Cheessssus

Coming home to Dhahran after a year away at San Marcos Military School I got off the plane, went to my knees from the blast of humid air, and finally headed towards the Custom's area.

My roommate at SMBA was Kevin Colgan and he and I decided we would bring in a bunch of Playboys to sell and make some "Faloos".

So, we had two plans, one we taped magazines to every available part of our bodies right before we got on the plane in Amsterdam, and put a bunch in the pants legs of our clothes in our suitcases. I had a flight bag and we decided to create a diversion with some really foul smelling cheese from the shops at the Amsterdam airport. So I bought about fifteen types of cheese and put them in the flight bag. Our intention was that when we got to customs we would open our bags and slip the cheese in before opening them for inspection.

Unbeknownst to me, this cheese was VERY strong and as we flew on in the dark, looking constantly for the Flares, things began to get a little uncomfortable in our seating area. I thought it was Kevin at first, and promptly told him that if he continued with such activity, he could sit in the bathroom for the rest of the flight.. He vehemently denied any of the responsibility, so I thought that the big, ugly guy across from us was doing some serious damage to my nasal senses.

Well, in about an hour the odor was so bad that dirty diapers were preferable to what we were sitting in. It was bad enough to gag a camel, and in fact, I was sure that some fool had brought one on board the smell was so bad.

Well, the old hag in front of us, an ARAMCO housewife returning from a trip I guess, called the stewardess and pointed out that the two boys behind her were responsible for the extremely rude smells . . . This we denied vigorously and I think even went so far as to offer to let the attendant check our butts-not real clear on that, but we were mightily offended.

They checked the whole aircraft, the engineer came back and checked vents and even looked down in the baggage area from what we heard later. Suddenly the lights came on and the captain came on the intercom and asked for everyone to please check their seat belt as we were going to divert to Cypress due to the problem with the very powerful odor that they could not locate. Well, as we were going along Kevin decides to get one of the magazines out of the flight bag and opens it up. I damn near passed out and I think the old lady in front of us did.

Seems our cheese was the source of the foulest smell I have ever smelt. The cabin passengers demanded we be thrown out at ten thousand feet and I thought they were going to do it, but the stewardess took the bag and flushed all of our cheese.

Now the dilemma. First we were wrapped in Playboys, we smelled like goats, we had lost our diversion and knew beheading was routine for smuggling Playboys into Arabia.

I always thought this next move was rather brilliant and used it for years afterwards coming into Arabia.

Kevin simply found a piece of chalk on the ground as we entered the customs building and marked all of our bags, which we picked up and walked right up the stairs and into freedom...

Simply another cheesy story, right...

Michael Crocker(DH 65)
Nacogdoches, Texas

" By the Brats, Of the Brats, For the Brats"
Date: Mon, 03 Jun 1996 10:25:58 -0500