Customs Detectives

     At our place, there is really only one set of "reality" shows we like to watch on TV.  Part of the appeal of these particular programs is that there is actual reality to them instead of manufactured tension in ridiculous scenarios.  Add a liking of detective shows and a splash of Dudley Dooright and these are a winner.  These are... programs that deal with customs and immigration issues. Every country seems to have one with a name like: Border Patrol, Border Security or Customs.  Video crews hang out at international airport  arrival terminals, postal sorting centers and shipping yards to watch Customs , Immigration or Quarantine officials sort through luggage, lies and letters to keep the illegal at bay.
     All these programs open with hard driving music and dramatic narrative.  People with shifty eyes and evasive answers are interrogated about visiting plans versus their visas. "I really am here just to visit my brother, no, I mean , cousin, no wait, he's my sister's husband's brother's cousin."  Bugs and worms are tapped out of  plants smuggled in a pair of socks. "How did that get in there? My mother packed this bag."   Undeclared food is gingerly handled by latex clad hands. "It's not food because  it is not cooked."  Some packages don't give the  x-ray images their declared contents ought to and others don't feel exactly the way one would expect. "Oh look, these two photographs together are as thick as cardboard and have white powder coming out the side."  All in a day's work for some and an evening's entertainment for us.

     Until a package arrived at our doorstep.  From Guardian Angel Number One.  The Customs Declaration listed some old thrift store clothing and a game.   Number One does such a good job a digging up great finds in the thrift stores back home. The items are perfect.  There is also a box...wrapped in paper...wrapped in aluminum foil...inside a plastic bag...and weighing a ton.  Cue hard driving music (which we air guitar in perfect unison.)   The box's feel is not consistent with its packaging.  It is a jigsaw puzzle (Sunday Afternoon on the Isle of La Grande Jatte.  In exquisite topiary behind the Columbus, Ohio Metropolitan Library, by the way) of 500 pieces typically in a box big enough to fit 50,000.  Yet there is no rattle or shifting of cardboard pieces and the box feels pretty solid.  Aluminum foil wrapper on a jigsaw puzzle box?  Sounds like a classic hopeful x-ray dodge.  Inside is the real goods...my favorite hair dye which is not available on this continent...sent as part of  a benign care package. 
     And this is the funny part.  It is not illegal for hair dye to be mailed out of XXX or into OZZZ. In fact, Number One has mailed it before without the slightest problem.  Oh, but the drama of it all!  Number One is a sly one to be sure.

     So now, sporting incredible hair and  new lounge capris,  I have 494 more puzzle pieces yet to put together.