Monday, September 27, 2010

Fresh and ready (and an immigration agent who rocks)

Like a new loaf of bread I am fresh and ready to go.

Oh, right, I forgot to mention my little sojourn to Cancun. Just four days but well-deserved (says I) after a difficult murder trial and the fracas within.

Here's where I spent my time:

And here I am on the blacony of our room:

Oh, I don't mean to gloat, really I don't. And I do have an amusing law-enforcement story for you.

We were coming through immigration on the way home, a huge hall in Houston filled with weary travelers, all of us snaking back and forth through those interminable alleys of tape, waiting for one of the five immigration guys/gals to do whatever they do with our passports (and by the time I got to the front of the line, I had a few suggestions).

So one couple is ahead of us and the immigration agent stands up and shouts to the whole group, all four plane-loads of us, seemingly irritated:

"We need wives and boyfriends to be in the same line, please. If you go in different ones we'll send you to the back of the line."
My wife and I looked at each other. "Wives and boyfriends?!"
So then we go up together, a little timid because the chap seemed grumpy, and we didn't want to get (a) sent to the back of a 45-minute line or (b) arrested and sent to Gitmo.

The agent looks up and says to my wife: "Wait, this isn't your boyfriend."
"Huh?" she says.
"You were here two days ago, right in that line, with a different boyfriend."
My wife isn't sure what to say but, being an appreciator of deadpan humor, I pipe up: "Oh, her boyfriend's in a different line. Maybe you should send her to the back for that."
He laughs and says, "Yeah, right to the back. But seriously, two days ago, you and a different boyfriend."
We all laugh and then he points to our customs form. "Says here, $60 worth of toys. They for you or the children?" Then, without letting us answer, he waves us through, grinning playfully. "I don't want to know," he says, "I don't want to know."

So, dear readers, I give you an immigration agent with a dry and somewhat naughty sense of humor.

I only wish I could give his name, but no doubt he'd get fired.

2 comments:

  1. While you were basking in paradise, I and 101,400 other people were subjected to watching the Longhorns do their Rodney King impersonation. Not fair.

    The tale of your customs jokester kinda irritates me, frankly. In the grumpy post-9/11 world we've all been admonished that our senses of humor must not be taken on vacation and cannot legally be packed in either our carry-on or checked baggage. It's certainly taken all the fun out of "do you have anything to declare?"

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  2. You know, we were both really surprised at his sense of humor. The lines were hugely long, lots of people were tired and grumpy, so there was no reason to think there'd be a clown operating that evening.
    I know what you mean, though - if we'd made jokes to the wrong agent, we'd have been in big trouble, so it does seem a little like a double standard.
    But at the end of the (very long) day, he made us laugh, and that in itself is praiseworthy.

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