Yesterday we sorted our ID cards. In the imaginatively-named Immigration Tower, I was not at my sharpest…
PT sits opposite the Official
PT: Hi there
Official: Papers,
pleasePT: Hi there
PT hands papers over.
Official squints at them, looks uncertainly at PT, and begins correcting
multiple errors and handwriting. In her second language.
Official: Your wife has
same name?
PT: Oh, no. It’s
Claire.
Official: [Pauses, frowns] No, Turner?
PT: Ah! Yes, yes!
Official puts form aside
Official: OK, now put
your thumb on the reader.
PT: Where? Here?
OK
PT places thumb on
scanner. Askew.
Official: Straighter.
Lift up. Down. Down again...Up...Down...Left.
Not that far!
Official sighs, putting
on a black glove. She reaches through the Perspex, physically placing PT’s
thumb.
PT: Oh, ah,
gosh, sorry, haha!
Awkward silence. PT is
manhandled.
Official: Sit on that
chair. Look at red dot. Not camera, red dot…red dot.
PT: [desperately] I am looking at it!
PT looks confuesdly at the
official. The camera goes off. PT’s face freezes. The official looks
unimpressed.
Official: Red. Dot.
Please. Sir.
PT: Sorry.
The photo takes. The
results flashes up. PT looks like a simpleton.
Official: [firmly] Is OK?
PT: [reluctantly] Yeah...
Official: [visible relief] Please take a seat in
waiting area.
PT: Right, yes…
PT stumbles
slightly as he gets up from his chair, and leaves. 5 seconds later, he rushes
back
PT: I’m terribly
sorry…what waiting area?
Official brutally
murders PT with a stapler.
Clearly that last bit didn’t happen. But I think she wanted
it to.
Brilliant story, I can see it happening! I hope you and Claire are having a good time when you're not exasperating Chinese-HK officials. Did you tell them you worked for the British Government?
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