Many moons ago I had the dubious pleasure of being “allowed” through customs.
It is not what you think, honest; it really was very unusual.

I flew into an airport, hours after leaving a weekend festival, and the sniffer dogs at customs sniffed out the residual smell of those naughty “massive drugs” takers standing next to me wherever I went.

Off to a “special” room with 3 officials, who got bored after they searched both my bags and didn't find them full of said illicit substances. All my, quite justified IMHO, protesting my innocence had obviously entitled them to a doughnut or two, over a coffee in the customs canteen.

Anyway, this other guy was still there, thoroughly searching every single thing I had. He even found a photo of me smoking a bong, quite artistic if you ask me, saftely folded within the pages of a book of no less than 200 pages. He said I shouldn't carry it across borders.

The only thing he didn't search was a stash tin. It was a survival kit I was carrying in my rucksack, just in case of one of those adventures that never happens. The customs guy picked it up, looked at the garish logo on the tin, turns it in his hands, and looks back at me. It is sealed with sticky tape, and he asks me: “Sir, is this sealed?” I replied that it was, and he put it back in my bag and said I should pack up my stuff and I was free to go.

I still don't quite know what to think of it: there was nothing incriminating in the stash tin, but I still wonder if I was being “let off for smuggling drugs."
(IdlePeAcEsign if trouble were my mistress, i'd send her to them, Wed 15 Dec 2010, 21:40, Reply)