Panic- stricken, we went into warp-thinking mode. What could we do? A marvel of modern science is the cell phone- and as fast as Western Kentucky can become last in its football division, Mike got on it. Within 2 minutes, he was talking to our office manager, and explained the problem. She is also a quick thinker, and pretty astute at how to work the system. She is also quite aggressive when she needs to be- which means she’s not afraid to sock it to someone if warranted. Where we come from raising one’s voice is the only way to really get your point across, and she was exactly who we needed for this sort of crisis!
Are you ready for a series of miracles?? Let’s line them up, and watch them roll home, one by one. Office Manager immediately calls Immigration. Did I mention this was a SUNDAY??!! That becomes important right about now. On a random SUNDAY, EXACTLY the guy whose biff up this was answered the phone. A SUNDAY, People! The Kazakh’s ONE day off. To our knowledge this was NOT a holiday- however, there were fireworks the night before that we watched one last time, but we still have zero clue about the reason for the fireworks, or why government employees were working on a Sunday. (#1)
So, “Inept Employee” answers the phone (#2), and gets an earful, we are sure. Assured that we would pay the taxi, this guy says he’ll come out to the airport (35 minutes away) with his stamp (#3) , BUT we are slated to depart in 30 minutes!!! We went back downstairs to talk to the gate agents, and they seemed to understand the gravity of the situation. Meanwhile, as Mike is arranging with the gate agent who seemed most sympathetic to look out for the Immigration Guy, and giving him our passports so he could get the stamps while we go upstairs to wait to be called to board, the Airport Immigration guy comes over to “help us out”. Remember, this is the guy who told us originally that there was going to be a problem. GET THIS… he actually stood there and, with a poker straight face, gave us a tutorial on how to take an egg, get it slightly moist, roll it over an old stamp, and give ourselves the stamp we needed!!! “Simple as that!” he says. Too bad I hadn’t packed any eggs… we did have an old registration paper with us.
Now, with the gate agent holding our passports, and looking out for the Immigration Guy who was supposedly rushing out with the All Powerful, egg-shaped stamp, it was simply a race against the clock. We wait, biting our nails (Remember confessions of Soldier #1 way back last year?), and make an occasional call to the office manager to update her.
10 minutes.
Tick-tock.
15 minutes.
Tick-tock, Tick-tock.
Oops! Time to board. We sadly trudged downstairs with the other 50 passengers, and boarded the bus that drove us the 200 yards out to the Fokker 50 waiting for us.
At this point, we could actually SEE the parking lot,
(One more shot of the parking lot- just to the right of here about 15 yards is the iron fence mentioned in a sec.)
and could join the look-out for Mr. Immigration. 25 minutes- nope. Everyone seated, luggage stowed in the overhead bins, seatbacks in their upright and locked positions…
Mike went into hyper-panic mode, and goes back up to the front of the plane to talk to the steward, pilot and gate agent, who by now had come out to the plane to give us back our passports- sans stamp. “Sorry! Too late”, he says. Huh-uh, that won’t do! We HAD to have that stamp. “PLEASE, give us 5 minutes!”, Mike pleaded. Did I also mention that they had us boarded and ready to take off 15 minutes early!?? You can be sure that he mentioned that in his begging. Miraculously, (#4) the pilot and gate agent agreed to delay taking off for 5 minutes- NO MORE!
One minute.
Nope.
Two minutes.
Wait! A car pulled into the lot!! Nope, not him.
3 minutes. Hey! Another car! A man got out, and this time, instead of heading to the front door of the tiny little airport, he gets out and sprints toward the iron fence separating the apron from the parking lot! YES!!! (#5) He’s waving his stamp like a rodeo clown, brandishing his wares as if he was holding the fate of 6 helpless ex-pats in the palm of his hands. What’s that you say? He was??
The gate agent spied him from the cabin door, and realized that the Force was with us that day. He bounded down the aluminum stairs to meet the All-Powerful, egg-shaped, stamp-bearing buffoon to exchange imprints for cash (yep, ‘til the very last flippin’ minute, they managed to extort $$ from us). The whole exchange took less than 30 seconds, plane door to plane door. For once, I thanked God for teensy-weensy, bass-ackwards airports in the middle of nowhere on the wide open steppe.
Unable to contain my exhilaration, I unbuckled (as if a buckle is really going to help anyone going down), and dashed to the front of the plane to meet my newest Mr. Wonderful. I’m pretty sure everyone on the plane knew what was going on, so I lifted them in the air and gave a great big, “Yippee!” No one did the happy dance with me, but I so totally didn’t care, I wasn’t going to be seeing any Kazakh jail time any time soon!!!
And now you know the end of this story. But stay tuned for how the beginning of the end came to be; and until then,
Have a Magical Day!!
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