Talkin' South Texan

Talkin' South Texan

The New York customs inspection terminal was huge
and filled with long lines of people waiting to get their
piles of luggage cleared.

As they would clear one person or couple after tearing
and rifling through all their belongings they would order
them to move their things on down the long countertop
so they could try to put their things back in. Then they
would order the next people up.

What a mess. Some of those poor people were having a
wretched time trying to get all the things previously
folded in neat order to fit again.

There my wife and I stood, two couples removed from
getting our things torn from limb to limb we surmised.

We were returning from nearly two months in the African
bush and were too excited about seeing family, friends
and eating some real food, the kind most folks in the
world need fire extinguishers to eat.

We were so excited about being nearly home that our
lively conversation probably carried several isles around
us.

Now two people who have spent nearly seven decades growing up and living in an area with spanish, or really mestizo, a part
of your daily language those words will be mixed in with
the conversation. Sometimes one or two words can mean
a paragraph to your conversant partner, saving time to
move on with other things.
We just went on and on, probably to the annoyance of
those grumpy folks around us awaiting their turn.

Finally we moved up to the counter and started lifting our
luggage off the cart and on to the counter. Grunting and
groaning with the big pieces.

My wife got our passports out of her travel purse and laid
them on the top of our luggage, ready for the mess to start.
Two big male officers and a small woman officer glared at
us.

"Do you have anything to declare?", the biggest one said.

My wife handed them some trinkets and things we had
bought from some of the tribes we had visited, mostly to
help them out.

He looked at the items and at the other two officers then
back at us.

"What part of Texas are you two from?" he asked.

We were shocked he would ask us a question such as this
since he hadn't even looked at our passports.

"Why Sowth Taxes, Cawpuss Christi to be eggzact" I
responded.

They smiled, then the lady officer couldn't hold it any
longer and went into uncontrolled laughter which caused
the two men to lose it. They had been listening to us carry
on for nearly an hour.

"And how far is that from the Rio Grande river?" he asked.

"Ummm, guess the Ryegrand is bout a hunnerd fifty miles
sowth, sowthwest of us best I can figger", I answered.

He glanced at our passports, glanced at us again as he
chuckled and said, "Get out of here."

"You're not going to look through our things?" I questioned.
"Nope!" He laughed.

"Why?"

"Discretion is our option, if we all three agree to pass a
person we are allowed to do it, BYE".

They were still laughing.
We loaded our things back on the cart and headed
towards the terminal and our flight home. The several
people still repacking just glared at us. Maybe they
need to take a course in what we call our Texan language skills. Could
open a lot of doors for them.

Mark Crider Existential philosopher,
raconteur, and dean of dirty words,

Story ID:	3590
Written by:	Mark Crider (bio, link, contact, other stories)
Organization:	Corpus Christi Coating & Machine Inc.
Location:	New York New York U.S.A.
Year:	1976