[plthijinx]

this happened late last june:
my boss, also a pilot, at the time was not instrument rated so he asked me to fly with him down to McAllen Tx. to pick up a part for his corvette. the weather was supposed to be bad that day and to an extent it was on the return trip home. but anyway, we landed in McAllen and taxied to park. being a true smoker, i hop out of the plane and roll up a smoke (yeah i roll my own). i walk through the FBO and out to the front parking lot to smoke. after this i go back inside get a dr. pepper use the restroom then go to the pilots lounge to file our return trip flight plan. no sooner did i finish filing the plan Bob comes up to me and asks me if i'm ready to leave. i was like, really? already? heck i don't even know if our flight plan is in the system yet....ok, lets go. now while i was doing all the aforementioned things Bob had gone out to the front parking lot as well to meet the person that had his car part. in a box. he had walked it through the FBO and put it in the plane and gone back in to pay for our fuel and find me. we go out to the plane and while he's preflighting i call up the tower to see if i can get our IFR clearance back to Houston. they pretty much clear us as filed (a rarity in aviation) and ask if we are ready to get going. i told them no that we wouldn't be ready for another 5 or 10 minutes due to preflight. they said no problem. finally Bob gets in the plane and we fire it up and request taxi. tower clears us to the active runway and while we are going there he asked us if we needed to stop for a run-up (systems check before takeoff) or if we could do a rolling run-up. usually when they ask this they want you to do a rolling run-up for whatever reason so i told them that we'd do a rolling run-up. we depart. everything seems normal until we get close to houston. then this takes place after we were handed off from center to approach:
Houston Approach: "5 charlie papa say your position."
5CP: "um we're on an IFR flight plan" (meaning you should see us on your scope dumbass!)
Houston Approach: "5 charlie papa i say again: state your exact position"
5CP: "we're exactly 5 miles from LETTY intersection"
Houston App: "thank you 5CP now fly heading 010 descend at pilot’s discretion to 5000."
5CP: "descending to 5000 pilot's discretion. be advised that we may change our landing airport to KDWH depending on weather. i am instrument rated and my copilot is not so i may need to fly with him to his home airport." (he had picked me up at the airport near my house)
Hou App: "5CP roger."
now after slicing and dicing through some rough weather we were handed off to another controller who kept at me asking if i had the airport in sight. this guy btw sounds like Eeyore. finally i punched out of a storm cloud, a little rattled from the ride, and could see the airport. right there. 3000 feet below us. i cancelled our IFR flight plan and made 2 attempts at landing with a tailwind. finally we turned around and landed on the opposite runway. we taxi up to the ramp and i hop out of the plane with my headset, tri-fold and coffee cup. walking to my truck i noticed two county cruisers sitting off to the side. i used to work at that airport and it was no big deal to see them hang out there and watch planes. not this time. Bob had taken back off and by the time i got in my truck the cruisers were roaming aimlessly around. like they didn't know what to do. as i was leaving i passed up a city cop going the opposite direction. thought to myself at the time that perhaps he was bringing the donuts for his buddies. later on that evening while eating a nice well deserved rib eye i got a text from Bob. it said - "were the cops waiting for you too??" at this point i put down the knife and fork and called him. what do you mean "waiting for me?" he said "man, we were followed all the way from McAllen by border security!! when i taxied to park and stopped a suburban cut me off and the chase plane stopped right on my 6! they surrounded me! ordered me out of the plane and asked to search it!" they searched the plane, opened the box only to find a computer board in it and not drugs. they wasted a ton of money for nothing. why the heck didn't they just search us back in McAllen? too simple? hoping for a bigger bust? ffs. gummint ppl. it didn't end there either. a few weeks later i had to call someone with border security, can't remember her name, and verify everything. sheesh.