South of the Border

On March 5, 2017 Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Blankenship of Laredo, Texas were returning home from their annual road trip through Mexico. In the trunk of their car, inside of a ziplock bag, stashed in an empty toiletry bag, and packed deep in his suitcase, were half a dozen guava fruit. Joseph and his wife loved this particular variety of the fruit, which were not available stateside, and he'd decided to try and propagate the seeds on his own land.When they encountered especially tight border patrols and inquisitive Customs agents, and were asked several times if they had anything to declare or surrender, Joseph was especially glad that he'd hidden the fruit so well. Still, the level of security and the number of questions he was asked irked him.

"We never had any trouble going back and forth, until the lefties elected Obama," he said to his wife, "I shouldn't have to be grilled at the border. I'm a goddamned American citizen! This is what you get when you have a guy from Kenya in the White House." 

By the end of March, Mrs. Blankenship became worried about an ongoing fruit fly problem which had developed. It started in the kitchen, but quickly spread to the rest of the house and, oddly, their small orchard, where fruit flies could be seen hovering around the fruit trees in large numbers. It got so that the Blankenships each had to walk around carrying bug spray, and Mr. Blankenship could no longer stand to even step out into the orchard, where the fruit flies were literally swarming. 

Joseph Blankenship finally gave in and called an exterminator. 

Bubba Jones, of Yellow Rose Extermination Services, surveyed the situation and broke the news to the Blankenships. "What you have here is no ordinary infestation," he said, "because these aren't ordinary fruit flies. These here are Mexican fruit flies. An invasive species. Aggressive as all hell, and tough as pig iron. Almost impossible to control. I'll do what I can to get them out of the house, but it won't be cheap and, as for your orchard?  You won't be eating fruit from those trees any time soon. Figs, nectarines, peaches, oranges? They're a wash for this year. Maybe longer, if this infestation can't be controlled. You see, these suckers lay their eggs inside the fruit and eat their way out. Everything growing on those trees is ruined. The best you can hope for is that the trees can be salvaged and you'll have a halfway decent crop next year. This spring, though? You'll have to get your peaches at the Piggly Wiggly, like the rest of us." 

Irate about the expense, and the fact that an entire crop of fruit had been as good as lost, Mr. Blankenship railed against the unfairness of it all.

"Mexican fruit flies!? I'm losing my whole crop to goddamn Mexican fruit flies? And having to pay through the nose, to boot? You see, Gladys?" he complained to his wife, "This is exactly why we need to crack down at the border, build a goddamn wall, and put a stop, once and for all, to all of this bullshit. Even their fruit flies stink to high hell. I never even heard of Mexican fruit flies when George W. Bush was president! It's just a good thing this Obama nightmare is almost over."