Profiling

Eric has spent the last 36-ish hours driving both girls back to other family members, for them to go home. He left here yesterday morning, drove to north of Dallas to meet Samantha's grandmother, and then headed south to Houston to take Rosalind home. He spent the night west of Houston, and now he's on his way home.

He is a white male, driving alone, in a white Ford pickup with Missouri plates.

And he says he's been followed by a Border Patrol agent for quite some time now, even through a stop to get gas and a stop to relieve himself at a rest stop (the BP stopped at both places too). He was about to go through the Checkpoint, and was feeling rather sure he'd be stopped soon. He said he got pulled over yesterday and received a warning "fix it ticket" for a light being out, except it wasn't. Out, that is.

I do see that he fits a profile, of, what, some kind of smuggler. Don't know if he seems more likely to be smuggling drugs or people. But this is kind of ridiculous. And what would he be smuggling into the Valley?

When he drove to San Antonio, alone, to fly out of that airport, he was detained for quite some time at the Checkpoint. It was 4 a.m., and I could see how that looked suspicious.

Of course the really funny part, at least to me, is that this always happens to him. In Missouri, he drove an old, beat-up 1970 VW Beetle, and got pulled over countless times, because with his long hair and beard he looks (apparently) like an old hippie, and they assumed he had some pot with him. In all his times of being pulled over (a dozen or more, at least, in about 3 years time) I think he only got one ticket.

He's never been pulled over driving our van, driving my old Cougar, or when the kids and I were with him.

I guess that what he gets for being a redneck Ph.D. Get a haircut, and get a real job ...