Virgil=0, U.S. Customs=1
moar funny pictures
One quick story about my trip, and then I'm off to Indianapolis & Kentucky for visiting purposes.
The vacation was wonderful, and there will be forthcoming posts and pictures soon. The trip home, however, was terrible. It's bad enough that I came from 90 degree weather and the Pacific Ocean into snow blowing sideways in Pittsburgh in a matter of hours. But I have to say that U.S. Customs can kiss my slightly sunburned ass.
In the Acapulco airport, I wander into a duty & tax free shop and pick out a present for my husband's stocking. I think nothing of it. On the first leg of the flight back from Acapulco to Houston, we get the customs forms to fill out where you're supposed to declare anything you had purchased in another country. For whatever reason, I didn't think to put my new purchase on my customs form--I put down everything but that. When we hit the Customs & Immigration lines, Director/buddy asks about the tequila she bought. The woman rolls her eyes and says, Yes, you have to declare that. Whoops, I say, I forgot to put down the present on my form. I tell her what it is. Oh, my GOD, she says, as though I just plopped down a baggie of cocaine on her desk. She grabs my customs form and writes on it and puts it in a blue folder, where blue clearly equals b-a-d, and tells me it's at the officer's discretion whether to let me keep the present or not. So we head on down.
Now, from working for immigration for a while, I know that many of the people who work there can be pricks. The sympathetic side of me says its because they see a lot of people every day; most of those people are also worried, nervous, angry, etc. It's easy to get irritated. The hateful side of me knows its very easy to go on a power trip when you have that kind of control over someone else's belongings. So I get sent into the Bad Room because of my special blue folder. I'm standing there looking at everybody else who is in the room: one guy who went hiking and had dirt all over everything (you can't bring in foreign soil), one guy who had brought in 5 times the allowed amount of coffee, two Middle Eastern guys who had been randomly pulled for a search, and one young dude who looked like he was tripping on acid and whose suitcase was being searched for drugs. And me. I decided I would try to play up the sympathy angle about Christmas presents and whatnot.
When it was my turn, I explained to the officer that I was in the Bad Room for being dumb honest to the upstairs customs lady and trying to do a nice thing for my husband's Christmas. I explained that I had no idea that what I bought was not allowed into the country, and that I would gladly pay an additional fee for it, considering how small it was. I tried to be sweet about it. He asked for the present. I whipped out the pack of three MonteCristo cigars from Havana, Cuba. I could see him having a stroke in his left temple. Things went south pretty quickly, mostly because of the absurdity (in my opinion) of the whole thing and because of one stupid form. A sampling:
Customs Ass: Didn't you know we were running an embargo against Cuba for decades??
Me: Not particularly been working, has it? And anyway, it's only three of them. The money went to the store in Acapulco, Mexico, not to Castro & Company.
Customs Ass: You can get those things over the internet, you know.
Me: Which would apparently still be ILLEGAL, right? Why not just let me keep these three instead of breaking the law twice?
Customs Ass: You can get MonteCristoes that were made in Guatemala--that would be OK.
Me: It also wouldn't be the same thing. Which is the point of purchasing THESE MonteCristoes.
Customs Ass, after breaking them in half and shuffling through the tobacco inside: Wow, these smell good.
Me: Well, yes. I'm sure they would've smoked even better.
He handed me back the box he'd torn into as though there was some consolation in that. That pissed me off pretty good, so when at about that time he whipped out a form for me to sign, a dose of the ass was eminently forthcoming. This is where the danger of being in the English department kicked in.
Customs Ass: You'll need to sign this form saying that you abandoned the product. We have to have this on file.
Me: But I didn't abandon it. You took it from me.
Customs Ass: But you have to sign the abandonment form.
Me: But I didn't abandon it. Do you have a You Took It From Me form?
Customs Ass: ........You have to sign the abandonment form.
Me: But I didn't abandon it.
This goes on for some time. Finally, I decided that missing my connecting flight to Pittsburgh wasn't worth digging my heels in this hard, especially since the man had already torn up the cigars. I signed the form, and then he slapped a green "you've been bad" sticker on my luggage. I plan on leaving it there for a while. As I was leaving, he asked (required by the gov't) if Customs could have done anything to improve the experience.
Yes, I told him. You need to create a "You Took It From Me" form. And thanks for helping me make my husband's Christmas a merry one.
If I had more of a layover, I would still be arguing the abandonment form. I settled for making his jaw drop and his temple stroke out. Happy Holidays, Officer Sanborn--I'm sure Santa brought you a lump of coal last night.
-- Virgil
posted by contemplator at Tuesday, December 25, 2007
12 Comments:
Indianapolis, you are coming to Indianapolis?
My sister in law lives in Indianapolis, and since she has the only grandchild in the family, things are starting to shift to Indy instead of Kentucky. Which is OK by me, as I pretty much have lost all interest in Kentucky at this point. We'll be there Wednesday through the beginning of Saturday, probably. Dante is in Florida, though.
Ron Paul wants to lift the embargo to Cuba. He also wants to relieve people of some of the more burdensome aspects of airport security. But oh no, we can't elect him. God forbid, he is a Republican!!
He also is anti abortion and believes that measures the government has taken to improve the position of women and minorities in this country promote racism, by which I take it he means "Doesn't give the white man even more breaks." That's why he's not getting my vote. He picks an unborn fetus' "rights" over the rights of a born, grown, taxpaying woman.
Letting me buy Cuban cigars is too high a price to pay for the right to make decisions over my own body. I will *never* support an anti-abortion candidate. And frankly, as a libertarian, I'm surprised you would. In fact, I don't see how libertarians could support him, when he clearly interferes with bodily privacy and individual rights. But your vote is your own.
"believes that measures the government has taken to improve the position of women and minorities in this country promote racism"
Historically speaking, that is a good basis. Just look at the failed 'War on Poverty'. How about the 'War on Drugs'? I promise you that has hurt black people FAR more than it has ever helped them. A large percentage of black men are currently locked up in prison as a result. Ron Paul promises to end the drug war.
The people who made progress were the women and blacks themselves. Not some government stooges who take credit for everything. If anything, the government has screwed over the black community more than helped it, while pretending to be its shepherd, whenever votes need to be collected.
"by which I take it he means "Doesn't give the white man even more breaks.""
No, considering that he is against the government giving ANY group breaks.
"I will *never* support an anti-abortion candidate. And frankly, as a libertarian, I'm surprised you would."
Because libertarians are not single issue people. They tend to look at the big picture. There are even LP member Libertarians who stop just short of abortion. Although, most of them to my knowledge do support pro-choice.
Besides, the most he would do is punish the doctor, but not the woman. He would also never outlaw abortion on a federal level, just get rid of Roe Vs. Wade. That's not as bad as your typical republican, who would outlaw it on a federal level.
The way I approach things is that I factor in all the candidates beliefs together, see who comes the closest, then decide. If I wanted to vote for the perfect candidate, it would be an LP guy/gal. But if I find a major party candidate that comes close, then I go for that candidate until he/she loses. If Ron loses the primaries, (Kucinich and Gravel too), I will either vote LP, or not at all.
Well, come to think of it, if Ralph Nader runs again, but this time, has the world's greatest campaign and finds the fountain of youth, I might consider him too.
My comments on Ron Paul pertained to his website comments about affirmative action, which he couches in nebulous language. You won't find many women or minorities complaining about affirmative action, shockingly. The bitching usually comes from white men, who are too privileged to be able to see just how much of a head start they normally get.
Anybody who works with people in any sort of social capacity should be able to confirm that for you. From birth on, one's financial and social position is largely determined by who you were born to, your nutritional intake in your first few years, and the school district you live in. I find it absolutely amazing that people like Ron Paul could say with a straight face that they want to take federal programs away, like WIC, which is a vital nutritional stop gap program, and expect that the meager tax savings will somehow make up the difference. The people who really need it don't get much back because they don't make much.
Blathering on about high taxes and the injustice it does to someone's pocketbook pales in the face of watching babies starve to death or your grandma slowly weaken and freeze to death because she can either pay her power bill or her medication bill. The only counter republicans and others who don't want to really understand where social problems come from have to say is "that's emotional hysteria" or blackmail. Absolutely absurd. This happens to *millions* of Americans each year. The Libertarian party would give people their tax money back while at the same time wiping out all kinds of services those people desperately need in their lives. And somehow, the bit of money that the working class saves is supposed to make up the difference.
People's priorities are absolutely in the wrong place. And anyone who advocates just cutting all control over all programs and having the government just completely step away has no real understanding of economics--not only the theories put forth that are largely based on middle class behavior--but the real economics of the working poor, how debt really works, and how the working poor actually spend their money and live their lives.
When I see campaigns like Ron Paul's, while he may be honest and you can count on him to vote a certain way and I admire that, I cannot vote for him, because he has demonstrated that he has no real concern for America's working class, no matter how much bluster he puts up about it. It's just fancy rhetoric. He can tell it to the people I know who are huddled in one bed right now all together with blankets because they can't afford their exorbitant gas bill, and see how well it goes over with them.
But, Ron Paul is not president. He's not responsible for this situation. These people are poor, despite the fact that we have had growing government for years and years, endless amounts of tax revenue, spending departments, etc.
Shouldn't people like FDR and LBJ be blamed for all this, considering that they were the ones who pretty much allegedly claimed to be saviors of the poor with their gigantic programs?
I'm sorry to knock your version of the American "Dream" on its ass, dear, but you do realize the bootstrap argument is largely the invention of the early 1800s? You knowing "a man" who made it hardly makes up for the millions who don't make it every day. Your comment about the immigrants who come over here shows just how little you really know about the subject. Yes, they come here because they expect to make more money. They scrap together a few hundred bucks to send back home every month. They also tend to live in squalor, get cheated by their "employers" because of their general lack of English, are suffering from malnutrition, etc., etc. And there are literally millions of Americans who are suffering the exact same thing without the extra burden of not speaking English.
I don't care whether you "buy" the argument that someone who was born to certain parents, got a certain nutritional intake in the first three years and lived within a certain school district is more likely to repeat the circumstances he/she was born into. Know why? Because the people who study such things can prove that it's so. Of course there are always a few people who escape their circumstances. I noticed you pointed out all cases of men, by the way. People who escape their circumstances are the exception, not the rule.
If you're truly interested in reading up on poverty and the working class in America, I can give you a simple and informative book list. I would suggest you go there next instead of continuing to repeat arguments that have no basis in fact.
As far as worrying about white straw men, consider this. Whites have the luxury of pretending racism doesn't exist or isn't as big of a problem as it was before. Why? Because it's not a problem for them. Blacks would largely tell you differently. Being white allows both you and me to go around with blinders on, if we please, because it doesn't happen to us. But as the mother of a black son, I can tell you right now that racism is alive and kicking. Hard. If you can't see it, it's because you're nicely nestled in white enclaves where it's shaded from you, not because it isn't there.
I will also point this out: this blog post was about my run in with customs on my way home. You've hi-jacked it to talk about Ron Paul and the same old stuff we've hashed out earlier. It offends me when people use my blog posts for their own conversations. You are using it as a springboard to talk about what you really want to get out, not to talk about the experience I had. That's rude.
The real problem behind racism is that various people do not want to look at each other as individuals, only by association of skin color. Period.
http://www.city-journal.org/2008/eon0103td.html
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