You know what really grinds my gears? I’ll tell you.
I hand my passport over to the immigration officer, present my half smile, and try to think about baseball as he studies my every move and swipes my passport.
Seconds that seem like hours later, the sweet sound of ‘stamp stamp’ then my freedom is handed back to me.
Days, weeks, months later or whenever I’m feeling down on life, I flip through my passport to relive the memories by analyzing the glory days of stamps past.
“There’s Canada, wow that place is lame,” I remark as I keep flipping through. “Oh, here’s one for New Orleans, what a crazy country that is.”
Temporary solace turns to anger and frustration as I rifle through page after page of indecipherable garbage: stamps on stamps on stamps, got stamps on stamps on stamps.
Why Mr. Immigration do you stamp so haphazardly? Who do you place your stamp in the middle of an empty, crisp page? Worse, why do you not make sure you have enough ink before you stamp?
Final complaint: why do you stamp my passport Mr. KL immigration, you know I’m taking the next Air Asia boat out of here?
And that’s what grinds my gears.
Goodnight Canada
