Why road blocks to check ID are bad for chimps

It's a slow news day at Project Bow. Just a lazy, lazy weekend. Sword and Bow exchanging not so pleasant opinions about each other over breakfast, Bow chewing his cud after lunch. Me with a hubber score of 100 and about two dollars in earnings on Hubpages today. One of our hens took an exceptionally long time to lay an egg. Nothing much happening. But everybody on the web seems to be all concerned about the right of Arizona police to check for proof of citizenship or legal residency. And all I can think of is: how would this law impact chimpanzees?

Bow is a native American. He was born in Missouri. He is not a foreigner. But the one time we were stopped by a police officer at a roadblock where they were looking for illegal aliens, I got very scared. Luckily, everyone in the car behaved well, and the officer didn't ask me to step out, so we passed that test unscathed. But it could have resulted in pandemonium, if anything had gone even slightly wrong.

We were on our way back from New Hampshire, and we had just crossed over into another state. I think it might have been Vermont. In that part of the US, you can't go very far without crossing a state border. But this wasn't a border stop. It was something more random than that. They were stopping all the cars and talking to all the people.

I had no idea what the laws with regard to chimpanzees were in that state. The officer was bound to notice that Bow, strapped into his child safety seat in the back of the car just like Sword, was not an ordinary child. Between them, trying to keep the peace and provide entertainment on the long and tiring trip, was Samina, our summer intern. Samina was from India, but her name sounded Arabic. Were they looking for terrorists? Would they stereotype her?

We had not flown, because the airlines would have treated Bow like cargo. We had to drive. It was the only way. The police officer examined my driver's license. Then he asked Samina where she was from. He tried to ask something about her immigration status, and she didn't understand what he was asking her. I hastened to explain that she was on a six month tourist visa. He examined her documents and accepted this. "Is this your child?" he asked me, pointing at Sword. "Yes."

"And is that your chimpanzee?"

"Yes."

"Okay, then. Have a nice day."

We were lucky, I think, that everybody in the car behaved so well. Because if any one of my kids had chosen that moment to throw a tantrum or get out of line, that might have been dangerous. If I had been asked to step out of the car, or Bow had thought I was being hurt in any way, he wouldn't have just sat back and let it happen. We always kept far away from confusing encounters with strangers, but the one stranger you can't avoid is a police officer intent on questioning you.

When you have special circumstances, then you understand how scary being stopped needlessly by the police really can be.