The Funniest Days of My Life - Part 2

Nuclear Threat

October 1998: I was eighteen, and off on my Raleigh expedition to Borneo. I'd packed my 80-litre Low Alpine, Comrade Lenin, to the brim with enough outdoor gear to mount a solo expedition to the North Pole and back, and I was all psyched up because I'd be away from home for the next 3 months.

The world awaited...

Lenard, Christine and the rest had cleared the baggage check at KLIA, and I was the last one in line, right behind Alan, who was a little anxious that he had to part with his parang, which he'd only be able to see when we landed at Labuan International Airport.

I reached the X-ray machine and plonked my monstrous backpack on the conveyor belt and walked through the metal detector, my head full of worst-case scenarios, what with the ridiculous amount of kit that I had crammed into my green behemoth: Army-issue Jungle boots, a fully-stocked medical field kit, piles of clothes, climbing gear, rolls of film, wet weather gear, an Army-issue fold-away spade, mess tins and sachets of Milo, the works.

I could've lived amongst the Orang Asli and still have had a few 'presents' left to give away for Christmas.

As I cleared the metal detector, Security stopped me and quietly asked me to step over to the X-ray monitor and tell them just what the hell that long strip wedged in the middle of my backpack was.

"Apa tu, adik?" asked the grumpy fat lady sat behind the black and white monitor.

"Itu battery, Kak," I answered, rather confidently. I had bought a long strip of AA batteries at Carrefour, for my Maglite.

"Ye ke? Itu macam parang, saya rasa. Bukan parang ke tu, 'dik?" inquired Grumpy again, not entirely convinced.

"Bukan, Kak. Itu battery. Banyak battery," I answered again, a little nervous.

"Tapi kenapa dia panjang macam tu? Battery bukan macam tu. Saya ingat awak bawak parang tu, ye ke?" said the lady, more of a statement than a question, this time.

"Tak, Kak. Itu battery. Saya tak ade parang," I said, my patience wearing thin. I began to feel like a twat for making the guys wait for me.

"Awak baik cakap sekarang, itu parang, bukan?" Her Grumpiness retorted. Security raised an eyebrow, hand on revolver.

And so it went, back and forth as we tried to convince each other that we were seeing something that wasn't there. I sneered to myself; this woman was getting all hot and bothered by my budget battery pack.

Frustrated and teary-eyed, I decided to change my angle.

"Itu sebenarnya bomb nuclear, Kak. Bukan parang!" I suddenly yelled, adamant to end the rather pointless bickering.

"Apa? Apa awak cakap tadi?"

The lady motioned to the guards and they closed in on me, each grabbing a shoulder and steering me towards the detention room.

"Bomb Nuclear! Bukan parang! Faham!" I shouted. Then I closed my eyes and sort of wished I was dead.

The next half-hour flies by like a series of flashbacks, like at the end of Fight Club, only it's happening to me there and then.

I get shoved into the detention room, complete with a two-way mirror, and they force me to tip all of the contents out of Comrade Lenin. I get body searched twice, by two different guards, while they looked at my clothes and my underwear and decided whether or not I had a tactical nuclear weapon shoved up my ass.

I had to convince them that I was just kidding. I tried to do this as I went through all of my equipment; they wanted to see that my camera's flash worked, that it wasn't a micro bomb, they liked my Maglite, how powerful the beam was and how sturdy it felt in their grasp. I even emptied a random Milo sachet and scoffed it down to appease them.

Jabbering excitedly, they picked through my things with all of the grace of coccained chimps at a yard sale.

I was on the verge of crying.

Suddenly, they were happy. One of the guards pulled me aside and asked me not to ever try and kid about nuclear bombs again. I told him yes, I won't joke about this sort of thing ever again. And I'll not buy anymore budget battery packs shaped like machettes, sorry.

I then boarded the plane, and for the rest of the flight got ribbed for being such an idiot. Lenard smacked me round the head and told me that it nearly costed us our flight. Then he winked and told me that he could've done a lot worse himself.

Airport security. Such cunts.

No sense of humour whatsoever. =)