nice but conservative.  Which is why the turn the conversation took at drinks on Friday was all the more surprising.

One of my anonymous colleagues is getting married next month in his home country, India.  Halfway through her drink, my boss asked, "Are you having an arranged marriage?"  Anonymous Colleague responded, "Yes, it is, but I really like my fiancee and we spend hours talking to each other on the phone every week."  My boss then asked if his phone calls need to be chaperoned to which Anonymous Colleague gave her a kind of weird look and responded that, "no, they do not."  And then my very conservative looking boss blurted out,

"So phone sex is ok then?"

My jaw dropped, Anonymous Colleague's jaw dropped and everybody else in the group just stopped and looked at her.  Someone gave a nervous chuckle and turned the conversation to the next test match being played at the local cricket stadium, WACA.

The surprises didn't stop there though.  I went to refresh my drink at the bar and one of my other colleagues came over.  "That was awkward," I said to her.  To which she responded, "Yes, but I'm not as surprised as I once might have been.  Before I went to Budapest, Anonymous Boss lent me a book that she said I had to read before I went because it takes place there.  I started reading it and it was like soft core pornography."  I really hope she doesn't get me in our office Secret Santa; the gift might be x-rated.

How [Not] to Prepare Your Travel Documents

It's amazing what comes up during the course of a normal dinner conversation in the world that H and I have found ourselves living in. The other night we were out to dinner with some friends and instead of the usual conversations around politics, the state of the financial markets and upcoming vacation plans, H and I learned how to accidentally bribe a government official.

One of our friends shared a story from a business trip he had taken to what I'll refer to as an anonymous banana republic gone sour under military rule. He disembarked from his flight, queued at customs and handed over his passport, in its case, to the customs' official. The customs' official thumbed through it for a few moments before stamping it and handing it back. The guy's boss went next and after the customs' official paged through his passport, he started grilling him with questions. Our friend took the twenty minute delay to check out his new passport stamp and found that A$50 that he had stuck in the back of his case, along with various frequent flier cards and other scraps of paper, was now gone. Apparently the cash, and not the appropriate visa, which his boss was also in possession of, had smoothed his entry into the country. A$50 will get you 90% of a case of beer, a steak dinner for one, lawn seats at a cricket match or a question free entry into an anonymous Latin American country. I wonder what else this admission fee includes.

When Life Sometimes Feels Like Fiction

Last night, H and I went for drinks with a few of H's colleagues.  Sometimes I wonder where the hell I am, not just geographically speaking.

My first pint of beer was accompanied by the following conversation:

B, "I'm going to Duri* (Indonesia) for days off to visit my boyfriend but he'll be working."

Me, "What is there to do there?"

R, "Drink cheap beer and hire prostitutes."

B, "Well, the prostitutes won't do me much good." (B's a woman)

R, "But you can hire them to do things for you, like paint your toenails."

*Duri is an oil town in Indonesia in the middle of nowhere.  Travel sites say, "There's no reason to visit Duri except for business."  Traveling from a reasonably first world country to Duri on your time off requires real devotion.  Often outside women are viewed as unwanted "competition" by the local umm..talent.  

Next conversation (still during pint one):

Me, "Hey, T, nice to see you.  How are you?"

T, "I'm doing well, just got back from the rig a couple of days ago."

Me, "It must be nice to be back."

T, "Not really, they had great food there.  All you can eat ice cream, oysters, and one night they served kangaroo, it was incredible."

Note, T is not Australian, and honestly who would trust seafood cooked by a man with marginal hygiene that more likely than not has spent some time as a ward of her majesty's correctional institutions.  

By this point, I was in need of another pint.

R, "Have you been to a cricket match yet?"

Me, "No but I'm looking forward to experiencing that unique cultural phenomenon.  As Bill Bryson says In a Sunburned Country, in what other sport can you dress in white from head to toe and end the game just as clean as you started it?"

R, "It's great fun, you sit in your blow-up pool all day drinking overpriced beer and eating meat pies and occasionally glance over at the game."

Me, "Wait, did you say blow-up pools?"

R, "Yeah, everyone in the lawn area brings them."

(Break for me to physically close my gaping jaw.)

R, "So you heard I got transferred to Saudi Arabia?  I'm trying to figure out what I can do to be barred from entering the country.  I'm thinking that maybe I'll bring in a load of pornography."

H, "Nah, they'll just confiscate it (and be silently thanking you for providing it)."

R, "Maybe I'll get fake breasts, they won't let a lady man in."

Me, "I think a quick trip to Israel to get your passport stamped would be easier."

After a visit to the bar, for another round, we started talking about R's time in Oman when he got invited to a camel race in the middle of the desert.

H, "You know camel racing has changed a lot.  They don't have child jockeys anymore, they've been replaced by robots."

R, "Yeah, people were putting up a big fuss that all these kids were stolen and forced to work in dangerous conditions for little if any pay."

S, "The kids weren't stolen, they were bought."

H, "But now it's more of a Land Cruiser race than a camel race because all the owners all race beside their camels to control their robots with remotes and they all try to cut off and distract the other drivers to make them drop their remotes."

Where am I and is this the real world or some kind of backwards flushing toilet alternate universe?