Secret Royalty On Tour

I arrived into Los Angeles today fully expecting a crisis of operatic proportions.

For months I’d been quietly tracking every article and comment thread about entering the United States – the ones that prime you for three-hour waits, emotional regression and a slow foot-cuffed shuffle past ICE agents handing out water to fainting passengers. America, the beautiful waiting room.

Somewhere in the research I stumbled on the MPC app. Mobile Passport Control. Downloaded it on a hunch because while it seemed like such a public hack… you never know right? Claude called it excellent. ChatGPT warned it might be hard to find at the airport. I filed both opinions and kept moving.

We landed. I followed the herd and, right on cue, there it was – a dense, slow-moving diorama of surrender.

Off to the side, almost as an afterthought, was a cordoned-off lane marked MPC. No crowd, no chaos and just one solitary traveller waiting. (One person is not a queue. One person is simply standing.)

I checked with the gunned-up lady boss nearby whether I could slip through. She said yes, like it was the most unremarkable thing in the world. Which, to her, it absolutely was.

Fifteen minutes later I’m outside, standing in actual Californian sun, slightly disoriented and deeply, privately relieved. The mental image I’d been nursing – Bad Gran hauled away and detained for having ideas above her age bracket – quietly dissolved.

It was a turnaround about as unexpected as Tucker Carlson looking directly into the camera and saying my bad.

Finally – sticking to my own lane, despite the immense pressure to join everyone else’s, pays dividends. Not fighting the system. Not being remarkable. Just having done the reading.

And the moral of this rambling short story? Don’t storm the gates, find the side door.