A Close Call

I was thoroughly shocked. My brain had gone out to lunch—frozen solid. The usual mental chatter, that constant buzzing of thoughts, had ground to an abrupt halt. Both of us—the chubby customs officer and myself—stood motionless, staring in disbelief at the slightly misshapen stuffed animal lying on the scuffed carpet in front of the customs booth. It was a ridiculous green-and-blue turtle, slumped over lifelessly, like a drunk at last call.

"What’s in the turtle, goddamnit?!" the officer bellowed, his face as red as an overripe tomato.

Los Angeles International Airport, 1995.

My mental paralysis began to thaw, reluctantly making room for something more familiar—my habitual short temper, especially when dealing with petty, time-wasting government officials. Customs agents in particular held a special place in the hell of my personal tolerances.

I knew his type instantly. Like most of his kind, he operated under the delusion that flailing his stubby arms and shouting like a human thundercloud would somehow intimidate me.

It didn’t. Not one bit.

“How the hell would I know? It was a gift from my girlfriend in Mexico. Why don’t you just cut the bloody thing open and see for yourself?”

The agent’s chunky fingers hovered over his Swiss Army knife, opening and closing in indecision. He seemed to be weighing the risk of dissecting the sad stuffed turtle against his confidence that I was smuggling something more sinister than questionable taste in plush toys.

“Alright then,” he barked. “Let’s x-ray this ugly mutt and see what it contains! Last chance, boy, what’s in it?”

“I am not your boy, officer!” I snapped, letting my irritation flare. “Do what you want.”

With a sharp jerk of his head, he motioned to a colleague, who promptly whisked the inert turtle away to the x-ray room. I was doomed.

Flashback to Cancún, Mexico, a few months earlier…

His name was Willy, and he was a friend of sorts—more like an occasional acquaintance—from Los Angeles. Willy wasn’t the kind of guy you’d describe as “subtle” or “nuanced.” A German bodybuilder built like a tank, he was tough as nails, direct to a fault, and boasted the kind of muscle mass that required a separate zip code.

Like so many others—myself included—Willy had found his way to Venice Beach in a bid to carve out his slice of the ever-elusive American dream.

We were similarly successful in our vastly different pursuits of fame. I was chasing the glitzy mirage of becoming a movie star, all while narrowly avoiding the dubious career path of a Chippendale dancer. Willy, on the other hand, was gunning for “Arnold 3.0”—a younger, leaner German take on Schwarzenegger. Regrettably, the “Arnold 2.0” title was already claimed by Ralf Moeller, a former training partner of mine and an insufferable pool attendant who’d somehow stumbled into Hollywood.

Despite our mismatched ambitions, Willy and I decided to take a detour from Venice Beach life and venture all the way to Cancún. The reason? A former prison buddy of his—someone I’ll generously call a "character"—owed him $10,000 in cash. Willy suspected this so-called friend had repurposed the funds for something far removed from their original intent. Now, Willy was determined to collect—peacefully, if possible; forcefully, if not.

I, of course, had no pressing obligations and was broke enough to find adventure wherever it might lurk. So, naturally, I tagged along.

In hindsight, I probably shouldn’t have.

What I hadn’t realised at the time was that Willy wasn’t just on a money-retrieval mission. No, he was laying the groundwork for a new business venture—one that would exploit Mexico’s lax pharmaceutical laws in ways neither clever nor legal.

Regulations, in my view, have always been a rather disheartening issue. Let me explain why.

The glaring inconsistencies across the globe can baffle even the most law-abiding citizen. What earns you a pat on the back in one country might earn you a slap on the wrist—or worse, a noose—elsewhere. Take, for instance, the matter of recreational drugs. If you were to lounge on a sidewalk in Communist China, joyfully puffing on a joint the size of Kentucky, your fate would likely include a one-way trip to a re-education camp. There, you'd be tasked with digging up pebbles from barren ground with your bare hands until your knuckles wore down to nubs.

Meanwhile, in archaic Saudi Arabia—don’t let the snow dome in the desert fool you—the punishment for even entertaining the idea of illegal substances is a harrowing affair. Under their medieval legal system—proudly frozen in time since Moses was wandering the desert—they’ll administer justice in a brutal trilogy. First, you’ll be beaten like a rented mule, then hanged high enough to catch the sunrise, and finally… well, there’s no third step. You’ll just dangle there, and that’s the merciful part.

After this questionable adventure—as a last step—you will get fed to the pigs…

Ah, wait! No pigs in the Kingdom. That’s a sliver of consolation. So scratch that last step; it’s all about the hanging. But even if the punishment isn’t particularly inventive, they’ll still make an example of you—dangling from the highest lamppost like a gruesome wind chime for all to see.

And yet, in other parts of the world, the same offences might only earn you a small fine and a cheeky grin from a disinterested cop. The wild disparities are enough to give anyone whiplash.

And this, to me, is deeply problematic. Who is right and who is wrong?

Is it the headscarf-wearing Bedouins of the Negev desert, clutching to laws older than the rocks they traverse? Or the red guards from China, issuing edicts with the softness of a sledgehammer? Or perhaps the flower-crowned, war-dodging dropouts from the so-called Land of the Free, whose idea of governance is as useless as a meat counter in a flower shop—charming in its absurdity but entirely out of place and fundamentally feckless.

Who decides what is backward and what is forward-thinking? Who dictates which laws are laughably archaic and which are the golden standard of modern civilisation?

It’s maddening to consider that one can be a model citizen in one patch of dirt, yet be labeled a menace to society just a border crossing away. How is it possible that the very same behaviour—be it harmless or heinous—is rewarded with standing ovation here and met with handcuffs ( or hanging ) there?

This concept has always felt foreign to me. It’s like trying to navigate an absurd, unwritten rulebook where every page changes depending on who’s holding the pen.

Back to Mexico.

In the early ’90s, Mexico was a different world entirely. For one, you could stroll into any pharmacy and obtain whatever pharmaceuticals your heart—or aching joints—desired. Officially, a prescription might have been required for the more exotic offerings, like morphine. In practice, however, a few extra pesos slipped into the right palm could conjure up anything on the menu, no questions asked.

To me, this was nothing to write home about. I did dabble once—a shot of morphine to quiet a nagging knee bruise—but that was the extent of my pharmaceutical escapades. For Willy, however, this was heaven on earth. He stormed into the first pharmacy he laid eyes on, and 30 minutes later, no fewer than three pharmacy employees paraded out carrying 20 bags stuffed to the brim with what I assumed was their entire stockpile. Willy, ever the charmer, even managed to snag a date with the owner’s daughter that same night. Whether this unexpected romance was part of the sales agreement or an add-on, I couldn’t say.

What I did ask him—quite pointedly—was how he planned to smuggle such an obscene amount of merchandise across the border without causing a scene and landing himself in San Quentin’s finest accommodations.

His answer? “Don’t worry. I’ve worked out an elaborate plan.”

Famous last words…

Days blur when your schedule is dictated by the bar menu and happy hour specials. Eventually, Willy decided it was time to return home. After all, he had big plans for what he envisioned as a staggeringly lucrative pharmaceutical enterprise.

As his masterstroke of covert transportation, Willy selected a teddy bear the size of an oil drum. It was ridiculous enough to make me burst out laughing, but he was deadly serious. Without hesitation, he set to work with a knife, slicing open the bear’s stitching and gutting half of its fluffy innards. Into the hollowed-out cavity went his prized contraband, packed so tightly I thought the seams would burst on their own.

A local seamstress was promptly hired to stitch the beast back together. Within an hour, the bear emerged looking nearly new—except for one glaring detail: it had mysteriously gained six pounds during its “operation.” It now looked less like a cuddly childhood companion and more like a bloated mascot with thyroid problems.

Even the seamstress raised an eyebrow. I, on the other hand, felt morally obligated to voice my objections. “Willy,” I said, fighting the urge to laugh, “this is not a sound plan. It’s a hysterically terrible idea, actually. The fact that this teddy bear weighs about as much as you is a giant neon sign screaming, ‘Search me!’”

I wasn’t convinced. Neither was the seamstress, judging by her worried glances as she pocketed her fee and backed away. But Willy’s mind was made up, my concerns were briskly dismissed.

Willy's plan was simple: he’d tell customs the oversized Teddy Bear was a birthday gift for his niece in Los Angeles. Nothing suspicious about that—except maybe that the Teddy looked like it had eaten said niece.

On the drive to Cancun Airport, the Teddy perched in the back seat, blocking nearly my entire rear view. I made one last attempt to talk some sense into Willy. Surely there had to be a better way than this? But, in true pigheaded German fashion, he was immovable.

We said our goodbyes. He loaded his bags and the towering Teddy onto a trolley and strode into the terminal.

I never saw him again.

Months later, it was my turn to leave Mexico.

Recalling Willy’s ingenious plot—of which I had no way of knowing whether it had succeeded or not—I decided to replicate it on a much smaller scale. I’m not a greedy person, so I figured if the "merchandise" covered the cost of my airfare, that would be plenty.

For this plan, I chose a little green-and-blue turtle—hilariously ugly, and conveniently compact. Following Willy’s example, we removed some of its padding and replaced it with a curated selection of pills and capsules meant to stimulate muscle growth.

These stimulants (ephedrine) had been legally available in the U.S. just a year earlier—until some pencil-neck bureaucrat passed a bill banning them unless consumed via Vicks NyQuil, a cough suppressant syrup.

The stuffed turtle gained only a few ounces in the process, and considering its modest size, it didn’t even require an extra seat on the plane. I squeezed the turtle into my bag, had a friend drive me to the Cancun airport, and set off for Los Angeles.

The journey via Mexico City was uneventful, lacking anything noteworthy until I finally landed in California. Upon arrival, I passed through immigration, collected my luggage, and was just about to leave the building when a lady dressed like a stormtrooper approached and escorted me to the infamous red-faced, corpulent customs agent.

He scrutinised me from head to toe. We couldn’t have been more glaringly mismatched. In stark contrast to his pot-bellied, pasty and bloated bulk, there I stood—sun-tanned, athletic, and sporting a dark brown ponytail, practically an extended version of a Mexican.

I couldn’t for the life of me figure out what had made me a suspect. Wasn’t it a bit racist to judge someone purely by their appearance?

The annoyingly persistent officer asked me to open my bag, repeatedly questioning whether everything in it belonged to me. Or perhaps someone in Cancun had asked me to make a delivery of some sort? Now, he insisted, would be a good chance to come clean.

I simply stared at him and stayed quiet. He started rummaging through my belongings, his pale, sweaty hands digging deeper until, finally, he pulled out my stuffed turtle.

“What is this?”

I considered the question utterly ridiculous, but instead of voicing that, I restrained myself and explained, as calmly as I could, that this, indeed, was a parting gift from my girlfriend. Perhaps I had to agree, it wasn’t exactly the pinnacle of stuffed animal craftsmanship, but surely that shouldn’t be a crime. Anyway, I’d really like to be on my way now, if that’s okay.

“What’s in it?” Now he was fully committed to his mission, clearly not planning to let me off the hook that easily.

I pointed out the obvious—my patience thinning—with a polite smile: “Sir, I assume some kind of padding, perhaps? Don’t you think?”

He started squeezing the turtle, then inspecting the seams with the intensity of a detective solving a high-stakes murder case. And then, just to make sure he hadn’t missed something, he asked again.

“What is hidden in this animal?!”

My patience for this imbecile began to evaporate faster than a puddle in the death valley at high noon.

I took a deep breath and said, “Well, officer, I believe there’s some kind of microphone in it. If you hug and squeeze it, it makes a sound.”

He immediately hugged and squeezed the turtle, but, of course, it remained stubbornly silent.

The agent looked at me with narrowed eyes. “Doesn’t talk much, your turtle, does it?”

My patience was now a thin thread, ready to snap. “What can I say? Maybe my turtle doesn’t talk to everyone.”

“You think this is a joke, boy?”

“No officer, as a matter of fact, I don’t. A requisite for a joke is that it’s funny. This is not amusing at all. I have friends waiting for me for dinner, and I’m really getting tired of discussing my stuffed animal. If I wanted to do that, I’d be at a dinner party with a bunch of five-year-olds, not at a customs checkpoint.”

That comment seemed to hit a nerve. Without any forewarning, he grabbed the turtle and hurled it to the floor with a force that suggested he was training for the next Olympic shot put competition. Unsurprisingly, the turtle showed no reaction other than a modest bounce—if you could even call it that—before it lay perfectly still on the carpet. Not even a single stuffed squeak. The poor thing didn’t seem to care at all.

A second agent, presumably the more composed one, walked over, picked it up, and without so much as a glance at me, ambled off with the turtle in tow. As if he had all the time in the world, he strolled toward the x-ray facility with the same calm demeanour one might display while carrying a cup of coffee on a lazy Sunday morning.

I stood there, my mind as blank as the sheet of paper I had returned for the physics exam on quantum dynamics, desperately wishing I could be anywhere else—preferably somewhere where I wasn’t being interrogated over a stuffed turtle. The officer, still maintaining that relentless "I’m-getting-to-the-bottom-of-this" stare, seemed convinced I was a criminal mastermind hiding behind a plush toy that couldn’t even pass as a decent travel pillow.

I could practically hear the gears turning in his head, trying to catch any sign of nervousness—an involuntary blink, a twitch, a bead of sweat—or any other obvious sign of my criminal genius status. So far, though, the only thing he'd managed to discover was that my stuffed turtle wasn’t exactly hiding a stash of diamonds. Yet.

But the winds were shifting, and the x-ray agent, looking as pleased with himself as a cat who just knocked something off a shelf, came strolling back with my now infamous parting gift.

"Inconclusive," he said with a smirk, as if that was the most exciting thing to happen all day. "It’s too mushy in there to detect anything. Looks clean. Dogs couldn’t smell anything either."

I couldn’t help but think: well, at least someone in this circus got something right today.

"OK," said my tormentor, "I have to cut it open now!" With that, he raised the turtle high, drew out his laughable pocket knife, and set the blade to the seams. My world came to a grinding halt.

"Last chance now," he said, his eyes narrowing.

"For the love of God, just do it!" I shot back, barely holding it together. I just wanted to get the hell out of there.

We stood there, locked in a silent standoff, each of us brimming with utter disdain for the other. Finally, with a victorious grunt, he spat, "Welcome to America. Now pack up your stuff and get out of here. On your way!"

It took every ounce of willpower I had not to dash for the exit. Instead, I slowly gathered my belongings, putting on the most deliberate, casual act I could manage, trying my best not to look as desperate as I felt.

Five minutes later, I was out on the road, trembling like a virgin on her wedding night, heading straight for Willy's place. I arrived to find his apartment empty, with a "For Rent" sign out front. His car, his motorcycle, and his roommate had all disappeared. Even his phone was disconnected.

Nobody at Venice Beach Gold's Gym, where he used to train, had any idea where he’d gone. Every attempt to track him down was a dead end. Willy had simply vanished.

Or... maybe he hadn't been as lucky as I was with that nosy customs officer.

Who knows? Such is life, I guess…

Marcel Romdane