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 |   So playing the trombone wasn't getting me in enough trouble? |
Traveling with a muse in tow is always a risky proposition. If you're like me and have more than one of the pesky critters kind and wonderful motivators, you can imagine it's even more of a challenge when one of them decides to pop in and handle a situation for me. As a present to myself for retirement, I recently went on a cruise, of course, all four of my little menaces buddies stowed away traveled with me. Grumpy, Pubby, Anon-y-Monkey, and the turtle are usually good companions, well-behaved, and easy to get along with. (Yes! They are standing behind while I write this—Send Help!) One of the stops on the cruise was a layover on a small island nation I had never been to before. Even in my years playing on the ships, I had never visited Île d'Eau Chaude. I was looking forward to visiting a place I had never been to before. It was a bit puzzling because unlike other stops on the cruise, all the passenger's luggage had to be inspected by the Isle's customs division. I lugged all of our bags off the ship, all of them were stuffed to bursting with the loot souvenirs the boys had pilfered acquired at our other stops—before we were asked to leave or escorted back to the boat. Fortunately, none of the bottles belonging to Grumpy had to be offloaded, as they were safely locked in the ship's duty-free storage area. Or, so I thought. I calmly walked up to a burly-looking customs agent, who really needed a shave. He seemed to speak only in grunts. Pointing at the very low table in front of him, he mentioned for me to put the first suitcase on it. He whistled tunelessly as he rifled through the bag, pulling out some shop bags, opening them, and tossing the contents back into the suitcase. Every once in a while one of the trinkets would end up in a box at his feet. That's when I noticed his feet were bare, and a bit hairy. The process repeated itself several more times as he examined each of my bags. 'Ahh, I thought to myself, one last bag, and we're clear.' That's when it all broke loose. The next bag had a very fine bottle of vodka in it. The agent started hopping around pointing and grunting, angrier than any public servant I've ever seen. I was as surprised as he was, all the liquor was supposed to be locked away on the ship. Who and how did that bottle get into my luggage!?! That's when Grumpy showed up, I should have known, if there's booze involved, he's never far away. (Well, to be honest, all of them tend to follow the booze.) Grumpy immediately started to pass the Blarney about being a fellow Customs Agent on the Old Sod. He looked around slyly, before sliding a bag of shiny coins across the table. That made the Agent grunt furiously, as he picked up the coin pouch, and tossed it at me. He reached behind him and pulled out a set of handcuffs. Grunting and motioning me to turn around. I really knew I was in Hot Water then! Luckily for me, that's when Anon-Y-Monkey made his appearance. He had a shopping bag in his hairy little hand. 'Great I thought, Anony is going to offer this guy more cash, they're going to lock me up and toss the key—.' Anon-Y-Monkey started grunting away, ever so slowly the Agent seemed to calm down, no longer angry, the Agent's eyes lit up when he peeked into Anony's bag. By the end of the conversation, after the Agent had safely stowed the bag beneath his table, they were grunting like old buddies. I got a peek into the shopping bag as I carted off my now cleared luggage. It was an even finer bottle of the very best vodka. Like I said, "it's always about the booze." One thing that puzzled me about the whole incident; The short little, scruffy Custom Agent, with hairy, bare feet and a surly attitude? The grunting crazy who preferred vodka to gold coins? It was like I had déjà vu all over again. |
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