Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Smuggling Pineapples

Who knew that it would be so hard to get a few pineapples back to the mainland??? I had a grand idea that I would ship a few fresh pineapples back home and I ran into a few problems. I purchased 4 pineapples at 6 bucks a pop. I wanted to send one to my mom for mothers day, one for Kendall's parents for watching the monkeys and a couple for us. I went to the post office to priority mail them and found out that it is illegal to ship fruit out of Hawaii. I was told that I would have to get them inspected by the USDA and get a special stamp before I could send them. Where is the office, it is at the airport.
I called the USDA inspection office and they said that they need to inspect the fruit for bugs before I could get the approval. Like I am going to buy a bug infested pineapple! We decided to just carry them on the plane after the inspection to save the postage. I packed one of the carry on bags with pineapple. After we turned in our rental car, I told the shuttle driver that we need to be dropped off at the USDA office and he stated that it was right in front of the United Airlines check in. At the Check in point it was only for checked luggage, they were checking for smuggled fruits I guess. I told the guy that I had pineapples in my carry on and that I needed to get them inspected, he said that he only inspected the check luggage and that I would need to get them inspected somewhere else later. To make a long story short, the ticket lady for United did not know where to inspect them, Where I dropped my luggage off to the airline did not know where to get them inspected. I now had to go thru security. Keep in mind, I have told everyone my plight. I just want to get the @%*# pineapple's inspected! I passed security and we now were headed thru carry on scan. I put my bags on. I come out the other end. The man tells me that he needs to inspect my other carry on.

It turns out that you cannot put this in your carry on. I guess that I might want to blow the plane up with ravioli. We had bought a 8 pack from Sam's club in case we wanted to eat them over the week. You know, to save money. Well, we only ate 2 and I thought I would take them home to the kids. They made me throw the Chef Boyardee away and gave me a lecture about putting illegal items in my carry on and then sent me on my way! They said nothing about the smuggled pineapples!

2 comments:

  1. Who knew that Chef Boyardee was so evil?! He looks like a nice guy. The pineapple is delicious, by the way. So glad you didn't get put away for smuggling into the USA from another state.

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  2. MMMM- Pineapple! I never did like Chef Boyadee- More of a Franco American/Campbells girl myself. Just how would one cause destruction with ravioli? I wonder. I suppose we wouldn't want to create any unnecessary dry cleaning expenses for the attendants.

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