Prescription Drugs

My insurance doesn’t cover some of the prescription drugs I need and I can buy them cheaper in Mexico than in the USA, but this day I thought the savings was not near enough.

The usual drug run routine is to drive south from Tucson for an hour, walk over the border and get your drugs, 30 minutes, and return to Tucson. Today I followed the routine but there was one disturbing difference.

South of Tucson I-19 goes through the San Xavier Indian Reservation and the tall white double towers of the old San Xavier Mission are visible on the right. Farther south a big brown sign points the way to the Titan Missile Museum. The road next passes through the retirement city of Green Valley. The huge Santa Rita Experimental Range and Wildlife Area goes by on the left completely unnoticed, it looks exactly like all the other cactus and creosote bush desert.

The next big brown sign announces Tubac Presidio State Historical Park which is on the south edge of Tubac City, a small town filled with artisans with dozens of small shops displaying their talents. Tubac is a nice outing and they have several nice restaurants, mostly of the Mexican variety.

Just a few miles farther south is the three old (1671) missions in Tumacacori National Historic Park and from there the road continues south flanked by residential areas and the mountains of the Coronado National Forest.

The road signs on I-19 are marked in kilometers, the first sign says it is 86 km to Nogales and I drive about 120 km/hr so Nogales comes into focus in almost no time at all.

In Nogales I always park my car in the McDonalds parking lot, make a bathroom stop there and then walk down hill to the formidable looking eight foot high turn style (it only turns in one direction) that lets you into Mexico. There is no need to slow up passing their meager check point and from there I pass a dozen shops on my one block walk to the drug store.

The drug store is run by a protestant Mexican family and I enjoy talking to whichever family member that is behind the counter. Today the owner’s wife is there and she has a new hairdo; her hair is bleached and she is almost blonde. Soon I’m back on the street, I have one bag with eight bottles Mexican vanilla and another with my prescriptions.

When I walk up to the USA customs checkpoint, the place where everyone leaves Mexico and crosses into the USA, the door is locked!

Locked? How can the international border checkpoint be locked? Peering through the glass I can see that no one is in the building! It is vacant! Not a soul inside! A line of people is forming expecting to cross the border, but it is locked! Nobody is there!!

Immediately I take mental inventory of what identification I might have to prove to some Mexican official that I am an American citizen and should be allowed to cross the border and go home. The TV images of refugees waiting at closed checkpoints flashed into my mind and the sagging feeling in the pit of my stomach gave me a new sympathy for them.

I was jerked back to the present by honking cars. I looked across the usually busy street to see that all the cars wanting to cross the border are stopped! Drivers were milling around not knowing what to do but honk their horns. Traffic is not moving! I can see the big tall wall extending up over the hill east of the check point that divids the USA and Mexico; it looked ominous and cold!

The line keeps getting longer and the cars continue to honk!

Finally a couple of civilian looking Mexicans with not very official looking tags around their necks came to the head of the line and started waving their arms and giving instructions in Spanish indicating we should all go back into Mexico. A smile on someone’s face would have been reassuring, but no one was happy. Everyone quickly retreated back towards Mexico and not knowing what else to do I followed.

The people that are now in the front of the line walk around the end of the block long steel picket fence that keeps cars and people separate and start across the street between the stalled cars - the cars that should be moving toward the check point but that have now formed a impromptu parking lot in the usually busy street.

The dissipating line of people moves down streets that I’ve never seen before and I follow trying to be sure those people up ahead are still walking with purpose in their stride.

Finally a block ahead and next to that big cold fence I see a small one story pinkish building with a small blue and white sign that says ‘To USA’. Yes! I walk on with a new spring in my step and some confidence in my stomach.

On the US side of the building two Homeland Security Guards checked the credentials of people crossing the border. As I passed through the small movie type turnstile I ask the black guard why the other building is closed, “They have a small problem but everything will be alright.” What he didn’t know was that everything was already alright! I was back in the USA! My only problem was being several blocks away from the McDonalds parking lot and my ride home.

Crossing the streets between me and my Jeep I saw police cars everywhere turning all cars away from the border. It is obvious the border was closed! But I’m home!

As I approached the McDonald counter to buy a Quarter Pounder for lunch I saw some Homeland Security Guards in the next line and I asked a man why the border crossing building was closed. He responded, “There is a bomb threat.” The way he said it he might as well have been giving me the time of day.

I got my sandwich ‘to go’, walked to my Jeep, and left town. The small savings on the drugs was almost too high!