Over the border

Over the years, we've heard some pretty funny stories about War on Terror getting on the wrong side of the authorites. Today, after receiving what is certainly the best story to date, we bring you our favourite, top three "border moments".

No. 3 The first ever convention we actually got invited to instead of banned from was in Las Vegas. How could we not accept? Our border moment came as we attempted to pass a duffle bag full of 50 balaclavas, an assortment of "mine" and "unexploded bomb" signs and a copy of War on Terror, the boardgame through U.S. customs. Oh, and several hundred plastic cockroaches. On reflection, the cockroaches got us off the hook; the customs officer asked, "Is this some kind of theatre piece?" We agreed and were waived through, palms sweating.

They were worried the cheese was explosives. They didn't like the board game, either. No. 2 Our number two moment sounds like something from Monty Python. Last year, we were alerted to the tale of a young woman who had purchased War on Terror here in the UK and wanted to take it back with her to Israel. You may think you know where this is going, but you don't. She also, during her stay, purchased some cheddar cheese and for reasons that aren't fully explained, she thought the best place for the cheese was in the War on Terror box. At the airport, her baggage was overweight, so she pulled out the board game and tried to march it on as cabin luggage. Not surprisingly, a box with "War on Terror" on the front, containing an un-xrayable block of cheese set off just about every alarm in the terminal. In her own words, "They were worried the cheese was explosives. They didn't like the board game, either." She wasn't allowed to take the board game on for fear of "upsetting the other passangers" but amazingly they didn't confiscate it and instead put it in the hold for free. Read the full story here.

No. 1 It's hard to beat explosive cheese in board games, but this week, a story from 2010 surfaced that has no peer. It is a mind-boggling tale of absurd waste of resources and hilarious, po-faced government agents. The customer in question - we'll call him Tim - tells it better than we could, so without further ado, enjoy ...

"I purchased War on Terror a few years back in 2006 whilst living in Dubai, no problems there whatsoever, in fact we used to have a nice little play every Christmas with some friends. In May 2010 I decided to move back to Australia, I packed up all my possessions into various cardboard boxes, amongst them War on Terror the board game, and had a shipper send everything back to Australia on a slow boat. In the meantime, I had bit of work in various bits of the world, and wasn't planning to be back in Australia until a couple of months after my shipment would arrive. I thought no problems there, I'll have it delivered to my parents' place and they can keep the various boxes in their garage until I returned.

So, anyway whilst working in the UK I get a call from the shippers in Australia that there's been some kind of delay with the shipment. Then I get the email below:

One of the items that they have pulled up is a terrorist board game and the other items are related to terrorist nature. A hold has been put on this shipment from customs until Canberra has had a look in to it.
I will be in contact, once we have more information.
Thank you
xxxxxx
On behalf of xxxxx xxxxxxxx | Imports Controller

I then get some weird phone calls from various government types in Australia asking about the board game. My parents even got a visit from some dark-suit-and-sunglasses types, regarding them being the consigned address on the shipment."

Tim learnt later that the investigation involved a senior customs investigator and three other officials who had to fly from Canberra to Brisbane to look at the shipment. All at the expesne of the tax payer naturally. We kind of feel bad. But we also feel hilarious.

Have you got a War on Terror border-crossing story? If you do, please share it with us.

Posted by TerrorBull Games on 13 February 2012 - 0 comments