Chocolate Drops for Dogs

Travel used to be fun. It has become progressively less like fun, and more like punishment with every passing year. Here are just a few incidents that stand out in my mind demonstrating how things have changed. They don’t necessarily show all was sweetness and light, but at least you didn’t get shot for making a joke.

My friend Mike was returning to the States, where he had moved. The Customs man asked to see inside his bag and found a tin of “Good Boy Chocolate Drops For Dogs”. The officer raised the tin and asked Mike what the can contained, “Good Boy Chocolate Drops for Dogs.” Mike responded, “And, what exactly, are they?” the man enquired with great suspicion, Mike responded that they were “Chocolate drops for my pet dog;” quite reasonably, as this is what they were. The man was not happy and he asked again, “And what precisely are good boy chocolate drop for dogs?” Mike then made the fatal mistake of presuming that somewhere within the uniform lurked a human being, “I’ll tell you what officer, if you’re a good boy I’ll give you one.”

After Mike was arrested it was only a few hours before the confusion was cleared up and the innocent dog treats were returned from the laboratory.

There was the time I was walking through the customs and immigration at New Jersey airport with my friend, who I shall call Henry Cohen. We were talking and then I turned to ask him something as we were both at the barriers but he had vanished. It was only later, after we had both been thoroughly questioned that we discovered the reason for this separation. Both of us had lived and worked legally in the States and returned to the UK after a few years. Apparently it was unheard of for Brits like us to do this and therefore we were suspicious. It was a lot worse for Henry than me. I was simply locked in a white room and placed under a little pressure to see if my story of having moved back to Blighty checked out. Henry received a telephone call to his otherwise empty locked room. He picked it up and a voice introduced himself as an Internal Revenue officer of the Federal Government. The officer asked Henry if his name was Henry Albert Cohen, to which he responded that this was his name. The officer then accused Henry of not paying due taxes in the period between his leaving the States and the day of his arrest. Henry tried to persuade the officer that he no longer lived in the States and therefore wasn’t due to pay any tax. The officer wouldn’t listen and went on to tell Henry that as these taxes were estimate to be in the region of $600,000 they had confiscated his home in Phoenix, Arizona as a penalty. Something stopped Henry saying the obvious thing, which was that he had never owned a house in Arizona, because he just wanted to get out of the place. I remember a phone call from Henry’s jail cell in which he was advised to say yes to anything just to be able to get out of the place. They did release him and he flew back to the UK as fast as the big bird would fly him home. Eventually the authorities admitted that neither of us had done anything wrong, but as ever, the presumption had been we must have done so. I guess we just didn’t fit the pattern.

Another two occasions were linked. Again my friend Mike was involved. We were taking our small film crew, him, me and one other, down to the Cannes film festival. We didn’t have much money so we were using my car and a rented caravan to get to the South of France and carry all our equipment. Knowing the French were very officious we were careful to obtain all the carnets and proper documentation to clear through customs. It took a few weeks of running around and filling in forms but eventually we were ready to run the gauntlet. The English customs first checked we had all the necessary papers before we got on the ferry at Dover. We then sailed and were blissfully aware of the trouble to come. On landing the French customs asked to see the various color carnets for our film, camera and sound equipment, transport which we were able to show with great alacrity. They then asked for our orange carnet. This was the one color in the rainbow we didn’t have. I tried, in my best French to enquire what was the purpose of this hitherto unknown carnet. I was told it was to prevent us selling our hired equipment and leaving it in France as an illegal import.

This being a Sunday it proved impossible to get anyone from the British government authorities to explain to their French counterparts that we didn’t own the equipment and would vouch we couldn’t or wouldn’t try to sell it. The French came up with a Gallic compromise. If we were to provide a Bond for about $100,000 they would forego the additional carnet. It’s also pretty difficult to obtain a bond on a weekend when you can’t reach anyone on the telephone from a French customs hall in a remote port. Much as we tried the best we were able to do was obtain a promise from friends at home that they would do as was necessary first thing the next day. In the meantime the French authorities locked our caravan up in their customs hall, which meant we had to go and sleep without our beds or food, both in the caravan, on the side of the road outside of town.

The next morning we were able to generate the bond and release our goods and we then went on to make our film. About four weeks later we were on our way home. We stopped on the road overlooking the port, determined not to suffer any more with the French authorities. We decided to wait until the last possible moment before the ship sailed and drive at top speed onto the ferry. We executed the maneuver perfectly, arriving on board with screeching brakes, as the sailors were about to pull away from the harbor.

We were young, and easily impressed with our bravado as we sat in the bar and toasted our small victory. On arriving at Dover the British customs officer asked us if we had anything to declare. We answered in the negative but something made my colleague say, “except for the heroin in the lighting equipment.” before he finished with this poor joke the officer was ordering the stripping down of our vehicle. It was a great many hours later before we could arrange a garage to help us re-assemble the vehicle and we could leave.

For some reason my name seems to crop up on every computer when it comes to security checks. I don’t think my middle aged, middle European look could be the reason, so I checked out why I always get stopped with a friend in the security world. He came back with the response that the only reason he could discover was that there had been a female German terrorist with a similar name many years ago and that this triggered the computer programs to check me out. Every time they tell anyone to take off their shoes I am included, and every time they want to look up any spare orifice I am selected. Perhaps I have the look of the gender reassigned?

This all reached a crescendo when I was traveling back from LA to London a couple of years ago. I had received a hard earned upgrade to business class and was one of the first to walk down the jet ramp. I was just about to enter the plane when four huge security guys encircled me. Perhaps memory makes them so big, but they were jumbo size, wearing aviator shades and guns at the hip, short sleeve button down shirts and don’t mess with me attitude all over their faces. They were scary guys. The pack leader looked me in the eye and asked, “What has been the purpose of your trip to the States?” “Business.” I responded. “I’ll ask you again, what was the purpose of your trip?” Now I was feeling a bit nervous, so I slightly adjusted my response, “”Well I did see some family and friends, so there was some pleasure as well.” He sneered a bit to his colleagues as the other passengers walked past me, looking at us as if I were a senior terrorist. The officers ushered me to the other end of the walkway, where no one could overlook us. “What would I find if we were to look under your right trouser leg?” “My right ankle.” I responded with a clear grasp of my anatomical realities. “I shall ask you again, have you anything unusual on your right ankle?” I now realized they were looking for a man, who must have many similarities to me, plus something odd about his right ankle. I thought about it for a moment and bent to roll up my trouser leg but was halted in this purpose when the officer shifted nervously. I got the impression that if I didn’t do this satisfactorily I was about to get jumped on by four very big men carrying enough guns for a small war. I rolled up my trouser leg and everyone, including me, had a good look. There it was, one pale, slightly hairy leg, with no unusual markings. The atmosphere immediately lifted, “thank you sir.” He said with a big smile, “have a nice flight.” I rejoined the other passengers who were still viewing me as if my surname was Bin Laden.

So traveling has long had its complications, and this remains the case. Remember the cardinal rule, don’t make jokes with the customs and immigration officer, they have no sense of humor. Or perhaps just don’t travel with me!