Capturing an Illusive Member of the Meat Smuggling Cartel

We were still in Mexico for Valentine’s Day 2020. Jim and Lily went for a morning run in the desert while I chose to sleep late. When he returned he handed me his phone and wished me happy Valentine’s Day—he had collected a virtual bouquet of desert flowers for me. Oh, how I love that man!

We had dinner that evening at a restaurant overlooking the sea. The couple sitting next to us were sharing their chips with the gulls which set up an excellent photo opportunity for us

The next day we left for home traveling a more Easterly across Sierra Madre. While it is not considered the safest route across Mexico, we had never traveled there but were curious about the area. Also, we wanted to travel though Las Cruses on the way home to stop and visit some friends. It seems like most of our experiences with US border patrol while crossing back into the US have been bad, and this time was no exception. The main problem was that Google maps directed us the wrong way, and we ended up in the express lane for frequent crossers who have been vetted and hold a special pass. I knew we didn’t belong there, but we turned onto it from a one-way alley with no visibility to back out safely. I could even see the lanes where we needed to be, but the path to get there was chained off. So I’m thinking, “no problem, I’ll profess my ignorance and all’s well”. WRONG! They were not buying a navigational error and wanted to know why we were in such a hurry to get across the border. I assured them that I was not in a hurry, and that I would gladly go back into the line of vehicles where I should be if they would just direct me there—nope. They had other plans. Since they thought we were in such a hurry, they decided the best way to handle my mistake was with general unpleasantness and delay. The delay was no problem for us; however, I could have done without the unpleasantness.

Before thoroughly searching our car, we were asked to give a verbal inventory of what we had. This is not an easy job being fully loaded up after a month in Mexico, but I did my best. Then we were sent to a waiting area while they searched. There was a male agent and a female agent “dealing” with us. The male agent came over to let us know that we had more alcohol that was allowed (we found some good tequila in cool bottles at a great price), and let us know that the agent could make us dump it or she may let us take it with a warning since it wasn’t very much. He should have never said that they had the option of letting us keep it because (as I expected), she made us dump it.

As I was with the female agent dumping 2 bottles of tequila, Jim was getting the third degree from the male agent about what was our ice chest. He of course had no idea. No matter how many times he was asked, the answer remained the same: “I don’t know, you will need to ask my wife because she packed it up”. When I returned, Jim, who was not allowed to speak to me, stepped back and watched as this farcical interaction unfolded. It started out with the male agent asking me again what was in the car. I thought I was doing a good job remembering everything, but after each item I mentioned, the agent would say, “and what else”. After about 15 minutes of this, it was clear to me that there was something specific that he wanted me to say. I racked my brain but couldn’t think of what he might be after. I was trying to be super nice through all of this experience to counteract them treating us like drug smugglers and hoping that the pleasantness might be contagious (it wasn’t), but. In my mind I kept thinking, “you searched the car, you obviously found something, why don’t you just tell me!”. Finally, the agent throws a small vacuum-packed snack packet that contained no less than 6 slices of peperoni slices on the table beside us and says, “you want to tell me about this?) I have never tried so hard not to burst out laughing in my entire life. I know that you cannot bring meat products into the US from Mexico, but this packet of peperoni was part of our road snacks that we brought with us when we traveled to Mexico a month earlier. We hadn’t consumed it on the trip there, so it was still with our road snacks on the way home. I don’t think I would have thought about it no matter how long he questioned me. What made this interaction more of a farce, is that Jim (who knew it was all about the packet of pepperoni), told me later that the whole time the agent was questioning me he had that packet in one hand and was slapping it against his other hand trying to be more and more obvious about it. Jim knows me and knows how unobservant and clueless I can be. I imagine that the agent must have just been getting more and more frustrated trying to “break” me. I only wish I were so bold and so strong as the great international peperoni smuggler…this pepperoni!...what pepperoni?...I don’t see any pepperoni…in the end, he said he would have to throw the pepperoni snack away…yes please!

In the end, after they let us back in our car and said we could go, the female agent wanted to lecture me again about coming through the wrong lane—I mean seriously lecture. At first I bristled since, as I saw it, I had no choice to back out of that lane, and it wasn’t intentional, and I’m and adult, and she wasn’t my mother…it was immediately clear after my first comment/excuse to her that engaging her in any of it was only going to make her angrier and further delay our departure. So, I swallowed hard and responded to all of her lecturing and accusations with: “yes mam”, “you are right mam”, I’ll be more careful next time mam”. It worked; situation defused. I considered it an episode of personal growth, and we were on the road again.

In spite of all this, once we got to Las Cruses, we had a great time visiting our friends and enjoying some food and drinks together. (Ironically, there was no pepperoni on the charcuterie plate.)