When travel excitement is muddied by the ghost of a stolen passport, you better pray that luck is on your side. By Tama Smith.
Listen to the story as it was told at The Watercooler, or read on.
This story takes me back to 2006.
I had been engaged to my fiance for about a year and we’d decided to test our relationship by going on a big trip overseas. I think some people might have tried that approach before; test the relationship on a trip away to make sure you’re really willing to lock it in.
I was excited for the whole year. I was gearing up for this trip and spent the year saving. Everything was organised: I’d made the lists of everything I had to get done. We got our shots, we packed our bags a month early. It was all going perfectly. We would head off and have a lovely, exotic, Christmas. South America was our destination of choice, this was where we were going to test ourselves, test our relationship.
There’s a lovely time before you leave on a plane where you're sort of just wandering around at the airport, absolutely care free. You’re just buying little trinkets because you can.
The day of leaving arrived. We headed to the airport here in Wellington. There’s a lovely time before you leave on a plane where you're sort of just wandering around at the airport, absolutely care free. You’re just buying little trinkets because you can. I bought this little thing. Just a thing, and I decided that this little thing was going to be my travel token. I was smitten when my fiance took it and hung it around my neck. It was one of those lovely moments at the airport.
We flew to Auckland first, and I could swear there was music playing the whole time. Everything was great. We hung around Auckland airport. We had 45 minutes to waste until we went through those pearly gates out of the airport and into our international travels. We had set this example of being so well organised, so we decided to just casually head through early - figured we’d maybe do a bit of duty free shopping on the other side. We were excited.
We were walking with anticipation up to the customs desk, ready to hand over our passports. My wife went first; the exchange went perfectly. The gentleman smiled at her, wished her a happy holiday, and she passed through. I gave him my passport and thought it was going to be the same thing, all fine and dandy. But from over the counter, I literally could see this red square reflected in his eyes. I was glaring back from the computer screen that he was looking at. His face went from bored to very over-excited. You could see a look in his eyes like, ‘Oooh. I’ve got someone.’ Then he very quickly put his formal face back on and said, ‘Mr Smith, you’ll need to come with me, this way.’
Now, my fiance at the time, Bob (Her name is an entire story in itself) was walking through the customs corridor, and I was being escorted over in an entirely different direction. He escorted me over to these rather uncomfortable sofa-chair things. I was sitting outside what looked like a whole lot of interview rooms. Very non-descript interview rooms. He told me to sit down.
By this stage my (now) wife had noticed what was going on. She had to come back over to where I had been taken. We were having on of those awkward-nervous conversations, laughing about parking fines and joking about what the mix up could be. We were slightly nervous, but were thinking that this would all just pass over quite quickly. We had been so careful and well organised this whole time so surely nothing could go wrong.
We were sitting next to a lift. All of a sudden the lift doors open and two police officers walk through. One of them looked directly at me and gave me a look as if to say ‘Yeah, you’re why I'm here.’ He kept on walking, straight past me. Moments later he returned and said, “Mr Smith, have you ever reported your passport being stolen?” “No?” I replied. However, then I thought about it. I had a coin-drop moment.
I remembered: It was about 4 years earlier, I was moving out of a flat in Ponsonby when I went through that phase of living in Auckland. I remember I had been doing a lot of packing and unpacking, taking boxes and moving stuff in and out of my car. I had left a bag on the front seat of the car with my valuables in it, including my passport. I came back to the car after a trip inside to find that it had been stolen. I reported it to the police, all that time ago. They said that it was late in the evening, so I would have to come in the next day and sign some documentation to say what I had lost. It was all pretty normal.
The next day I got a phone call from the police; they told me that they had actually discovered a lot of items in a rubbish bin in a local park, some of those items were the ones I had reported as stolen, including my passport. They told me I would need to come into the police station, collect them and sign for the rest of the things. I went in there and they gave me everything back, including my passport. I didn’t think anything of it.
They told me I would need to come into the police station, collect them and sign for the rest of the things. I went in there and they gave me everything back, including my passport. I didn’t think anything of it.
However, this was that same passport that I had booked this five figure holiday on. It turned out that not only had they given me my passport back at that time, but someone had, very efficiently, phoned and connected with interpol and cancelled the passport. They had nothing to indicate on the passport that they had done that. There was no indication on the passport that they had cancelled it all those years ago. No one had told me that they had cancelled it. I had taken it and booked this massive holiday on it.
I told this whole story to the police office and I remember he looked at me, with a different look, this time as if to say, “Well, you’re in all sorts of shit aren’t you?” Everyone in the situation felt like that. The police officer left, and the attitude from him and everyone involved at that point was just sort of, ‘We don’t know what’s going to happen with you.’
We were left in customs, having one of those horrible conversations where you're just frantically trying to sort everything out. I looked down at my watch; we had 20 minutes until we needed to be on that plane. The police officer finally came back and said, 'I’ve actually contacted Ponsonby police station, and your story checks out, we actually believe you.'
I felt a sigh of relief for a second, and then it was back to panicking. I was frantically saying “You believe me! This is great, so what can we do!? What do we do!?”
The police office just replied saying “ There’s…There’s not much we can do, you’ll have to wait here.” He went away again, and came back again a few times until he finally stood in front of me and said this. He said, “Qantas is willing to fly you but they will not accept any of the responsibilities, they’re willing to fly you, internationally, but they’re not going to promise anything.”
We looked at our watches… Fifteen minutes… Fifteen-thousand dollar holiday… Fifteen minutes.This trip was supposed to set me up for being the most reliable man that Bob had ever met. I was asking the police officer frantically, “can you give me anything!?” “A note?” They were just continuously replying, “No, we can’t, we can’t do anything for you.”
Ten minutes left. It was all closing in. What do I do? Of all the places in the world to be flying in on a stolen passport, I was flying to L.A.X. At this point in the story, I normally ask whoever is listening, 'What would you do? Would you stay? Or would you go? If you stay you’re going to miss the holiday and there is no way you’re getting a refund, especially not in the time that you need in order to catch up on all the connecting flights.' I decided to go. My wife supported me in that.
So there I was on the plane for 11 hours. You know how when you fly there is that screen on the back of the chair in front of you, and it has that little red dot thing? I was just staring at that, the whole flight; it was haunting me. Every single little twitch that dot made gave me a closer approaching sense of doom.
I must have been giving off a wretched vibe because the hostess came over to me and just randomly gave me a toilet bag. It was as if she was suggesting I freshen up; it must have looked like I needed it. Inside that bag was one of those horrible razor blades. Just a single blade, disposable, pop-off-the-lid kind of razor. I will never forget the image of me, standing in the airplane bathroom, with this hideous little razor, trying to shave my face with hand soap. Just thinking and hoping that maybe, just maybe, a shave will be the thing that saves me.
I endured the rest of the flight, It didn’t help that the only movie they were playing for the journey was Little Miss Sunshine. There I was for the rest of the duration of the flight, crying to myself, watching the movie. My wife kept having to look over at me crying the whole way through it.
We landed and got off the plane. I hadn’t been in a huge international airport since I had travelled a long time ago when I was much younger. I’m not ashamed to admit I was still quite teary-eyed at this point. I was walking around the airport and I was just wretched. There we were all over again, winding down through the corridors, getting closer and closer to customs. I knew that this was going to be ugly. I was frantically rubbing my little good-luck necklace that we had bought at the airport gift shop.
Finally, Bob goes through customs and receives the standard greeting from the customs officer with no troubles. “Welcome to America, have a lovely stay.” My turn to go through. Standing at the counter, white as a ghost. Exactly the same thing happens; I see the red screen light up in the reflection of the customs officer’s eyes. Exactly the same thing, nothing changes, except this time the customs guy is just a little bit more excited. He’s got someone.
There was a massive Mexican family over in one corner all screaming and nearly stabbing each other. Then over on the other side were two guys who were obviously connected but not talking to each other.
'Mr Smith, you’ll have to come this way.' I was escorted into a room; it was a cubical. There was a massive Mexican family over in one corner all screaming and nearly stabbing each other. Then over on the other side were two guys who were obviously connected but not talking to each other. We’re just sitting there in the middle of this environment, quietly trying to catch our breath and keep it together. Wretched.
On and off we were allowed to go up and tell our pitiful story to different people through those glass windows. Each time they were just like, 'Who the hell let you out of the country?' 'You’re stupid, You’re going back.' We sat there for hours and hours, just waiting.
Occasionally the people through the glass windows would ring the consulate. They’d get on the phone and say. 'Hi, look we’ve got these pathetic Kiwis sitting here, can you sort them out or something.' The consulate was saying to them, 'Oh goddammit. This is so close to Christmas! It’s just a couple of days away, we’re closing down! How did this happen!? No! We can’t do anything for them!'
There were some border security characters that would keep coming through the room, staring at us with perplexed faces. Looking at us as if to say 'What are they doing here? I’ve never seen anything so pathetic.' One of them threw a biscuit at us. Just out of pity. It was dry, a peanut butter biscuit.
Eventually the customs people just came out and said, 'OK, we’ve given you a time frame, this is the deadline and if this isn’t sorted out by then, you’re getting deported and you’ll never be able to return to The States again.' It was terrifying.
We got to the deadline and no conclusion had been drawn. It was over. 'Sorry, time is up, we’ve got to process you through, you’re going back.'
They actually processed me through like a criminal. They did the finger scan and the retina scan. I imagine myself wearing one of those bad-ass boiler suits being handcuffed, that is what it felt like. I got to the cusp of the door just stepping through thinking that it’s all over when the phone rings. It’s the consulate. They say said that if I could get there by 12.00pm the next day, they would issue me with an emergency passport.
“Yaaaaaaaaay!” All of the officials had been following this and they all joined together, raised their arms and cheered with us. It was like their Christmas miracle.They totally changed their tune. Everyone was willing to help; they were printing me off all sorts of directions and help, giving me accommodation advice about the best hotel to go and stay at. Bob and I found ourselves standing there on the street, outside, in LA. We just turned and gave each other a look as if to say, 'How the fuck did we pull that off?'
I slept like the dead that night. Woke up in the morning the next day and it was all go again. I remember running down the street as fast as I could, sprinting to catch a bus to get to the consulate on time. It was a stretch but we got there; it looked like they were sweeping up, ready to close as we walked through those doors. They gave us that same look of shock at just how lucky I was. They took us through the process and it was going to take a while, I had to go downstairs, get a coffee and wait.
They said that I would need to take a photo for the passport. I told them that I actually already had some and handed over the mugshots that customs took at the airport. They took them. We waited with our coffee, full of high hopes. I was still feeling like the luckiest man alive. The phone rings from upstairs and they say, 'Actually, Mr Smith, you’re going to have to get some new photos taken. There is a problem with the ones you have given us. You’re actually so sickly pale, against the white backdrop that there isn’t enough contrast for us to be able to use these in your passport. It doesn’t even register. We can’t use your photo because you’re just too pathetic.'
I got new photos taken and finally we were on our way. Now, the one fact that I had been very careful to not mention to anyone in customs was that, after LA, we were directly on our way to Cuba. I had wanted to keep that on the DL. I figured if I had any chance of getting away with this at all, someone finding out that I was actually headed to Cuba on a stolen passport would be the nail in the coffin that sent me back home.
But we did it; we made it. I found myself on christmas eve, sitting on a beach in Havana, smoking a cigar, feeling like the luckiest man in the world. I’d nailed it. At every point along the way I had thought I was going to collapse and it was all going to fall through.
I always think of myself in that situation as being so wretched and pathetic, I was never aggressive at any point, and I can’t help but think that if I had been aggressive or angry, I would have been sent back right away. So, I guess the moral of this story (if you can take away a moral at all) is probably that if you’re weasily and pathetic, you can get away with anything.
This story was originally told at The Watercooler, a monthly storytelling night held at The Basement Theatre. If you have a story to tell email thewatercoolernz@gmail.com or hit them up on Twitter or Facebook.
Illustration: Sarah Larnach
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