Picked ZM up at the airport this morning.
Knew it was her immediately.
Same energy she had in Germany.
Focused. Moving fast. Already irritated before she even got off the escalator.
Dressed like she was heading into a board meeting instead of arguing with customs officials over a hundred-year-old motorcycle.
Didn’t even say hello at first.
Just:
“How bad is it?”
Told her I honestly still wasn’t completely sure.
Apparently that answer annoyed her too.
Whole drive over she was going through emails, paperwork, shipping documents, and customs codes on a tablet while muttering to herself.
Think she finally looked up at one point and said:
“I cannot believe I had to fly across the Atlantic for this.”
Fair statement honestly.
Customs office somehow got even quieter when she walked in.
She absolutely dismantled those people.
Half of it I barely understood.
Provenance law. Import classification. Historical documentation.
Then at some point she handed one guy another folder.
He looked inside.
Suddenly everybody became a lot more cooperative.
Funny how that works.
Bike was released about twenty minutes later.
Whole thing cost me a fortune.
Pretty sure some of it was official.
As we walked out I asked her if that was seriously all they wanted the whole time.
She just stopped and gave me this look like I was the dumbest person she’d spoken to all week.
“JS.”
Little shake of her head.
“You restore antique motorcycles for a living and somehow still act surprised when bureaucracy behaves like bureaucracy.”
Honestly hard to argue with that logic.