Canceling Arizona

On my next golf trip to AZ, where I normally drop a few thousand dollars, what kind of documents must I carry in order to prove my legal status?
by Charlie Leck

The above question is one I emailed off to the Governor of Arizona yesterday morning.

I like taking a little golf trip to Arizona every couple of years. I don’t think I will anymore. I’ll limit my winter golf trips to Florida and Southern California from now on.

Can’t you just imagine the scene. I’m out on the Thunderbolt course at the Moonside Mountain Resort, about to hit a simple wedge shot into the difficult 16 green, when the Alien Police start blowing whistles as they’re coming over the fences on the perimeter of the golf course. Loudspeakers blare at all of us, commanding us to stop and stand where we are for the legal alien checkup

The four of us who were golfing together, all friends from Minnesota, froze in place and waited for what might happen next. It took about 45 minutes for this strange procedure to really get going, however. There were reasons for the delay. Several of the alien cops got hung up on the fences as they were coming over. One of them got snagged when his belt slipped over a broken piece of the chain link fence. Another fellow came off the fence and landed on a terribly dangerous Sclerocactus Whipplei. Then there was the problem of proof.

No one had told me that I now needed to carry a birth certificate in Arizona. I had my driver’s license, my Medicare Insurance card, my American Express card, my Hertz Number One Gold card and my Hennepin County Library card, but none of them satisfied the policeman who thumbed through my billfold. One of the hundred dollar bills tempted him a little bit and, when he looked up into my face, I nodded slightly and he gave the idea some thought, but he didn’t bite. When he came across the card that identified me as a member of the extreme left-wing, progressive and liberal American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), I knew I was in trouble. He dropped my billfold, the fist full of plastic cards and my hundred dollar bills right there on the fairway and quickly pulled his pistol from its holster.

“Get ‘em up,” he shouted, “and turn around, spread your legs and lean against that Saguaro Carnegiea Gigantea. At that point, several other policemen ,who noticed the confrontation, stopped frisking my playing partners (all conservative members of the Michele Bachmann Murky Tea Party) and rushed over to assist the policeman who was now frisking me by running his hands up and down my pant legs and patting me in places where I would have preferred not to be patted.

One of the other officers, who had come in as part of the back-up detail and heard the shocking report that I was an ACLU member, suggested an immediate strip search. So, the order was given.

“You don’t mean right here in the middle of the golf course,” I shouted at the officer who had given the command.

“Okay,” the policeman shouted back, “arrest him for resisting proper and legal identity inspection. Let’s get this no-good, friggin’ commie, liberal bastard into a jail cell, where he won’t see the light of day for the rest of his life.”

One of my buddies, who by this time had come over to see what the heck was up with me anyhow, raised a bit of a legal protest. Back in Minneapolis, he’s a corporate lawyer with the Sugarmore Cereal Company.

“Oh, another pinko, I see,” said one of the angry officers.

“No, sir! Not at all,” my buddy replied as he pulled his Murky Tea Party membership card from his billfold and slid a folded hundred dollar bill underneath it. The officer looked at the card, realized the hundred was there, and then smiled and apologized to my buddy.

“Well, that’s fine,” the officer said, handing only the plastic card back to my fellow golfer, “but don’t get in the middle of these commie arrests like this.”

“What do you mean, officer? I mean, about a commie arrest and all?” My friend, the lawyer, was curious.

“Well, sir, he was carrying an ACLU membership card and that’s not permitted here in Arizona.

“A what?” My friend shouted.

“Yes, sir, you heard me right. Maybe you better get your friend here out of the state as quickly as you can.”

“Friend? What friend, officer? I don’t even know the man.”

“Nor do I,” shouted another of our foursome.

My three golfing partners moved on up toward green 16 to resume our outing. Handcuffed, I was stuffed into the back of a police car, blindfolded and driven north to the border and dumped on the side of the road in Big Water, Utah.”

No, sir! No more golfing in Arizona for me!