The Dangers Of Being An International Dairy Smuggler
About two years ago, I went to Mexico in order to put 2008 in my rearview mirror. I have family in the municipality of La Rivera, Jalisco, they see me as the Mexican-American Howard Hughes because they do not understand why I would pay good, hard-earned American money in order to evade cellular phones, computers and the pursuit of that powerful American dollar.
Why would anyone in their right mind go a thousand miles away and a hundred years back in time? It’s not a question of national pride or reconnecting to a long lost past. I just want to find something that I cannot find here.
I left Los Angeles for La Rivera to find that lost sense of childhood innocence. I returned to Los Angeles as a smuggler. While most people risk their life and freedom to smuggle drugs or their relatives, I took an alternate route. I went with the not-so-lucrative business of bringing back dairy products, like cheese and sour cream for the family that lived in California – craving a little taste of home.
On this particular trip, the sour cream was hidden inside the pair of boots in my luggage. Then there was the cheese inside the secret compartment of my luggage, ripe enough as I readied to return to Los Angles to kill or serious impair the olfactory skills of a narcotics canine.
The closer we got to the airport, the closer my perfect crime is to near completion. The scenario is planned out and executed deep inside my head. I am going to walk up to the man behind the customs counter with all of the questions and waltz through without any hint of an incident. The walk and the talk were going according to plan, but then something happened and I began to lose confidence.
All of the worst case scenarios start playing in my head because he was asking everyone ahead of me if they had anything to declare. What the hell does that even mean? I didn’t know what had to be declared and the ramifications of remaining undeclared. I know that in community college they allow you to remain undeclared for as long as you want as long the checks keep clearing, but this is not East Los Angeles College. This is Los Angeles International Airport.
At this point I am sure I am going to prison and I am far too pretty to go to prison, especially on some trumped-up cheese and sour cream charges. My turn comes up and I stare very stupidly at the official. He asks me if I understand English, I nod in the affirmative. He asks me again, slower this time. I feel beads of sweat collecting into pools, as every last droplet of cool in my soul evaporates. He then makes the same inquiry of me that he was making of everyone else. I shake my head vigorously and say no. He sizes me up with a stare so cold the whole terminal feels like December.
He closes my passport shut, taps it against the counter before handing it back to me. He finally makes a hand gesture, signaling the person behind me and sends me on my way. I breathe a sigh of relief and mouth out a prayer of thanks to the Mexican patron saint watching over the dairy smugglers. Little did that man behind the counter know, I really did have something to declare!
But, the joke was on me, as I discover upon returning home. During the course of the flight, the forbidden dairy products end up spilling from their respective containers after some turbulence. My contraband to shifted mid-flight. The smell is undeniable, almost as though I were trafficking human corpses instead of ethnic dairy products. It looks like something pure has died in my luggage. As I take stock of the damage, I sigh, and begin to make plans for my next smuggling operation.
Follow Oscar Barajas on Twitter @Oscarcoatl
