What Not To Do At Customs

Today is our seventeenth wedding anniversary. We woke up at 3 a.m. to fly out of Ecuador. Arrived in Miami for a five hour layover. Had lunch with our boys at TGI Fridays in the airport. Will soon leave for a 4.5 hour flight back to Denver. Then, with any luck, we will arrive home around 10 p.m. and collapse. Yep. We still know how to keep the romance alive.

The best part of being married for so long is knowing the other person so well. As we were getting ready to land, Steve told me he would fill out our Customs form. Now, I know my husband well enough to know this was a bad idea, but I let him do it anyway. I don’t know why. You see, three years ago we were returning from Norway and Steve, honest and literal guy that he is, told the Customs official we’d been in contact with livestock while abroad. Why? Because we petted two sheep on the head for less than a minute. Try explaining that weirdness to a guy who just needed to make sure we weren’t bringing Mad Cow disease into the U.S. Today, Steve decided to give me a repeat of that insanity for our anniversary.

“I marked on the form that we were on a farm,” he informed me as we approached the immigration desk.

“What? Why would you do that?” I whined.

“Well, we visited that sugar cane place,” came his reply.

“That was NOT a farm.”

“Yes it was. They were growing sugar cane.”

“Farm implies livestock. There was no livestock,” I answered.

“There were chickens,” he said.

“Those were wild chickens,” I replied.

When we handed our form to the Customs official, the poor man looked annoyed. It was obvious he was already sizing Steve up to be the paperwork nightmare he is.

“You were on a farm?” he asked with great disgust.

“Well, it was sort of a farm. They were raising sugar cane,” Steve answered.

I rolled my eyes. The agent rolled his eyes too.

He could see the paperwork mounting because of this dope who was being absurdly candid about his vacation. He decided to cut to the quick.

“Did you STEP in anything?” he inquired.

At this point, I began praying Steve would not ask what kind of thing was he referring to. I stared at him, sending him telepathic “shut the hell up” messages.

“No. I don’t think so,” he wisely answered.

“You’re cleared,” he said, dying to get rid of us.

I got about five feet past the customs guy and busted up laughing. Seventeen years ago I married the guy who made me laugh the most. We’re still laughing.