My parent\’s neighbor in the States used to work for the State Department. Mostly in Russia during the Cold War, but also in various other places. He says that \”Australian customs are notorious for dragging their feet on things.\” Well no shit, Sherlock.
In what is now the third week of the importation fiasco, Australian customs have now decided that not only are they not satisifed with the documents provided to release my medications, but they have decided that they are now placing my serum in quarantine. Quarantine!
I just don\’t get it. I suppose I shouldn\’t be surprised, though. This is the country, after all, who sticks refugees in border camps, including children, sometimes for years on end. Australia, on the whole — the people and the country — seem to really have a bitter dislike for outsiders. Racism isn\’t even the cusp of it. It\’s left over from the days of colonization and the really sad part of it is that here we are in the twenty first century and the majority of people here would still rather be a latter day colony instead of an independent republic. But make no mistake — we are all boat people, though some of us now use planes.
And there\’s still this fear of terrorism here, of being invaded by outsiders — a fear that dates back to WWII and the Japanese submarines in Sydney harbour. Now that Australia has, on the whole, decided that they are the spunky kid brother to America, they have jumped on the \”ooo, terrorists\” bandwagon and pick apart every package and person who enters their country for fear that something may not be quite right. Yeah, because, you know, that stuff in my serum — that\’s not really for my allergies. Those six little vials contain enough naughty biological compounds to wipe out every last dingo, koala, papaya, kookaburra, lychee, and everything else on this damn island. That\’s my real goal here — not to keep myself from having another anaphylactic fit but to destroy this continent-wide natural sanctuary. Oh, and the people, too. Let\’s not forget the people.
Two weeks without real sleep. Now running a constant low grade fever and a developing sinus infection. I\’d really love to fill your monitors with a long diatribe about how fucking whacked this state is, but I\’m really quite bored of it all, myself. I wonder what would happen if I just decided to not bother struggling with customs any longer and just went off all my medication completely. Maybe we\’ll get to find out.
