Ok folks…here we go again…

This probably shouldn’t surprise anyone, but it turns out Basil’s in New Zealand! He’s supposed to be in Australia meeting up with Leah Maclean, but clearly he’ll be delayed.

So what happened?

I’ve got the pieces to the puzzle from Basil, but let me see if I can put them all together.

Basil did spend the better part of Wednesday this week in the Los Angeles airport.

He spent the day reading some books (doing very little work of course!) but he saw that a few people around him seemed uncomfortable. A few people were pointing at him, he could overhear others saying, “Why is there a donkey here?”

Turns out some people weren’t particularly comfortable with a donkey in the airport. Go figure.

Eventually some security personnel showed up and escorted Basil to an undisclosed location in the airport. Basil claims he was blindfolded, but I think he’s over-dramatizing.

The security staff questioned him about what he was doing. Of course Basil tried to explain it, and to him it seemed completely obvious. “I’m going to Australia to visit Leah Maclean cause she wants to hang out and watch Fawlty Towers.” (Wendy — I think if we had a more definitive 1 sentence explanation for this whole thing Basil might have faired better!)

While the people talking to Basil were trying to sort everything out, Basil claims another guard came storming in, speaking in a loud voice about “the incident” in San Jose where Basil spent some time in jail after picketing Taco Bell.

Well that opened up a hornet’s nest. Now they considered Basil a “security risk.” No more fun and games.

Basil claims he was interrogated for a couple hours (again, probably an exaggeration) but eventually they realized they had no idea what to do with a traveling donkey that may or may not be a security risk.

Eventually, the security folks decided it would be best if they could get Basil out of LAX without any further bruhaha, but they weren’t comfortable having him fly on a plane with other passengers and they wanted someone to vouch for the donkey, someone they could entrust the donkey to.

Basil had met a fellow in the airport (name cannot be revealed for privacy reasons) who he had befriended quickly. Originally Basil had been attracted to the guy because Basil had overheard him say, “kiwi” a few times. Basil assumed the guy had some fruit salad. Turns out he was from New Zealand…

As the guards were debating what to do with Basil, he told them he had a friend he was traveling with. Basil gave the guards this fellow’s name, but it was clear that Basil was supposed to be going to Australia and this friend was going to New Zealand. Then one guard said (according to Basil), “Well, aren’t those two places close? I mean, Quantas flies to both of them.”

Good enough! They found the guy, and he immediately vouched for Basil and told them that he and Basil were good friends. They put Basil in the cargo part of the plane, which he was really not pleased about, but at least they let him go.

Meanwhile all his luggage was already on the plane to Australia, so now all he’s got is a few books. (They confiscated his laptop.)

At least he’s safe, and he’s in New Zealand with his new friend. He told me he was going to take a couple of days and tour New Zealand before hopping over to see Leah.

So…Leah…you’ve got a few more days to prepare! I’d guess Basil will be over there early next week!

Tags: australia, los angeles, new zealand, kiwi, travel, tourism, lax, basil, donkey