Archives: Undercover Transport Services
3/10/03
The term "smuggler" is so insensitive.
Sam: Stephen: Have you heard back from the Caribbean Smuggler's Academia Association yet? I got a letter yesterday saying they had received my application and would be sending me an answer sometime next month.
Stephen: My application got returned. I didn't include the proper postage!
Sam: Darn!
Stephen: But I called Lazy Jim, the head of admissions.
Sam: Good, good.
Stephen: He says if I send the original envelope, they'll consider it though it was late.
Sam: Awesome. Are you still going to do freelance until you hear? I actually got a Beanie Baby job this morning. You wouldn't figure that fad was still going strong enough to interest those folks.
Stephen: I forgot it cost extra to send stuff to the Caribbean.
Stephen: And, what all the doubloons and cases of rum I included to help out the application, it was even more.
Sam: But, then again, "I don't know what the beans are made out of," so maybe that explains it.
Stephen: Heh heh heh. I hear that.
Stephen: Last gig I had was moving a shipment of Pet Rocks. I knew enough not to look into the crates too carefully.
Sam: I love Miami. Other places, you have to lie low from the heat. In Miami, you just wave a gun around and fit right in.
Stephen: Oh, man, Miami. What a town!
Stephen: I dig M-town. The folks there know how to treat a guy, so long as you don't run your mouth all the time.
Stephen: Only town this side of Kazakhstan where the populace is more armed than the cops.
Stephen: And that's not even talking 'bout the dames they got down there.
Stephen: Well, El Paso ain't too shabby, either.
Stephen: But I don't work in the Gulf ever since the Noodle Incident.
Sam: I actually heard talk about Dave Barry the other day. For years I've been trying to figure out if he was just a goob that was so twacked in the head he didn't realize where he was, or if his booger jokes were just a cover. Turns out, he crossed the wrong Man in 1978, and the Man's been Scheherazade on his butt ever since.
Sam: Soon as he prints a column that isn't funny, he sleeps with the fishes.
Stephen: Ooooh, talk about a tough gig.
Sam: He had it coming.
Stephen: Yeah?
Sam: Yeah, he dipped into the haul and held out on his friends. Rumor has it, he embezzled fifteen mil in hot Star Wars action figures.
Stephen: Wow. Back in '78?
Sam: Yep. Must be worth a hundred times that now.
Stephen: Those things would be worth ten times that today!
Sam: Or ten.
Sam: Well, hey, how do you think he got so rich? It wasn't by running his funny mouth all the time. You said it yourself.
Stephen: Yeah, that figures.
Stephen: So, what, did he move the goods?
Stephen: Or does he still have 'em stashed somewhere?
Stephen: I figure it'd be hard to move $15 mil in figures under the Man's nose in '78.
Sam: Beats me what he did with it. If I were that clever, I wouldn't be applying to no smuggler school, you know?
Sam: So what's this Noodle Incident? I heard about that, but I was in the Pacific at the time, supplying "duty free" strawberry hullers to Micronesia.
Stephen: The Noodle Incident...
Stephen: The story begins with a dame, as they all do.
* Sam snatches some chicks and cheese and settles in for a story.
Stephen: Some leggy broad in a dress that clung to her body in the El Paso heat like the coast guard on some hot Tickle Me Elmos. She sets up a meeting with me one day through a mutual friend. This was back when I based out of the Gulf, you know?
Stephen: Running stuff all around the Lone Star and our neighbor to the south. Good money, lots of work.
Stephen: I had some connections, was getting my name built up out there.
Stephen: She tells me some sob story about how her daddy died and left a lot of debts that, er, needed to be paid. Not exactly bank debts, if you catch my drift.
Stephen: Turns out her daddy was the Pasta King. She's the heiress to the El Paso Pasto Co. fortune, if she can get the vultures off her back.
Stephen: Seems daddy had a shipment of linguine noodles down south.
Stephen: 100% pure.
Sam: !!
Stephen: The stuff would street for a thousand times her cost. Before he kicked it, the old man had set up some arrangement with a guy down there. Got it all from South America; Colombia or something.
Sam: I got a haul like that, I'd be retired in Fiji by now.
Stephen: Problem was, daddy was gone before he could move it.
Stephen: And now the Feds were watching the company (he owed them money too, big shock) as well as these goons.
Stephen: If she went to anyone local, they'd just take the goods to pay off her debts (which weren't nearly that high).
Stephen: So she comes to me.
Stephen: Says she'll give me 25% of the loot.
Stephen: Says she's so desperate.
Stephen: And, like a sucker, I fell for it.
Stephen: I was blinded by the cash (and that dress).
Stephen: I did the pickup, and it seemed routine.
Stephen: A little too routine.
Stephen: I had the goods and I was coming into port with the lights kick on.
Stephen: C. Guard everywhere.
Stephen: Seems somebody had tipped 'em off.
Stephen: I bailed but they were waiting for me. No chance.
Stephen: Turns out I had been duped, along with the feds.
Sam: Golly!
Stephen: My cargo was worthless. I was a decoy for a real shipment she was moving along with the local boys.
Stephen: I did a year in a Texas prison; the government was pissed and drummed up some baloney charges on me.
Stephen: Vowed never to set foot in that state again.
Stephen: Headed out east, vowed to make a new go at it, and here I am.
Sam: Hey, you want, I can introduce you to some guys.
Sam: They make problems go away.
Stephen: Yeah?
Sam: For a small fee.
Stephen: Don't think I haven't thought about trying something with her...
Stephen: But she's big time down in the Lone Star these days.
Stephen: Controls over two-thirds of the pasta that moves between Mexico and the U.S.
Stephen: I know when I've been licked.
Sam: Hey, you shouldn't have to take that, man.
Sam: Oh, but hold on a second. I need to get some strawberry banana trifle.
Stephen: Oooh, but that does sound good.
So then there was a lull in the chat room twenty minutes later, and I
attempted to fill the void with a sudden outburst. Stephen, who I think had
been idle, jumped right in as if we had never stopped talking.
Sam: SO THEN I WAS HIRED TO SMUGGLE A SHIPMENT OF CONFLICT DIAMONDS FROM SIERRA LEONE TO ECUADOR.
Sam: I GOT 20% FOR A COMMISSION, WHICH IS A REALLY GREAT RATE. I GOT EXTRA FOR KNOCKING OFF A COUPLE OF FEDS.
Sam: ...
Stephen: THAT'S GREAT. I HATE THE FEDS. ONE TIME I SHOT ONE, JUST TO WATCH HIM DIE.
Sam: YES, THAT IS GOOD.
Stephen: AND THEN I MOVED THIRTY-FIVE CRATES OF OTTER POPS.
Stephen: EXCEPT I MOVED THEM FROM HONG KONG TO ALASKA.
Stephen: DO YOU KNOW HOW HARD IT IS TO FIND A BUYER FOR OTTER POPS IN ALASKA?
famous: IT'S NOT BAD IF YOU KNOW THE RIGHT PEOPLE.
Sam: YEAH, WELL I MOVED FORTY CRATES OF FROOTIES FROM SOUTH KOREA TO THE ARGENTINIAN CLAIM OF ANTARCTICA.
Stephen: WOW. WHAT'D YOU DO WITH THEM?
Sam: I DUMPED THEM ON THE SNOW AND WENT HOME.
Stephen: WHOA, BIG PROFITS!
Sam: YEAH WELL, THE HEAT WAS ON MY TAIL, AND THE FROOTIES WERE HOT, SO I DUMPED THE HOT GOODS SO THE HEAT WOULDN'T FIND IT. TURNS OUT, IT MELTED AN ENTIRE GLACIER AND INCREASED THE WORLD'S OCEAN LEVELS BY A SIXTEENTH OF AN INCH. THE UNITED STATES WAS RELATIVELY UNAFFECTED, BUT THE MAJORITY OF WESTERN EUROPE COULDN'T FIGURE OUT WHAT A SIXTEENTH OF AN INCH WAS, BECAUSE THEY USE THE METRIC SYSTEM AND ALL, SO MILLIONS DROWNED!
Stephen: SWEEET!!!
Stephen: I THINK 1/16" = 400 HOJILLOMETERS
Sam: TOO BAD THEY DIDN'T KNOW THAT AT THE TIME.
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