Take a look at this boarding pass, do you see anything strange? No, really? Look again!!
There is no STAMP!! I suppose you don’t think that is a big deal but while waiting to board the aircraft you have to pass through an airline inspection of your visa, travel documents etc. My boarding pass did not have a STAMP!! Of course since no one speaks English and I don’t speak Uzbek there was a huge commotion. I was pulled out of line while 300 Uzbeks stared at the miscreant (that would be me). Finally I was issued a new boarding pass and allowed to pass through the labyrinth of aisles as we filed along toward the boarding gate. About halfway there we had to stop and put our bags on a little scale. I am about 20 pounds so I got through (I have no idea what the limit is.)
Anyway I got to the scanning machine and again, with the new boarding pass, I was stampless. The lady didn’t want to scan it. But some arguing with the other lady, who had just created it, enabled me to pass.
I got down the aisle in the jetway and was stopped again and asked to step aside. The looks from fellow passengers turned from curiosity to fear. They probably don’t know who the uni- bomber is, but if they did, they would think that I am he!! I waited along the wall as the other passengers boarded the plane. Finally another man came along with a different colored vest and a CLIPBOARD, now you know things are serious. He looked at it again. Made some walkie talkie calls and explained that even though I was stampless, I could get onto the plane. Whew!!
Stamps have fascinated me when traveling around the world. In Africa I had to sit, literally, hat in hand, looking at the floor, body submissive (don’t make eye contact!!) to a bank manager just to get exchange for $20. After which 10 pages of documents appeared and were viciously assaulted by the ferocious stamping that ensued.
It seems to me that as countries “modernize” there are fewer and fewer stamps as bureaucracy as an end in itself is replaced by a trust in the competence of the people doing the work.
Then we have Mexican immigration. Twenty five pages of documents each year as the “temporal” moved to the “permanente”. The immigration officers dutifully stamped, inked, stamped, inked each page separately. This practice has been greatly changed now. I asked the immigration officer if he missed the stamping, “we called it the drums.” he said.
