Gummies and Orange Soda

April 23, 2021: Guadalajara, Mexico

I touched down in Guadalajara on Friday after nine hours of travel to begin a six-week stint working remotely from Mexico. All things considered, the journey went smoothly. I got to the L platform right as the train was pulling out, so I had to take a fiercely expensive Uber to O’Hare at 4am, but at least I didn’t encounter any poop. Flights got pretty full, so I wasn’t able to fly standby, but the last minute one-way ticket was cheap. My tendency to overresearch gave me absolute confidence: by the time I got through the short line for immigration at Guadalajara’s fairly compact airport, I knew that I was allowed to be here, that I could work remotely (for my US employer), for how long I could continue doing it without a visa (180 days), and that my employer was good with it (for 30 working days). The agent asked if I spoke Spanish and sent me on my way. The adventure started at customs.

I had thought immigration would ask the tough questions, but as it turned out customs brought the heat. This agent asked how long I would be here, where I was coming from, and if I had anything to declare. The form distributed on the plane indicated that I could bring any of this list into the country duty free. A sampling:

• Personal clothing and footwear, personal toiletries and beauty products
• Baby travel accessories such as strollers and baby walkers (you must have a baby present)
• Two photographic cameras or video recorders
• 12 rolls of film or videocassettes
• Three cell phones or other wireless networks
• One typewriter
• One laptop computer
• One portable projector
• Four fishing rods
• Three speedboats with or without sails and their accessories, trophies or recognitions, provided that they can be transported normally and commonly by the passenger
• One stair climber
• Five laser disks
• 10 DVDs
• 30 compact disks (CD) or magnetic tapes (audiocassettes)
• Books, magazines and printed documents
• Five toys
• One video game console and five videogames
• A camping tent
• Up to three dogs or cats, may be brought to Mexico as well as their accessories, provided that the corresponding zoo sanitary import certificate issued by (SAGARPA) is presented to the customs officials.

Well, I had no baby, no dogs, no cats, zero laser disks, DVDs, fishing rods or stair climbers, but as luck would have it I packed my personal laptop along with my work one. I could have had three boats crammed into my luggage, but the damn computer’s gonna be a problem. The form didn’t have offer a place to alert the authorities that I had too many laptops, so I figured I’d have it out with the customs agents when I got there. I could afford a 16% tax on my three-year old Lenovo if necessary.

Without asking specifically about any laptops, the first agent waved me on to the stand behind him with the happy face button on it. People ahead of me hit the button, and it either told them to continue on their way or to step off to the side to have their bags scanned. It’s still not clear to me if this was a random search or if the first agent thought I looked suspicious (with my six weeks of supplies crammed into a carry-on suitcase and an overstuffed backpack), but in any case the button turned red for me and they directed me to the X-ray machine.

This new agent asked if I spoke Spanish. “Not well enough for customs,” I said. It’s a confusing process and I’m still learning. They scanned my luggage and then put it on a folding table on the other side of the conveyor belt. This agent searched my suitcase (which was one shirt away from exploding and already precariously de-organized after a shorter search at O’Hare. Maybe it is me.) and his counterpart (a third agent) searched my backpack. Agent Two began a gentle interrogation.

• Do I have any CBD? (No, do I look inflamed?)
• Vape pens? (Come on.)
• How many laptops do I have? (Two. Oh, and I also have an iPad.)
• You have one laptop and one iPad. (No, two laptops, one iPad.)
• He points at a sign. You can only have one laptop. (I’m sorry. I didn’t know. Which I didn’t, until about five minutes prior. Can I pay a fee?)
• How much is the laptop worth? (I don’t know. $500 dollars? What are used laptops even going for these days?)
• Okay. It’s okay. The second laptop can be categorized as a gift. The limit on gifts is $500. (Phew, lucky guess. What if I’d said it was worth $550? Also, this gift limit for air travelers checks out – i.e. he wasn’t just cutting me a break – if these two strangers’ blog is to be believed.)
• He starts to search my backpack. (Your colleague already searched that.) No response. What are these? Are they CBD? He holds up the bag of McKeesport Candy Co. gummies I brought along with me. (No, those are just gummies. What is with this guy and the CBD? Is that the most perilous thing I could be smuggling into Mexico?)
• Okay. Enjoy your trip.

Overall, pretty nice guy, and by my estimation he saved me about $80 – not ruinous, but enough to be annoying – with his categorization of laptop number two. Onward, to get an Uber into town.

The request process was simple enough (I’ve been banned from Uber on my personal phone, a story for another day, and I couldn’t get my credit card working with DiDi, but Uber on my work phone came through just fine) and I met the driver outside the airport OXXO. Friendly, seems professional and fairly straight-edged. His button-down is tucked into his jeans, he moved from Tijuana to Guadalajara to be with his wife, and he starts recommending churches for me to go to on Sunday. The drive in from the airport is uninspiring – a little dusty, not much in the way of eye-catching architecture, a good amount of traffic and no clear line of sight to the mountains yet. All good.

We pull up at a red light and a guy tries to sell the driver a new windshield wiper. Just a single blade. Seems like a strange business model unless the cars have obviously defective wipers, but the salesman is polite and moves on at the first refusal. The next side-of-the road salesman to visit our car has what looks like stacks of cigarette packs. The driver engages this one and gets one small, white, unmarked box. He asks if I want one. I start to say no, but he removes the lid and it’s not cigarettes at all: inside are a bunch of tiny little gummies. How does he know me so well? My first Mexican gummies before I’ve even gotten to my first destination. What a day.

I take just one, wanting to be respectful, and eat it. It’s tasty and very normal. What’s this called? “It’s a borrachito.” Hmm, that sounds a lot like borracho, i.e. drunk, but what’s in a name anyways? “What is it, just sugar and nothing more?” I ask, trying to be playful about how naughty and unhealthy we’re being here in the mid-afternoon. “It’s sugar and a little liquor.” A little liquor?!

Look, I’m no Puritan about alcohol. I’m not a prohibitionist. I’m not looking at someone askance if they drive home after having a glass of wine. True, this was the first taste of alcohol I’d had in a long time (probably since my then-new friend Ruben thought I asked for a gin-and-tonic, rather than just tonic, at a loud bar two hours into our acquaintance in London in 2016 and I had to get a sip into the cup to realize), but I’m not even thinking: there goes nearly eight years of sobriety down the drain. It was one tiny gummy, it only has “a little liquor,” and I couldn’t have known.

But at this point I am thinking: this guy is driving (for work, no less), the traffic is a little crazy at times, and he’s got a whole box to finish. Once I had the chance to do some research, I learned that borrachitos can be up to 4% alcohol. Scarf enough down and, I imagine, you could start to get a little buzz on (start to get borrachito, you could say). With any luck, that at least took a lot longer than we had left in our ride.