Ever been stopped at DOUANE for the strangest thing ?

I remember my first trip to Poland. It was by rail. I was very careful to make sure that I was not carrying any contraband. Westerners with long hair were highly suspicious and generally the last ones to be attended in the train car.

The one article that made me sweat it out when the luggage was checked was the catalogue from Sears Roebuck & Company. The store was a treasure trove for those obsessed with conspicuous consumption (j/k). I think the variety was what bothered the East Bloc folks more than anything else. What I found most amusing was the fact that this was during the era of the maxi dress on girl. (Think of Little House on the Prairie). The style never made it there. When they saw the pages and pages of long dresses, the comment was, "This is very old fashioned," or "Kind of out-of-date, wouldn't you say?"

Surprisingly, what captured the eyes of the inspectors was the toilettries kit. Now, try to wonder what kind of eyebrow raising could possibly happen to a 20-something year old in 1979 with a bag of grooming aids. It started with shaving cream. They had never seen it. Even when I put a little of it on my finger, rubbed it on my face, and then began to do a mock shave... I called it ersatz shaving bar soap. Then there was the after shave. Mine was Club Man by Pinaud.


I'm not sure if they were more impressed with the shape of the bottle or by the image of the dandy with top hat and cane. I'm guessing it looked like something from a by-gone era (like the maxi dresses in the Sears Roebuck and Company catalogue). I had a variety of clippers (fingernail, toenail, cuticle), emery boards, orange sticks (for gunk under the nail) and small supplies of OTC medicine for constipation, diarrhea, allergies, and asthma. I hadn't had asthma attacks since childhood, but I don't travel without something.

I no longer shock agents when I cross borders. I think the most dangerous thing I had ever carried was a bottle of Puerto Rican rum in a towel I had lifted from the Hilton hotel. Puerto RIco, by the way, is not technically considered international travel.

Before that it was the raised seal embosser that I was carrying when I was a notary public. Someone thought it might be a gun!