After months at work I was starting to miss the motherland. I was also becoming uneasy about my imminent illegal status. My birthday was coming up and, when I would speak to my friends back home, it sounded like they were having a lot more fun than I.

After a few days of reflection it was decided. I was going home for a few weeks. Not a problem, my visa allows me multiple entries. It’s not like I was admitted into some highbrow Hollywood club; ins-and-outs are allowed, right?

Happy-go-lucky visa travelers take heed. It’s the immigration officer at the port of entry who’s going to make the decision on your admission regardless of what’s allowed by your visa. That being said, leaving the country only return several weeks later is a sure way to have the good ol’ boys at customs asking more questions than a middle aged balding man on a speed date.

Nevertheless I left. And I partied. And I attempted to return. But I prepared, prepared for a (potential) brooding onslaught by customs.

I arrived back at the Tom Bradley International Terminal and waited in the dreaded customs line, it wasn’t too bad, just an hour or so, but I was on Xanax (my favorite palindrome) and I was freaking out. It was a long flight, I needed the Xanax. I highly recommend it for all you travelers, particularly for long flights in coach.

I had a friend of mine transfer a somewhat large sum of money into my bank account. My story was that I’d inherited a lot of money and I wanted to travel the American countryside spending it. I’d also purchased a return ticket.

Getting the male agent instead of the martinet Asian women in her mid 40s couldn’t hurt my chances either.

What can I say, men are men and, realistically, most men are venerable around attractive women. They can’t help it, it’s something deeply rooted in their genetic structure.

My turn in line comes, I get the man. He’s cute, friendly looking, he welcomes me to the USA and asks if I’ve been here before and, if so, when.

“[some unnamed month] this year”, I tell him.

He gets on his computer, swipes my passport, looks up my travel history and asks what I’ve been doing in the United States for the past 4 months, and why I’ve come back.

What have I been doing, well I sure as hell wasn’t going to tell him I’d been depositing money from my American job into my American bank account. Never! I’m the type of girl that sticks to my plans.

“Traveling around”, I reply, nervously

“Where have you been”, he queries.

Where have I been, I can’t possibly flinch on this one. I’ve been answering this, along with an assortment of related, monotonous, flat out unexciting questions from American men even since I arrived.

Archetypal American man/dolt: “So [perceived popular noun from my home land], do they really eat a lot of X there? Huh, huh”, “hey [another perceived popular noun from my homeland] does like everyone there have a Y or something? Huh, huh”, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Gees, do you American men know how to have a conversation with someone from another country that isn’t rooted in nonsensical stereotypes?!

Anyways…

I tell the Customs Agent that I’ve been all over California, the Pacific North West, even Mexico, and that I can’t wait to see the East Coast, Midwest, and Canada.

“How do you expect to pay for this?”

I perked up and responded, “Well, I just inherited [somewhat large monetary value] dollars”, digging into my purse, I pull out a statement from my bank account back home.

He looks at me, looks at my elegant little hand offering up the statement, and says, “This isn’t adding up”.

My stomach dropped, I felt sick, and I was beginning to freak out.

“Show me what’s in your purse” he demands

What does he want my purse for? My purse, my fucking purse, the one with my American bank card, no, no no, no, no!

I thought, “What could he possibly be looking for?” A fake social security card is what he was looking for. Thankfully I didn’t have one of those —yet. But the bank card, no, the bank card in the first zipper pocket!

The bright light of reentry was beginning to dim.

I pass him my purse (which was, and still is a god awful mess), the zipper countdown began.

Zipper 3: More lip gloss than a woman with collegian injections traveling through Sub-Saharan Africa in August

Zipper 2: Camera, phone, tons of gum, candy, all sorts of crap.

Zipper 1: He never got there! He had been overwhelmed by my hoard of bric-a-brac in zippers 1 and 2.

He hands me back my purse. I had suddenly regained the upper hand, I got my second wind. I was ready for round two.

The agent, well, he too was ready. Unsatisfied by his near round 1 knockout he called his supervisor over. The supervisor arrives, the bell rings, and round two was on and crackin’.

What do I do? I come out swinging. I start crying.

I bewail, “You’re making me feel like I’m doing something wrong” The Agent starts to bring his Supervisor up to speed, and me, I just kept it coming, bringing the emotional ruckus to The Agents.

“You’re making me feel like I’m doing something wrong and I’m not. All I want is to remain in the United States for the remainder of my visa”

Then I really let into um, attaching my emotionally unstable howls to any US monument I could think of: “Ahhh, no, I’m never going to get to see The Grand Canyon. Whaaaa The Empire State Building whaaaaa —Half Dome, no, my god the beautiful half dome! I’m not going to be able to hike to Half Dome!”

The Supervisor explains to me what’s happening, “Miss, our job is to look for situations that are out of the ordinary. Normally people come to the US for a month or two. It’s not normal for someone to spend half a—” stopping himself, he asks the other agent, “How many months?”

“4 months sir”

He continued, “It’s not normal for someone to be in this country for 4 months without working”.

I reiterated to him that I’d inherited a lot of money and wanted to travel the American countryside.

He too didn’t buy it, and followed up by telling me they had reason to believe that I’d been working.

I told him that last thing I want to do is work and that I’d been dreaming about traveling though America for years. Besides, I had a return ticket.

I think that was the clincher.

He looks over and asks the Agent how many times I’ve been in-and-out the country.

“2 times sir”

Seeming pleased, yet somewhat reluctant, he turned back to me and said “This is your last miss, stomper in”.

Full of glee I grab my duds and begin my “stomper” into expatriation.

The Agent leaves me with some hard-hitting parting words: “About an hour or two ago we had another woman from [my country] with a similar story. We took her upstairs for verification. Turns out she’s been working here the whole time and we just put her on a plane back to [my country]”.