Dear U.S. Immigration

I suppose I should apologise, on behalf of His Nibs.  He was quite the rudey pants the other day.

He’s not going to apologise himself, because he is stubborn, so I’m doing it on his behalf.  Just because you were only doing your job, and in fairness you were perfectly nice to him.  For a while, anyway.

I don’t know why he was so hot headed.  I suppose it’s because the day felt rather longer than it needed to.  After all, we’d been in Managua Airport four hours before our flight. 
His Nibs had been in charge of the booking of the taxi etc., my not having a word of Spanish.

I knew it was booked for five o’clock in the morning, but to be honest I’m past arguing with him about these little things.  He’s been in Nicaragua three times before, I’ve never been.  I thought that maybe he knew something that I didn't about Managua airport.  Like that it takes forever to get through security.  

I was fascinated to see that they search every single piece of cabin luggage by hand, but not until after they let you through the gate.  I wish His Nibs had told me.  I might have been more careful to put dignified and classy items in there.  If I'd had any dignified or classy items.  A two week holiday with too much luggage basically meant that they ended up rifling through my dirty laundry.

After four hours sitting around one airport, we spent four hours flying to another one.  Then, when His Nibs happened upon you, we were facing another four hour wait before our eight hour flight home.

You happened to catch him at a very bad moment.         

I tried to stop him, I promise I did.  I told him to stop his nonsense when we were waiting in the queue to meet you. 

When he started complaining about how over the top American security is, especially since we were only in transit, and weren’t even going to get access to our luggage, I told him to belt up.  It's not as if it's one of those things that courteous complaints are going to change now, is it?

When he said that the man handling our queue, who turned out to be you, was deliberately taking ages to deal with each person, I told him that you were just doing your job.  I tried to stand up for you.  And in fairness he was being a complete and utter narky pants.

I think I was doing quite well to be so nice to him, actually.  It's not as if I didn't have my own problems, the mosquitoes having chewed the ankles off me the night before.  There's no dignity in standing in a queue scratching the legs off yourself, so I was dealing with his royal crankiness with one ear, while my eyes watered, and my knees sort of trembled involuntarily as I tried to ignore the bites.

When we eventually got to the top of the queue, and you asked the questions about where we’d been and how long we’d stayed, and the purpose of our visit, and he said absolutely nothing, I answered up, good and loud and clear.  I had all our documents ready to hand over, including our customs declaration.

I thought you were rather handsome, actually.  But I didn’t tell His Nibs that.  Not after losing the run of myself on our last night and kissing lots of boys.  Harmlessly, of course.  Not snogging them.  Just kissing them goodbye.  Lots of them. And lots of times. 

I thought it might be a bit soon to start admiring you too.  He'd been very laid back about the drunken kissing, but sober and in the middle of the day, I don't think he would have been in the mood for it.

Anyway, he was sort of growling at you.  I really don’t know why, it's very unlike him.  He'd spent the previous fortnight waffling the ears off anyone who'd let him, regardless of nationality, in a way that some might describe as over friendly.  I don’t know why he took a turn against your entire nation as soon as he set foot off the plane.

Happily, I know why he was so weirdly aggressive when you asked him to give his fingerprints, slamming his fingers down on the reader, and raising his eyebrows at you narkily. Which we know is part of the immigration process.  But he feels that as a non criminal he shouldn’t have to give his fingerprints, just to wait in transit for another plane.

But he definitely shouldn’t have snapped at me when I reminded him to look into the camera.  I didn’t like that one bit. 

Also, he probably shouldn’t have walked away as soon as you said “You’re done” when you got the iris and fingerprint analysis.  After all, weren't you armed?

When you asked me what his problem was, I didn’t really know what to say.  So I told you the truth.

“I’ve no real idea” I told you.  “I think flying makes him grumpy.”

“Excuse me sir” you called out to him.  I couldn’t help noticing that as full of bravado as he was, he hadn’t gone far.

You beckoned him back.

“Sir, do you have a problem?”

“No” he said cheekily “but if we’re finished here I’m supposed to move on, aren’t I?”

“Not without your documents, sir, no” you said, waving his passport in front of him.

No answer to that, I noticed.

"How long are you going to be in this airport before your transit flight?”

No answer from our cheeky pup. So I answered for him “four hours.” 
I admit I tried to make it sound like the saddest two words ever.

The mini lecture you gave him was so effective, that I think he felt bad.  You told him to try to relax and enjoy the time, have some coffee, or a drink, or whatever.  Then you told him to be nice to his wife, because four hours would be a long time for us to be together if we were going to be fighting. 

I like boys who tell my husband to be nice to me, very much indeed.  Just so you know.  Thanks for that.

Anyway, I’m hoping he’ll behave better next time.  Just for convenience sake, you understand.  It's definitely not because I disagree with everything he said.