David McMillan

So I need passports, a lot of them.

I also noticed they worked in teams, and if you did get stopped, which shouldn't happen if you've got it all together, but let's just say you do,

You would be in front of two officers.

The first one would do the searching of your bag.

He'd drop the lid onto his hand just to feel the weight of it.

Then he'd lift up pretty much every object, toiletries bag, unzip it, give it a jiggle, zip it up, put it aside, unrolled towel, lift up something else.

Could he search everything?

No.

Did he have any special information?

Likely as not.

But you'd come from an iffy place, and you're a young guy, so, you know.

But this is what happens.

The guy watching from behind, with whom you're having some kind of stilted conversation because you're shitting yourself that this thing will be found, when the guy who's going through your stuff lifts up teddy bear, hmm,

gives him a bit of a squeeze, a heft, and puts him aside in the cleared objects.

You, if you don't know what I did by then, the shoulders drop down.

You look up at that officer that you've been talking to.

Oh, yes, suddenly a new man.

Yeah, well, I didn't really like Bali and, you know, the girls in Bangkok.

It's like talking to a different person.

As soon as you change like that, he taps the man who's doing the searchers.