I have returned from the Land of Amerrypants to the sound of disgruntled yowling. Sorry, Telstar.

[nanila]

On my way through immigration this morning, I was unintentionally sarky to a border agent. This could have gotten me into trouble, except that it played exactly into the particularly British class of interaction that somehow makes it the fault of the person on the receiving end of the sarcasm.

The exchange went like this. I walked up to the counter with landing card at the ready and passport and open to the photo page (which, due to an obscure and inconvenient bureaucratic decision, is not on the front page of the newer American passports). I passed them to the border agent. She looked at the landing card, flipped through the first couple of pages of my passport and looked at me oddly.

"Don't you have anything that shows you live in the UK?" she said, with a peculiar combination of derision and plaintive appeal.

I raised an eyebrow. "It's right there," I replied, pointing at the passport. "In the back." I honestly didn't mean to, but upon reflection I was horrified when I remembered my tone of voice clearly implied that she was being thick.

She flipped the pages rapidly and found it, making apologetic noises all the while. "I'm sorry, it's just that some people have separate cards showing residency," she said deferentially.

"Mine is pretty new," I smiled. She wielded her stamp vigorously and handed back my documents, apologising again.

I walked off to baggage claim. It wasn't until I'd gotten halfway there that I realised how fortunate it was that we were in Britain. If I'd spoken like that with a border agent in the US, I'd probably still be there right now.

In conclusion, have a photo of my parents being cute.

Comments

[qian]

Your parents are cute! You look a lot like your mom.

[nanila]

:D Wait until I post some scans of my mom when she was at uni and you will see just how much of a compliment that is!

[telegramsam]

Isn't "being sarcastic" the official pastime in the UK anyway? What more proof do they need that you live there?!? :P

[nanila]

It's up there with "drinking ungodly amounts of tea" and "complaining about the weather/public transport/how badly England is doing in X sport at the moment".

[ironed_orchid]

Your parents are adorable.

[nanila]

Especially after a glass or two of wine, when they go all giggly.

[mme_hardy]

Awwwwwww your parents are adorable and happy. Well done, them.

[nanila]

Yes! It was their 44th wedding anniversary last month. Awwwwww.

[noldo]

Aww your parents! And hah, I imagined doing that to an American border agent, and actually let out a small undignified yelp. Scary thought.

[nanila]

They get all giggly after a glass of wine. :D

I don't think I would have spoken like that to an American border agent. But who knows after 20 hours of traveling? Really not a good idea. Must put a guard on my tongue.

[cosmolinguist]

I had something similar happen to me, back in the days when I had a visa, when a border guard looked at it and said, "What are you studying?"

Baffled, I let "I'm not!" slip out before I realized what must have happened: they'd mistaken my spouse visa for a student visa.

And this was clear when they delightedly got ready to pounce on me, like the Americans would if they finally found someone to tick the "Why yes, I AM a Nazi!" box...until they saw that I did not need to be a student to be in the UK, that this was their own fault, and only half-heartedly interrogated me about something relevant.

[nanila]

Yikes. I imagine they probably asked if you were traveling with your other half? I remember when I first came over to the UK (on a domestic partner visa), the border agents used to get pretty quizzical when I traveled without him.

[lark_ascends]

Glad that it didn't end badly with the border agent.

Love that photo.

[nanila]

Me too! Gah! I must be more careful in future.

They were quite relaxed and I didn't give them much time to think about freezing their smiles on their faces, so it looks pretty natural. :)