Ok folks, here's a beauty of a post from April. I'm not sure why this was never published. But here it is now, for your reading enjoyment:

Quick, three guesses as to which plant I did not try to smuggle into the States.

I'll give you a hint: the answer is not tulips.

Actually, my innocence was proved by the scientific method, y'know the old 1. make an observation, 2. form a hypothesis, 3. test that with an experiment, 4. repeat the experiment to see if the results are the same, and (now for the best part) 5. make a scientific law!

In practice it goes something like this:

1. Who's this rather attractive-yet-tired-looking 23 year old male travelling alone from Amsterdam? 2. I bet he has tried to smuggle drugs. Let's earmark his boarding pass for a search.

3. As leaders in the industrial revolution, the British were first to test the hypothesis, the result: no drugs (or bombs for that matter), one package of Camembert cheese. The cheese is better here than in the states? me: of course. Thanks for letting me go. The most exciting part of this search was being told to remove my shoes and then put them back on in the same minute. All the annoyance of an american airport with none of the shoe security.

Of course the Americans will never let themselves be outdone by the British. We'll give all of step 4 to the Custom & Border Patrol (I saw them arresting an Italian in Boston). Again the suspicion, again the search, but this time with some interesting questions that caught me off guard, mostly hinging on whether or not I had met any "friends": So how long were you in the Netherlands? me: 3 months. And did you meet any "friends" there? me: blank stare, uh sorry? Did you meet any "friends?" Uh, there were other people there - yeah, some of them were my friends. But were they from the Netherlands? me: some of them, some of them were from Portugal and Lichtenstein. Did they give you anything? Uh, I don't remember, I mean some chocolate at some point maybe, a book?... coughdrops?... Anything else you'd like to declare before I open your bag? 3 Heineken glasses that I got for free. rummage, rummage, rummage... ah ha! what's this? That sir is Camembert cheese, I believe it's a French cheese sir. (and now for the dramatic denoument) French Cheese! but I thought you were in the Netherlands...

Thusly was discovered weber's law: at any time during my trip I had not marijuana in my bag but rather french cheese, which I got in Holland.