Looking for trouble

After landing at Addis Ababa airport, I got in line at Immigration. I had filled out a landing card on the plane writing down my name, passport number, visa number and type, purpose of trip, etc. My visa was a "VB" type, and I couldn't remember if I had gotten the business or the visitors' visa. I wrote my purpose was tourism just to be on the safe side, but my coworker, who also had a VB visa, wrote his purpose was business. Thankfully we both passed through Immigration without incident, so maybe VB stood for either visitors or business purposes.
Next, we picked up our luggage and stood in line to pass it through the x-ray machine at customs. As we lined up, we noticed dozens of people exiting the baggage area without having their luggage checked. I thought maybe these were passengers from a domestic flight, but couldn't be sure. In any case, we stayed in line and I put my luggage on the conveyor belt. The customs attendant viewed the contents on his screen and then asked me open up my large bag. I unzipped it and he pointed to my toiletries bag. "What's this?" he demanded, so I unzipped it and he glanced inside seeing toothpaste, a bar of soap, a razor and other essentials. He didn't inspect it further, but instead started pointing to other objects and picking them up asking in rapid fire "What's this, what's this, what's this?" and promptly putting each item back down: a non-translucent plastic bag containing over-the-counter medicines marked only in Japanese, a camouflage-colored bag containing writing utensils, a stapler and such... and then he pointed to a book. None of these things would be incriminating, but I wasn't looking forward to the hassle that this could potentially blow up into. However, he put each item down immediately, not waiting for an answer, and when he asked about the book, which I thought was exceedingly obviously a book, I just stopped and waited for him to continue inspecting my bag. Instead, he seemed to suddenly lose all interest and walked back to his x-ray machine and continue checking bags, since the line had been getting longer. I stood there abandoned for a second wondering if I should unpack the things he had asked about and wait for him to come back.
Now, just to note, when traveling, I try to follow a code of not looking for trouble, which means that if you don't want any trouble, don't be so cautious that trouble finds you. My policy is to look for no trouble and head in that direction instead. I glanced to my right and saw the exit was unobstructed about 30 feet away. So it didn't take me another half-second to come to my senses, close up my luggage, throw it on my cart and stroll out of the customs area. I broke my rule ever-so-slightly by glancing back to see if I was making a clean getaway, but luckily I had and the customs attendant had seemingly forgotten all about me.