The Bees of Yemen

The check-in agent looked over me critically. "You're not from Yemen, are you?"

"Nope," I said, resting my pillow and a stash of banana bread on the counter. "Not Yemen. Why?"

"Well, the computer says you are."

I admitted to her that I wasn't sure I could locate Yemen on a map, unless it was a very little map and I could gesture generally toward the Middle East.

She said she wouldn't have known either, if not for the honey. They don't have any, she explained. Yemen has no bees. (My mother would like living in Yemen, I thought.) She continued: because Yemen has no bees, it has to import all its honey. (This seemed reasonable.) Every Tuesday, when she worked at SFO, many people headed to Yemen would check in with boxes and boxes of honey--more boxes than their free luggage allowance afforded.

All that talk of bees and honey made me think of Pushing Daisies.

She leaned in across the counter. "They'd try to buy me off with honey," she confided. "To avoid penalties. But rules are rules!"