so jarilyn and i ventured back into the states today to gather some supplies for a new project. a group is renovating the teen girls dorms, so we went to costco and home depot to buy floor laminate, paint, caulking supplies, knee pads, ceiling fans, and yeah, we may or may not have bought a 5 lb tub of cookie dough. maybe. anyway, we loaded down this 15 passenger van with A LOT of supplies and hoped to make it through the border back into mexico with no problem.
well, we did get stopped. and about four or five different men looked through the van, each asking "what is that?" and jare answers with a stock "glue for the floor. the wooden floor in the back." after being waved through a few checkpoints we found ourselves facing what we had hoped to avoid: we needed to play taxes on the stuff. i looked at jare and said "turn on the charm" and we proceded to act oblivious and pump up the gringa. the officer who finally took us over, whom i like to call officer guapo, explained the different amounts of things we were allowed to bring in and the amount of taxes to be paid. even though we had payed well over $2000 for the supplies, jare told him, "como, quinientos, mas o menos, seisientos?" (500, maybe 6?) guapo smiled and started writing us a form... $400 minus the amount we are allowed to bring in for free = $250 time 15%...about $40.
yey gringas!
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