Flyways and Custom Ways

ntrying

Flyways and Custom Agents

Our plane took off into skies of scattered clouds at dawn on SuperBowl Sunday.  The southeastward flight to Salt Lake City prolonged our view of the dappled pink dawn from the sunny top side.  Producing long shadows, the sun illuminated  hazy stripes in the fluffy sky.  Our route turned more southerly through Colorado and there in the early morning highlights, we saw "the backbone of the world" as the tallest mountain peaks of the Continental Divide lit up in sharp white relief on mountain blue bases.  It was a beautiful flight.

From Salt Lake City south, we were in midday sun, so nothing so spectacular showed up outside my window.  Instead, I battled sleepy eyes, just tasting that sweetness of approaching sleep before my neck stretched into one of those awkward plane poses popping my eyes open again.  The flight seemed to go on and on until finally the flight attendants brought us forms to play with and puzzle over.  Given the difficulty a plane load of adults was having in reading and following instructions, I became thankful once again that I had spent my working days with teenagers rather than with my older set of plane-mates!  And yes, I had just as many questions as the rest of them.  There was one little statement there, that troubled me.......... way on the backside of the form......not quite away from anything else on the form.......was a statement that explained how many grams of tobacco each person could legally bring in.  Those of you who remember our "adventure" at customs last year will understand my nervousness, despite Bruce's reassurances that he had brought fewer ounces than our limit.  The fellow sitting behind us must have heard me asking the flight attendant if she knew the conversion rate for ounces to grams as he, the guy in the seat behind us. offered to run his hand-held electronic converter, telling me how many grams are in 12 ounces.  This time I would be ready for the customs agents.

Pretty soon we could see the ocean below our wings, and then , oh look!  Isn't that the island where we went fishing with Vince and Cindy last year?  And that must be Cabo Pulmo!  And look how huge the arroyos are after the hurricane!  And how green the desert seems!  We would be landing shortly.

We managed to clear immigration just fine foolish Mexicans let just anyone in...even known fruit-and-tobacco smugglers....then we got my bag and headed to the customs agent men.  One of them took our forms and immediately turned to the back of the form and asked us how much tobacco we had.  After Bruce smugly told him we only had 12 ounces, the agent looked a little baffled.  Just as he brought the walklie- talkie to his lips, I blurted out, "373 grams!"

" Ok, " he said, sliding his eyes over my face......now, just push this button here......." And he pointed to a single red button on the kiosk.  I obediently pushed it and followed his gaze to the two little signs above the button.  One sign pointed to the plexiglass cages where Bruce disappeared last year to pay his fine and keep the tobacco he purchased in the US .  Yes, it was while he was in that plexiglass cage that I fell prey to the friendly looking "fruit dog" last year and was immediately "shaken down" as a known banana-smuggler.  The other sign had an arrowing pointing to the big sliding door that led to the marketeering condo salesmen with those dreamy Hispanic eyes that always get me.   I felt a bit like I was in the middle of a short story entitled "The Lady or The Tiger?" and was somewhat relieved to see the arrow towards the salesmen light up. ( I did wonder if I had just passed some sort of funky lie detector test or if it was merely a game of chance and I got lucky. )  At any rate, we were able to make it through the salesmen gauntlet without being taken hostage by the condo guys and and quickly passed into the welcoming Baja warmth.  Our new adventure had begun.