By Karl-Erik Stromsta

Things had been difficult at times. We’d all been a little whiny, sure. A little overly sensitive. But things had also been difficult.

During the course of two trips to Southern Arizona for our interminable “Teen Life On the Border” story, we had put up with (in no particular order): self-righteous teenagers; unctuous PR hacks; long-winded religionistas; evasive Border Patrol agents; equipment with an infatuation for breaking; the barbarous Arizona sun; cornea-clawing dust storms; patchy cell-phone service; laughable hotel Wi-Fi; thousands of miles in a cramped rental car; and more than half a dozen gut-busting trips to “family fun” chain restaurants, complete with kitschy bric-a-brac and thousand-calorie hamburgers.

But hey, at least no one had pulled a gun on us, right?

Cut to our last day in Arizona, and what was to be our final – and perhaps most crucial – interview:

It was 6 a.m. and we’d been up since before dawn shooting sunrise B-roll at the border fence. We were exhausted. We bought a box of chocolate Entenmann donuts and picked up our 14-year-old interviewee. Sweetly, she suggested we head down to the river behind her neighbor’s house to set up our equipment. The lights and colors were flawless down there, making the people on camera glow.

Things started smoothly. We were getting what we needed. Sound bites were falling like low-hanging fruit. Then, 18 minutes in, the staccato crackle of gunfire.

Our interviewee blushed. “Oh, that’s just Amos,” she said. “My neighbor.”

“He must be hunting, right?” we asked anxiously.

The interview recommenced – only to be interrupted by gunfire a second time. Closer – just beyond the trees.

We (quickly) wrapped up the interview and (quickly) marched back to our Kia minivan, which suddenly seemed like it had walls made of origami paper. And then we saw them: Outside the driver’s door on the dirt slept four shotgun shells, still warm, coiled like desert adders. Waiting for us. The message couldn’t have been clearer if it were a severed horse’s head: It’s time for you folks to clear out. Time to get out of Arizona and head home.

Message received, loud and clear. Aisle seat, please.

The next time I heard gunfire (or was it a car backfiring?) outside my L.A. apartment, I couldn’t help but smile. Everything in its right place. And at least when people fire guns in Koreatown they have the decency to clean up their shells.