Mama, I'm Almost Coming Home!

So I went through all the motions of leaving the country; I said goodbye to all my friends, bought the last few things I needed, packed and headed to the airport. When I handed my passport over the check-in counter she tapped on her computer, furrowed her brow and went to discuss with her co-workers. Turns out that KLM had no record of me rescheduling my flight to December 6th. Went to the ticket counter, phoned the travel agent in Vancouver, was told I wasn't going on this flight but I could be rescheduled for Friday instead. I can live with that but now I am in the country on an expired visa so I went to chat with immigration. The completely useless officer (unfortunately you can't tell them this) kept stressing that if I had known that I wasn't going to get on the flight I should have gone to Home Affairs to get an extension ignoring the repeated statements that I wasn't aware KLM had messed up my flight until I arrived at the airport. For future note: although KLM says that you don't need to confirm flights a few days before they leave and that all you need to bring is your passport (this works great when it works) when the shit hits the fan everyone asks for ticket numbers and flight confirmation! One the one hand KLM repeated several times (unnecessarily as I did understand the first time) that they had already overbooked the flight so there was no space for me and on the other the immigration officer kept saying that I had to leave that night or I would be fined. In a prime example of the officious bureaucracy that is overwhelmingly present in Africa every person I talked to seemed more interested in hiding behind the rules and regulations and covering their asses than actually coming up with a solution. In fact I had to ask firmly, not once but, three times for the officer to give me his name so I could find him again on Friday if I ran into issues! First he repeated that if I am open about the situation and overstaying my visa then I shouldn't have any problems (beyond a one or two thousand rand fine); then he claimed that he was not a supervisor and wouldn't be able to help me; and it was only when I used my "clean up your toys and go to bed!" voice that he reluctantly wrote it down. This is after he preached to me about getting things in paper, written down with names! I asked if I would run into any other issues than the fine when I went through immigration and he said no but his reluctance to tell me who he was has me wondering... Now having gone through all my goodbye I am in a strange state of limbo, not interested or bothered to do anything or go anywhere. In my mind I'm gone already. Here's hoping that Friday goes a bit smoother and Canada customs don't find any of the food and wine I'm bringing back. Ain't it great to be a traveller!