This Sunday of November, I leave Cancun (Mexico) for San Jose (Costa Rica), where I am supposed to meet my mum who I have invited from Paris so we can travel together for 3 weeks in Costa Rica and Cuba.
Just before boarding, I am requested by an airline staff member to go through some additional security checks with the Mexican custom police. I have nothing to reproach myself with so I accept without batting an eyelid.
I am questioned by a woman officer who wants to know about my trip, my stay in Mexico, my plan for Costa Rica etc… the usual bullshit. It is only when she asks me to put my bag on the table to carry out a search that I have started to change color. A thought crosses my mind. Not a good one. I now remember that I still have some ecstasy pills in my bag. Not many, 7 or 8. But certainly enough for the dear police officer in front of me to make me miss my flight. Which is simply impossible! No way would my mother be left alone at the San Jose airport, with no news from me, no idea where to go, no money and no language skills. It’s just not possible and won’t happen!
Fucking Shane! Super nice guy met in Austin (Texas) a few weeks earlier. The fellow hosted me a few days, we did some very cool shit together, he showed me around the city, introduced me to his friends, to girls etc.. Super welcoming guy who I won’t forget! When I left, Shane insisted on offering me some pills as a souvenir gift from him, and he was full of praise for their quality. The thing is, I don’t do drugs. I mean, I have tried several of them and get high from time to time but I’m far from being a junky. So I didn’t eat a single one the rest of my time in the US. In fact, these pills have already traveled from the US to Mexico, without being discovered. Indeed, when I arrived in Mexico, I found in my suitcase the famous note left by the American authorities when they open your luggage and warn you they are not responsible in case of damage or loss. This note had been left very close from the pills. Idiots.
Anyway, the circumstances seem slightly more complicated now.
I don’t particularly worry about my own situation to be honest. I don’t think a few pills of ecstasy can get me into too much troubles in a country like Mexico, where they have much bigger fishes to catch. Worst case scenario, a few nights in a Mexican prison don’t especially frighten me.
What scares me a lot though, is the picture of my mum left alone at the San Jose airport. This vision of my aging mother waiting for hours outside an airport on the other side of the world, not knowing what to do nor where to go, abandoned by her own son, fills me with shame and sorrow. I cannot let this nightmare come true.
It is therefore time for me to use my intellectual capacities and manipulative skills. I start thinking about the story I am about to tell the police officer, the tone I’m going to use, the jokes I’m going to make… All I can do to make her stop her fucking search!
The pink pills are into a transparent plastic bag containing fluorescent green sleeping earplugs, this pouch being itself located in my Air France travel kit together with a toothbrush, moisturizer and sleeping mask. My goal is that she does not reach this transparent plastic bag.
The policewoman seems to be in her mid forties. Being from Mexico, she probably has at least 4–5 children. Being a police officer, she probably earns very little. Having one of her sons inviting her to travel the world is probably a dream for her. Preconceived and racist ideas? I know. And I agree. But fuck it, I’ll go all-in on it!
While she’s searching my bag, I tell her how happy I am to meet my mother, I express all the joy and happiness I feel at the idea of seeing her again, of hugging her, of sharing moments with her, after so many months spent away from each other. I tell her about our mother-son relationship and I speak like I am the best and the most loving son in the world. More important, I don’t take my eyes off hers. I look her straight in the eyes, I dive deep into them, trying to get her full attention and distract her from her task. I make jokes, I make her smile.
And I feel it’s working. I feel the more I talk to her, the more the idea of finding drugs or any suspicious item in my bag moves away from her mind. But the bitch is very professional. Too professional. She keeps looking and is getting closer.
She has now grabbed the Air France travel kit and is looking into it. My heart stops beating when she gets the small transparent plastic bag (with the earplugs and pills inside) out of the travel kit. This is it, I’m fucked. What the hell am I going to invent now so she lets me go? My brain is at full capacity and ideas are flowing.
But everything stops when she gets the plastic pouch just between our respective pairs of eyes. I live this moment in slow motion and I feel like it’s just her, the fluorescent green earplugs, the pink ecstasy and me. All around is an immense black void, there is no more noise, time has stopped. I can only see these little pieces of fluorescent green moss and these little pink pills, which seem even more visible in this complete darkness. I have lost my brain capacities, I don’t think anymore. I’m just very concerned. Poor mother.
The plastic pouch gradually disappears from my sight, as the policewoman puts it on the table. The light returns, the noise too, the external environment takes over. Things get back to normal. Except one thing. One very important thing. The pouch is on the table and the police officer keeps looking into my bag. What the hell? Is she looking for something else? Why isn’t she saying anything? Speak up, damn it! Fucking say something!
But she doesn’t. She keeps searching my bag instead. I’m now focusing on the plastic pouch left here on the table and I’m not speaking anymore. I’m starting to think she may have seen nothing but fire. But the pills are here, clearly visible by anyone interested in the contents of my bag on the table. And many people should get interested. I have faced the policewoman alone but lots of her colleagues are standing here behind her and around the table.
The following seconds seem like an eternity. Until she says, “Okay, that’s fine with me. I’ll let you put your stuff away if you don’t mind.”
“I don’t mind,” I reply.
I immediately grab the plastic pouch and throw it in my bag. As I put my things away, I can’t believe it. How am I doing so well? What a miracle!
As soon as I get to my seat, I can only think of one thing. To get rid of those damn pills! One thing is for sure: Shane was right, even without tasting his stuff, it made me live some serious emotions!
So I grab the plastic bag at the bottom of my bag and head for the toilet to throw them away. When doing so, I notice that all the ecstasy pills had slipped into one single side of the plastic bag when I put them in. And on the right side! Understand me, all the pills slipped out on one SINGLE side. Depending on which side you looked at the bag, you could see all the pills stuck between the earplugs on one side, or just the earplugs on the other! When the policewoman took the bag out and looked at it, I could see all the pills, while on her side she could only see the earplugs!
FUCKING LUCKY BASTARD!!!
