Bad Borderline Behavior

My wife and I keep finding reasons to be deliriously happy that we moved to the Highlands from L.A.  Near the top of the list is the Louisville airport, which is like “Mayberry Airport and Sandwich Shop” compared to the Third World morass of LAX. I’ve flown out of efficient little SDF a lot, thankfully, since you can’t make a living as a comedian staying at home. It’s easy to get people to come over for a few drinks and laughs, but it’s tacky to ask them to pay.  

 

I’ve worked on several cruise ships lately, and recently stepped off a plane in a small Caribbean nation whose economy is based entirely on selling mementos that horrify you the moment you unpack them at home. A skinny uniformed guard with a huge military hat looked at my passport and said, “Are you traveling on beezaness or pleajure?” Being  punch-drunk and goofy after the red-eye from Chicago, I quipped, “Actually, my business is traveling to give pleasure.” 

 

Since his job was to hear one of only two answers to the same question 1,357 times a day, I thought he might enjoy a break from the monotony.  Wrong.  Border guards love monotony, pray for spirit-sapping sameness, thrive on soul-killing boredom; because anything out of the ordinary means paperwork, possibly even standing.

 

He glowered at me through thundercloud eyebrows, squinted at my passport, and said, “You think this is funny, Meester Drayderlin?” 

 

He mangled my name so acrobatically while peering up from under the eaves of that two-story military lid that I just lost it. I tried to stifle the laugh, resulting in one of those whoopee-cushion, nostril-flapping nose blasts – phlppplplsshhnnerkk! and, realizing there could be inconvenient consequences, immediately tried to recover. “Hnuhh! Sorry, gnuh! I’m sorry,” I babbled, struggling to keep a straight face. “No disrespect intended, sir, really, I’m very sorry!” I kept apologizing non-stop, afraid that if I gave him the slightest opening he’d utter some Ricky Ricardo beaut that would send me into a whooping hysteria, and my nose was still burning from the first top-kill operation. 

 

He watched me blather, no doubt hoping I wouldn’t say anything outright psychotic lest he’d have to fill out a form. I wrapped up my kow-towing tirade with, “I’m a comedian headed to work on a cruise ship, so when I said my business is traveling to give pleasure, I meant I travel around making people laugh, so, heh, I was just – it was a joke. I’m very sorry.” 

 

There was a long, tense pause. I assumed he was reading my body language, trying to decide if I was a national threat, and whether to summon armed personnel. He said, “You have fruits or veggie-tables, Meester Draydelin?” I bit down on the side of my tongue so hard it made me tear up. Then I prayed blood wouldn’t join the tears, inviting more questions. I fought down the murderous laugh-bubble expanding in my esophagus by focusing on the brim of his seven-liter chapeau and picturing a jail cell with the skeleton of an American smart aleck chained to the wall. I shook my head, not wanting to risk breathing. He handed me my passport. 

 

In the taxi to the hotel, I realized I had dodged what could have been a major international hassle and vowed to keep my sarcastic comments to myself, especially when I had a ship to catch the very next day.  When I checked in, the lady at reception asked how many room keys I would need. “Twenty-seven,” I said. “I met some musicians on the beach.” 

 

What could she do? I was already in the country.