So what happened? The surly guard told us to pull over and go into the building, and I had a premonition this wasn't going to be good. I asked them if Dr. T could just go on without me -- after all, he had his passport -- and the good Canadian got almost belligerent, insisting that BOTH of us had to go inside.
What followed was a nightmare. Under the supervision of rude 26-yr-olds with guns, we were interrogated as to our purpose there, then told to basically sit down and shut up. We watched as several of the thugs put on what appeared to be a mild version of a space suit and proceed to search every iota of the rental car ... taking a good two hours or so to do it, during which they would not let me go to the car and get my cell phone to tell the coordinator that we were detained.
Finally the "investigation officer" told us that we had been chosen for a random check, and that we could go, after he formally advised me that the rules state that one must carry certification of citizenship (DUH!!). But by then, it was too late, and we had missed the lecture. And all those nice people had sat there and waited ...
So how's that for making a good impression on your version of The Pope?! Yup, that's right, I not only wasted his afternoon by making a non-sophisticated mistake, I caused him to miss his scheduled talk and patient treatments afterwards, pissing away his predicted income to boot. It seems small potatoes that I missed the lecture too.
You see, I for one do not believe for a New York minute that our search was "random"; I think I triggered their interest by not carrying documentation. Maybe they were jonsin' for a reason to nab a man with a Mid East name in a rental car -- imagine their excitement if they thought they were about to finally get to use some of their advanced training to catch a terrorist!! And how deflated they must have felt when it was just a bumpkin American with a mild-mannered doctor going to talk about health stuff at the library!
I can't quite bring myself to feel sorry for the jerks, though. It gave me pause for thought: all the political prisoners in the world probably go through a more hellish version of what we went through. The detainees at Guantanamo Bay, most of them do not have any hard evidence against them at this point, and now I can better imagine the utter shock of being arrested, blindfolded, flown to God-knows-where, and not being told anything ... for years. Imagine the added pain of knowing that your wife will start worrying when you don't arrive home on time, and that your boss will have no way of knowing that you didn't just blow off your job. Nobody will tell you anything, and just for fun let's add the documented feature of hearing your comrades-in-bewilderment being tortured.
Kind of puts missing a health lecture in perspective, doesn't it? But I can't help thinking that if those sarcastic young people with petty authority would consume fruit instead of the mocha-javas-with-whipped-cream they passed out (as we stood there in line, unhelped), not only would they be more aware in response to a REAL threat instead of yo-yoing on the Sugar Blues, but perhaps with their pH levels less acidic, they could actually treat visitors to their fair land as human beings.
Dream on, Skya.