Diary of Mister Blunt

Quarantine Survival

At Brisbane airport the customs officer is about the tenth person you have to deal with after stepping down from your Stephen King novel flight with Qatarstrophe Airways - in between you have to be told by some dude to go straight ahead into the taped off area. Then the next dude gives you a brochure for the early adopters of Covid Tourism, then there's this woman who shoots you in the head with her digital paint ball gun and says "Do you have any loss of smell or taste, fever...." and I say "not anymore I don't...."

This throws her off so much she forgets what else she was was supposed to say and waves me through.

So I fill out another form with all the stuff that's already on the form I filled out on the plane which is all the stuff I filled out online less than seven days but more than 72 hours before my flight.

Then there's a dude who ushers me into a sheep dip and then there's a passport check girl who wants one of the forms I filled out and I go 'which one now?' and she says 'it's yellow'. And I go 'yellow or fawn?' And she says have you had any contact with anyone suffering from Covid the past 30 days and I say "I have no idea who does or does not have covid. But I have been vaccin....... but before I can say 'vaccinated' she says 'where are you gonna be staying?" and I say "It's on the fawn form." and I point at that section and she rears back and says 'don't come any closer'.... which made me feel like it was our first date.

She ushers me through - more because she couldn't stand being so close to me than because we had exchanged any information at all.

Another dude ushers me then to the exit gate.

I get there and I think. "Wait a minute. Isn't there something else?"

It's my baggage. I got no baggage. None of the carousels are turning. I'm back in the Stephen King novel.

There's only one way out and a border patrol lady is standing there like a school hall monitor and I got no fucking baggage.

I walk back to where the dude had ushered me. He's gone.

I look around - only other way is to "Oversized Baggage".

I think "That can't be me.... I mean my pants are long but they're not oversized baggage."

By now the other border patrol people are fixed on my position and are talking to each other through their Aldi walkie talkies. I wonder if I should make a run for it.

I collect myself and approach the hall monitor. "Um.... I don't see my bags anyplace," I say. "And the only carousel that's moving says it is for oversize baggage and your colleague back there told me to go this way so I don't wanna disobey orders cos he's dressed like a police officer, you know...."

She says "Over there on carousel 7."

I say "That's the oversize baggage carousel..."

She says "Oh, is it?"

So I head back while listening to her jump on to her walkie-talkie and make a right and there, shimmering in the distance, is my undersize baggage and, unbelievably, my guitar. It appears in one piece. The industrial strength packing tape did the trick.

I collect my stuff, fall down on my knees and weep.

I get back to the hall monitor. She waves me through to a dude who is standing 17 feet away and he ushers me through to a dude who is another 9 feet further along and then he ushers me through to the custom's lady.

I have to put my bags in between these taped yellow lines on the floor and then step back across the way to stand myself between the other yellow lines about 12 feet away.

"You leave your luggage here, then you line up on that line over there," she says. "Then it's race on, eh?" I say. Which admittedly was a Le Mans joke but she didn't get it at all.

Then another lady comes along and says "Do you have anything to declare?" Without missing a beat I say "I solemnly swear I shall never again fly with Qatarstrophe Airways."

She laughs out loud.

This reminds me I am no longer in Germanland.

Then the other lady calls her comfort dog to come sniff around a bit. My immediate reaction is to laugh out loud. The tiny French family in front of me in the line up are shocked. They huddle against a stone wall in the dark corner and await their fate, mumbling inanities in a dying tongue.