05.30.06
Fingerprints
So I thought this was cool. I was in the US recently. I flew into Philadelphia (new US Airways flight from Dublin – great price). They are obviously not used to too much European traffic so the Immigration guys were remarkably friendly and pleasant. Most unlike the creeps in Miami or NY or LA. Just as well, because now they take fingerprints when you enter the US….and eh, it turned out there was a bit of a problem.
It appears I have no fingerprints. Last year I developed a Freudian psychosomatic like reaction to washing powder. After trial and error (wearing gloves, various creams, eventually non-bio washing powder!) it cured but in the meantime it appears to have erased my fingerprints!
They could have hauled me off for interrogation but fortunately they were curious rather than suspicious. They eventually got something on the right thumb…bit mad tho..
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Pete said,
May 30, 2006 at 10:01 pm
Just don’t say that you’re in the US to visit a black friend who is in prison. That got a (white female) friend of mine the full rubber-glove routine, and that was before 9/11. Apparently it was the white/black/friends thing that really seemed to puzzle them.
Niall said,
May 30, 2006 at 10:35 pm
That’s just seriously weird.
TIme’s like that it’s useful to have fingerprints. You’re lucky you didn’t end up in G’t'mo. After all, why would an innocent person not have any fingerprints?
Daniel K. said,
May 31, 2006 at 12:53 pm
How does this fit in the housework post I wonder? I was printed years ago when I worked in Japan, though they go for the index finger not the thumb. I still have my residency cardo.
michelle said,
May 31, 2006 at 8:27 pm
My mother resolved never to eat pineapples again after she discovered, at a flower arranging class, that the pickers have no fingerprints, because of the acid in the fruit. She was extremely concerned that ‘they have no identity, therefore they do not exist, they do not matter’.
john of Dublin said,
May 31, 2006 at 10:51 pm
Interesting experience. A few more missing essentials and you could have been a really worrying nobody like Sandra Bullock in The Net!
One of my daughters is off to the USA early next month for summer on one of these J1 visa things. The amount of formalities, paperwork and grillings she had to go though along with everyone else at the USA Embassy was amazing. She even separately received induction by the student travel body on how to behave at customs on USA side. God help you it seems if you have odd hobbies like say clay pigeon shooting or you enjoy books on eastern religions! Another daughter is off to Canada on J1 at weekend and it seems much smoother.
Anyway I suppose the Americans want to keep safe.
sarah said,
June 1, 2006 at 9:09 am
the main thing your daughter has to remember is that there is NO sense of humour about the securuty. So no, “ho, ho, ho, I have a bomb in my lipstick”…
Daniel K. said,
June 1, 2006 at 1:06 pm
The other thing is that American tend to be quite formal about the pleases and thank yous, it doesn’t hurt to be polite.
Which reminds me I must do a posting sometime on politeness.
Ann said,
June 2, 2006 at 5:40 am
So, have you launched into a side-line life-of-crime to take advantage of your new biological quirk?
Daniel K. said,
June 2, 2006 at 11:07 am
Keyzer Sarah?