What's in the Box?

I’ve done my share of traveling. I’ve seen most of our fair country and I’ve been to several countries in Europe a number of times and to Japan a few times. I’ve seen much of Canada and most of Mexico. In all this time though I continue to be amazed at how nice it is to get home and how exhausted I am by the time I get here. And, of course, everyone has their funny travel stories.
One of mine happened as my second trip to Japan was about to come to a close. I’d been in Japan on a job interview and the college I'd interviewed with had made the travel arrangements which involved several changes of planes and a truly grueling return trip.
It began on the wrong foot. As I was leaving my hotel in Nagoya, one of my pieces of luggage just fell apart. It gave up the ghost right in the lobby while I was trying to check out, the seam of the zipper just gave way ripping apart from both sides leaving a gaping hole from which all my Japanese treasures spewed forth: a kimono, some sake, a tea cup, a camera lens, assorted carefully embroidered handkerchiefs.
I just didn’t have time to go shopping for another suitcase and the hotel desk clerk must have realized. In any event, he took pity on me and snagged a box. We emptied my suitcase into the box and he fastened it securely with clear packaging tape.
Domo arrigato.
I was so grateful.
The flight to Tokyo was brief and uneventful. We checked in thru customs and made our way to the next plane and the longest part of the trip. We were returning to CA via British Columbia then to San Francisco then to LA. Although I had a business class seat on this leg, I was still exhausted by the time we got to BC. Oddly, U.S. immigration was there and checked in the US passengers.
The layover in SF was brief, but I practically stumbled off the plane in Los Angeles. I’d been traveling for close to 24 hours. And I’ve never been any good at sleeping on board an aircraft. I’ve always sort of felt I had to stay awake to help the plane stay aloft. Besides, the captain was awake. I hope. I hope. I hope.
Once we disembarked, I got my luggage and loaded it on one of those carts and began pushing my way thru the international zone toward the lobby where I knew my family would be waiting. And because we’d cleared customs in Canada, I didn’t have to wait in line in passport control which was a real blessing.
Avoiding passport control was fine with me until a customs agent stepped in front of me and blocked my path. He looked at me and at my luggage and at the box and asked, “What’s in the box?” “Gifts,” I replied. He looked at the box again and moved aside.
But I hadn’t traveled another 25 feet when a second customs agent stepped in front of me, looked at my luggage and looked at the box and asked, “What’s in the box?” Exasperated and exhausted I snapped at him. “Gifts!” He squinted at the box and then at me and moved aside.
By now I could see the bank of exit doors. The exit. Freedom. Home at last. Home at last. Thank God almighty, home at last.
But it was not to be. Barely 10 feet from the doors, a third customs agent approached me. He sort of held up his hand in a universal gesture that means stop, halt. So, I stopped. I’ve traveled some and I know that the customs agents around the world take their job very seriously – even then way before 9/11 - so, I knew better than to get smart with him, but by now I was getting pissed and reason was about to give way to emotion. He looked keenly at me. He looked at my luggage. He looked at the box and asked, “What’s in the box?”
I simply had to count to ten or explode. I needed to calm down or his thing might escalate into God knows what. One, two, three… I said to myself, but when I didn’t promptly reply he bent down and put his face about four or five inches from mine and very slowly and carefully said, “Do you speak English?”