Customs

We touched down at Denver International late yesterday afternoon and then had to go through customs. We got our bags and stood in line waiting to be grilled. The guy asking the questions wasn't too terrible but Heather was stammering and stuttering with her answers. It was odd because she doesn't mind talking to people. I'm fine with it for work or personal reasons but I'm not the guy that normally and routinely starts conversations with strangers. In my head, I was like, "What are you doing? Pull it together will ya?" I kinda jumped in when the questions turned to whether or not we had brought anything back with us. At the Duty Free shop in the airport at Cabo, we purchased Vanilla and some cigars. My father in-law was a cigar smoker and I brought home a huge box of cigars from his house and some fancy cutters, lighters and even some trick leather carriers that hold one or two cigars. I'm not a cigar smoker but once in a blue moon I'll have one on the river. The ones I have may be really good cigars but I wouldn't know so I thought I'd buy some. Well, I ended up selecting some Cubans. These things were almost $20 a piece and I bought 3.

We get through the first Customs official and are standing in line for the next one when we get yanked and told to have a seat. Out of our entire plane, 4 travelers got pulled and the other 2 were single dudes. We chatted with the one guy while we waited and he seemed super sketchy. We watched while the first guy was released and they started in on #2. They had to tell him to stop fidgeting and keep his hands down where they could see them. They didn't find anything in his luggage but they also didn't check him. I think he had cocaine between his ass cheeks because he was relieved when they said he was free to go. I asked Heather if she thought we should take off running but she gave me the stink eye. Then I asked her if we should each keester a cigar. She mumbled something about sticking something up my keester if I didn't shut up.

We got up to the counter and the guy asked us what we had. Apparently, the first agent had marked "2" on our paper work so I said we had Vanilla and some cigars. He asked if they were Cuban cigars and I said, "Pretty sure." Now...Heather and I both know that Cuban cigars are not legal to have in the US but we honestly figured that if they were at the Duty Free store then we were golden. We did not take into account that other travelers might possibly be going to other destinations besides the US where it WAS ok to have Cuban cigars. So the agent ends up showing us where it states that we are not allowed to have them and then tells me that I have 2 options. The first would be for them to seize the cigars and complete some paper work. I asked the guy if he would like to avoid filling out paper work and he says yes. I'm assuming that if they had been seized that I probably would have also gotten in some sort of trouble and I don't need that. Option #2 was for me to destroy them right then and there.

Now...because the agent was beginning to loosen up a bit I figured there might be a smidgen of room for some humor. I asked if there was a third option that might include finding another of his Customs pals and heading some place nearby where we could smoke these bad boys. Needless to say, that did not go over well. I ended up destroying the cigars right there.

I still say we could have gotten away with it if Heather would only have been up for keestering a few of them.