Brooklyn Drug Moll Nabbed in Frankfurt

The next time you happen to be flying into the Frankfurt Airport, do not, I repeat, DO NOT, pack powdered L. Glutamine in your carry-on bag.

Oh, you may well be tempted. You may march into your local health-food store the day before your trip and pay $40 for a bucket of the stuff. You may feel quite virtuous, thinking, look at me, even when I'm out of the country, I'll be following the instructions of my nutritionist-cum-holistic-pharmacist and taking 3 scoops of L. Glutamine before every meal so that I might strengthen my gut, which said nutritionist-cum-yadda-yadda claims is the key to boosting my half-ass immune system. You may even feel a twinge of pride (oh, deadliest of sins!) — after all, you have managed to fit this errand into the two hundred thirty-nine other errands that moving to Berlin for two months has required of you.

ALAS. Though you may take all necessary precautions — zip-locking multiple liquids of 3 ounces or less into see-through bags; flashing your passport and boarding pass at every turn; dressing in none of your usual out-sized bling; always laying your laptop in its own bin — you will have screwed yourself. Big. Without your knowing.

First your bra will set off the metal detectors (underwire be damned!). This, natch, will set the customs personnel on high alert. A female prison-warden will demand that you open your black bag. Which you do, slightly abashed at what lies on top: a huge blue Grover doll forced into a fetal position for lack of space. Which she will ignore (poor G), instead examining every liquid while you pray pray pray none gets confiscated (fancy foaming face cleanser; fancier anti-wrinkle eye cream; fanciest of all face lotion = $$$!!!). No, there's something else, she'll insist, rummaging further. And out she whips: A freezer-sized Gladd bag full of the softest, finest, purest-white of all powders. It is...you are ...oh my god STUPID.   

Interestingly, it is at this very moment that your German, which has spent the entire Lufthansa flight cowering behind some thick curtain in your brain, comes leaping out, as if it has never had a moment of stage-fright in its life. You are explaining, without a stumble, about vitamins and intestines and health problems, and how, oh, gosh, it never even occured to you, what this must look like, how very silly, but really, it's not...

That may be so, says the female prison-warden, but how can she know for certain what this stuff is and she's certainly not going to taste it, and it wouldn't smell of anything anyway, and she's no expert so she must alert the authorities. She's actually quite nice about it, in her brisk way. You repeat how you never once thought of what this must look like (the phrase you've hit upon in German feel so instinctively, idiomatically correct that you are helpless not to recycle it).

The female prison-warden hollers (guess fluency doesn't count for much) and waves the bag high in the air. Two men in military garb hone in on you. You reiterate your prize German phrase. The short one marches the powder away. The tall one guards you. He might have stepped out of Bismark's army, stoic beneath his walrus moustach. Within seconds the short one is back: The drug-unit customs office is devoid of drug-testing specialists. "Just hold on a few minutes," he tells you, "any minute now." He makes conversation. "L. Vitamine?" he mispronounces kindly. "For the stomach? I could use it." You try to laugh.

An official-something man in a suit rushes over. "When is your connecting flight?" he wants to know. It departs in fifteen minutes, make that ten. "Where are those drug-testers!" he says. The official is anxious. The short man is anxious. You are (certainly) anxious. Only the tall guard appears not anxious at all. "I'll call the gate," the official offers and runs off; the short man sprints back to the office, palming your powder.  They're terribly solicitous for men whose job it is to  throw you in jail.

"Listen, if I have to, I'll just leave it," you tell the tall guard. You are weighing the alternatives and it seems that building immunity through the gut for the next two months might be of lower priority than disentangling yourself from this debacle and making your flight to Berlin. Besides, doesn't this offer of yours prove it's not snortable (sneaky!). The tall guard says nothing. "I'll just leave it," you say again. He speaks: "It doesn't matter. We still have to determine what it is, whether you want to take it or not."

Of course. Any smart Boerum Hill drug czarina would think it worth her freedom to abandon her booty at Frankfurt customs and hop a flight to the hippest city in Europe.

You are STUCK.

Suddenly you see your baggy across the room, wafting high in the air. It is rushing in your direction, the short guard's arm attached to it. The drug tests proved negative! Which shouldn't be a surprise to you, and yet, it was hard not to worry that the L. Glutamine would register as a narcotic. The guard passes the baggie off to you, and you clutch it to your chest, awash with gratitude. Now hurry," he says. "That flight leaves any second." You shove the powder into your bag and zip it closed so quickly, it feels like you've caught the plastic in the zipper's teeth. By the time you get to Berlin poor blue Grover will likely be coated white. Suddenly the awful thought comes: "But will this happen in Berlin too?" "No knowing," says the tall guard with a twitch of his shoulders, and you're off, breathless, the last leg of a customs-enforced relay race. Make! That! Plane!

*        *        *

And...here I am now. Sitting at a sidewalk café on Kufürstendamm. FREE, oh my god, free. Unemployed. Unattached. Unresponsible for: cat, spiderplant, lucky bamboo, Tuesday paper recycling.

For breakfast I had the kind of crunchy-on-the-outside, steamy-on-the-inside whole-grain roll that only the Germans can make. Packed with gluten. That immune-system-destroying ingredient that I'm not supposed to eat, ever. I have a fat sack of white powder in my black bag. I did not, I repeat, did NOT have three scoops of said powder before eating said gluten-rich meal. I feel very very fine. Other than sort of being near death because I haven't slept for 24-hours straight.

Seems I got lucky. Customs gents were not operating under the Patriot Act. No Zoll to contend with in Berlin. And I did not catch the plastic in the zipper's teeth.

Nevertheless: My warning stands. Beware pride, my friends. Beware false virtuousity. Leave the L. Glutamine behind!* Do like Nancy do: Just say Nein.

*Or, for god's sake, buy the capsule variety.

Comments

[Julie]

Hilarious. What was the phrase? Did you get it right?

Congratulations on making it past the Gestapo...

[Eric]

Glutamine? Great idea. And they let you right through? I'll have to try that... So you just tell them you'll leave it and off you go?

[Lilan]

Actually, they drug-tested it and it came out negative. Oops, not clear from the post--must revise asap.

[Julie @ the calm before the stork]

Holy crap, girl. You're approaching your one-year anniversary of moving to Germany!?! (And secondarily, your blogiversary. Happy writering.)

I suggest going back and reading your archives. I just started to and had this feeling that you would get a kick out of doing that.

Or not.

xoxo,
j.

[Lilan]

Oh totally! Actually, I am a glutton for my own prose, I go back and peek all the time. It's sort of embarrassing. :-)

I cannot believe I have been here one year either. So weird because I feel as if I just starting, or starting over.