Searching

Searching ©

By

Michael Casey

I just saw a photo on LinkedIn I don’t know was it a policeman searching a dog or was it a police dog. If searching, was the policeman looking for drugs or fleas?

When you are young you get searched when you go through customs, the pat down, just as Starsky and Hutch used to do in their show. I once was once going through customs, maybe 30 years ago, and the customs guy asked what the tin was in my luggage. Snails I replied, he pulled his hand out of my luggage quickly.

As you get older and your hair gets whiter, you are stopped less and less by customs. You are relieved, but also saddened, because old age is catching  up on you,  or so customs think, so you don’t need to be searched.

Then you get married and have a family so everything should be quicker as you go through customs. Only today’s world means that everybody is dangerous in the eyes of the customs. So it’s a virtual strip tease as you take off your shoes and belt and all metal things in your possession.  Revealing a hole in your sock, and stinking the place out with your smelly feet.  And then they Xray you too.

If you are “unlucky” enough to have had hip replacement, you set off alarms because of your new hip joint. I’ve avoided the hip replacement for now, however in the future I’m sure my children will be amused by me ringing all those alarm bells.

So now you arrive in a country with your English looking children, apart from the hair, with your young Shanghai wife, and the customs guy in NY raises his eyebrows. Where did you find her Mack, he asks. In the Seniors’ home I reply, he looks in disbelief. Then he says Grandpa, you are a lucky SOB.

Another time another place, Shanghai, we get waved through the Diplomatic Customs gate, they must respect my white hair and age. Or it could have been because the children were so small. But it was good for my ego.