Monday 2 January 2017

Just

I made my connecting flight.. just. JUST.

Sitting amongst the suits on the plane I became aware of how gross I actually was. Pret-ty gross.

I forgave myself and decided they had it coming because I can't buy a house. The sort of sound resolution of thoughts one might expect from someone so close to breaking.

We landed in Auckland, I picked up my bags and half ran with them from the domestic to international terminal.. because in New Zealand these things are seperated by an open air maze of carparks, wire mesh, prefab huts and wheelie bins which stretch on for roughly a kilometre.

I had made it in time to check in for my flight, the relief was immense! Until I tried to check in anyway.

Despite numerous paranoid queries to the airline and friends about what paperwork might be required for passing through the United States, no-one mentioned a transit visa. But the woman at check-in did!

I was boned.

Off to the service desk I trolloped, giddy, vision blurred, smell.. apparent, and so so embarrassed about the visa. I could see the attendent behind the desk's face droop, just as the woman at check-in's had when my lack of a visa become the topic of conversation. "I can give you options.." here we go "We charge $50 to do it plus US$14 for the visa.. or you can do it yourself on your phone and just pay the $14." Now that's what I call options volume eleven. "I'll take the latter."

With time running out, I probed through the ridiculous American forms and how well they displayed on a phone. "How many hairs do you have on your right arm?" - "What was your Grandmother's dog's favourite colour?" - "How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck was a terrorist?"

Finished. Paid. Sent. "You have not qualified for automatic passage" which I show to the ground staff "That never happens." Of course it doesn't. "Your application will be assessed and you will hear back from us within 72 hours" - US Government. Well that's handy as my flight closes in 17 minutes.

A sort of slow imposing dread finally starts to creep over me as the woman at the counter types in one thing and another "No." she says to herself "No." again.. she pats the keys and squints into the screen "This never happens." I'm half listening, mostly clock watching, my thoughts have turned to who I can ask to pick me up from Auckland airport and what people will think of me when it comes to light that I haven't left the country. I feel sick.

I'll never know who my hero was, their name, their age.. but they knew mine and somewhere in America they hit the green button. With two minutes before my flight closed, I popped up "Approved."

With a total air of disbelief and visibly emotional I shunt myself through the automatic doors and onwards..


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