The Shark

***

One week later, an official looking letter arrived from the government. There was a U.S. Dept. of Treasury seal on the envelope.  It came in the mail - certified!  Inside were six pages.  All were type-formed and stapled.  A cover letter was also enclosed.  The cover letter said the six pages were the right that gave me the right to exercise my right to smoke those cigars.

I had two choices!  If I were to do nothing, they’d be gone.  History!  Up in smoke!  However, if I were to contest, to fight, argue or sue... then, first, I’d have to fill out all their forms.  And I’d have to make sure that I answered everything… every question.  Especially the unanswerable ones!  Any mistake meant tilt… you lose!  This was our game!  If you wanted to play... you played by our rules.

My lawyer laughed at my story when I told him what happened.  He said, “I told you Cubans were illegal, didn’t I?  I have a good friend in Customs I can call.  Let’s see how far the government is going to go with this.  He will tell me what kind of trouble you’re in.”

I said, “But It’s Only Cigars!”  And I showed him my passport.

“Yeah, OK, what else you got?  I see where you’re going, but...” Then, I showed him the Know Before You Go pamphlet, opened to page six.  He read it. “WHAT!?”  He looked at me and asked, “Why would the government print this?  What’s on page twenty?”  And he quickly turned to page twenty to see what was printed there.

I said, “Been there, done that... and I’ve got several T-shirts to show for my troubles.” 

He questioned what I was talking about as he turned the pages.  I told him I did the same thing he was doing… that I had already looked at page twenty, more than several times, to see what it said about disclaimers, exemptions… and the like.  I said, “You’ll find nothing... nothing on page twenty, page twenty-one or even page twenty-two.”  By that time, he passed page twenty and had turned to page twenty-one... and he’d found nothing as I said he would.  He kept reading and turned to page twenty-two as I spoke.  He knew there had to be something, somewhere.  So I told him to look at the bottom of page twenty-three.

The shark asked, “What?”

I said it again.  “Turn to page twenty-three.”

He looked at the bottom of page twenty-three... and read the infor-mation!  Then, he turned the page and read some more!  Finally, he looked up and asked, “Is this all?”  Very slowly, I nodded my head.  He said, “I’m going to re-read everything... every word in both these books.” 

I told him, “I already did that... approximately five hundred times, more or less.  And, not satisfied with my own eyes, I had other people... a lot of other people... do the same thing.” 

But all I heard him say was, “There must be something here we aren’t seeing... have overlooked.” I told him, “I thought that too.” The shark reached for the petition and said, “There must be!”I said, “I thought that also.But, there wasn’t!And, there isn’t!” He picked up his phone and dialed the number the cover letter gave to call if there were a