While waiting for my luggage to arrive at the Portland Airport, so I could go through customs, I noticed a poster on the wall decrying the practice of bird smuggling. I stared at it for a while, then burst out laughing.
I mean really… How could you possibly expect to smuggle a bird, living or dead, through customs at a US airport? Every bag is scanned and/or searched. I would think that an avian skeleton would raise a little bit of interest on the part of the TSA.
But then I remembered a similar poster at the airport in Sofia, Bulgaria. I say similar, because this one decried human smuggling. It’s interesting that we’re concerned with people wanting to bring in birds, while others are worried about slavery rings and the flesh market.
In a way, it makes me love this country even more.