Once upon a time in a Deutschland far away a border control agent very loudly and aggressively screamed at me to “Take off that ridiculous hat!” And a Munich German fairytale full of bratwurst and beer was born. This was just minutes after stepping off a Ryanair flight from Gatwick to somewhere in the countryside a train ride away from Munich. There was a big beautiful lake on this rainy day so many years ago and the train station had cold German beer. Those are all the main parts that stand out in my memory about that first afternoon in Germany.
There was a German passenger train waiting to take us into Munich’s city center and adventure at Octoberfest. But first I had to take off my ridiculous hat because obviously, no matter what country I am in, I am the absolute worst at pissing off border patrol agents.
Fast forward 15 years to 2022 and many a California has looked at me in scorn and I’m sure are thinking to themselves I wish you would take off that ridiculous hat. It’s been said to me many times in many ways. Here in 2022 my boyfriend and I love travels to Baja California, but those border waits, dios mio. This week my boyfriend and I are working on obtaining our global entry status so maybe we can speed up these border checkpoints and also get out of Mexico a bit faster and not have to sit in a four-hour wait at the San Ysidro border crossing.
But first I had to sweat my ass off at the IdentiGo center for an hour and a half. A helpful center for confirming identity in the hot and humid valley an hour’s drive from where I live. IndentiGo was efficiently run but it would have been nice if they had air conditioning. Also, I’m fairly certain the man ahead of me in the dirty white wifebeater had Monkeypox. Either that or it was just the absolute worst back acne I have ever seen in all my life. This is why I don’t leave my mountain home!
Also because border patrol agents worldwide hate me. And that was way before I owned a Let’s Go Brandon hat. I don’t know what it is about me. I always approach the border patrol agent when we travel, passport in hand, a smile on my face and ” Yes sir or mame” on my lips. Maybe it’s that I’m so friendly after waiting in line for three hours that makes them yell at me every damn time.
I mean this was once upon a time before a global pandemic when we could travel at will all over the world without being afraid we would catch Covid and spend our entire holiday in quarantine. We didn’t have smartphones. Donald Trump was still a reality t.v. star and 2006 Amber had no idea she would own a smelly dog one day. Life was good.
It was the same kind of situation leaving Mexico recently. We waited in the border check line for three hours at San Ysidro, this was Thanksgiving weekend, and we were pretty damn exhausted by the time we could actually see San Diego behind the gates of the border. And we still had a three-hour drive home to Big Bear Lake ahead of us. Everything seemed fine as we handed over our passports then the border agent yelled at us to take our sunglasses off. Apparently one most take their sunglasses off while addressing border control agent
s. Okay, I never realized that you should take off your sunglasses going through border patrol! It’s Southern California! I mean my sunglasses are basically part of my face! At least I wasn’t wearing a ridiculous hat this time.
