When I first heard that Andrew Speaker, a 31-year-old Atlanta personal injury lawyer, had brought a particularly strong strain of Tuberculosis into the United States with him when crossing the Canadian border, my first thought was, “How ballsy of him…”

I mean, back in college when I went to Montreal with a few friends of mine, I smuggled some Cuban cigars back home with me and thought I was the next Pablo Escobar. But even contraband from a politically sanctioned Communist nation is nothing compared to a deadly infectious disease.

Although I actually know someone who brought back their own infectious disease from Guatemala. She was there working with a non-profit organization to help the children of poor families gain access to American colleges and universities. Unfortunately, she got typhoid (which is why I always say that charity work doesn’t pay).

She didn’t know it at the time, but as she started to feel worse she decided to fly back to Boston. By the time she got to the hospital, she was convinced that she had typhoid. (It was a topic of discussion amongst the locals where she was living.) When she told this to the doctor, he replied quizzically, “Typhoid, hmm?” He proceeded to look it up in some medical books and on the internet, explaining, “We don’t see much typhoid around here.” Finally, a call was placed to a doctor who was off that day. Apparently, he was old enough to know how to diagnose typhoid. When he arrived at the hospital at 2:00AM, grumpy and in his sweats, he took one look at my friend and said, “Where have you been?”

“Guatemala,” she replied
“That’s too bad. You have typhoid,” he said.

House makes it seem so much more interesting.

When my friend told me this story, I had the same reaction as I did to the Andrew Speaker story – How brazen! All I could do was counter with the story of the time I was in the small town of Puerto Penasco in Mexico and, filled with tequila, my friend and I came upon an ALTO (Stop) sign on the road. It was a crude construction: a large metal octagon nailed precariously to a wooden post. My friend remarked on what a great souvenir it would make, so I, naturally, pounded it off its post. We carried it home, wrapped it in brown paper, and carried it on the plane with us. (This was in 2000 – undoubtedly something we could never get away with these days.)

I remember thinking what a rush it was as we went through security at the airport. We were smuggling authentic Mexican signage across the border. I imagine it is the exact same feeling Andrew Speaker had (although his was probably the result of nausea and a very high fever). But I’ll take my smuggled goods over his any day – long after his symptoms have passed, I will still be smoking my cigars, staring ironically at my STOP sign.

- by Dan Murphy of [redacted] fame