Oh FUn Canada

            The following is a true story. It took place in early June of 2003. It started off as would any other small vacation one might take upon being recently separated from ones spouse and having to divide our mutual belongings. I made sure to get all the essentials, like my passport and birth certificate, but not all the small little stuff.

I was working and going to school at the time and at the end of the semester took some time off from work to go up to Seattle to see a friend of mine. Being on vacation, and maybe because of my recent split-up, I had let my facial hair grow in some.

I packed what I thought I would need for my journey, which included downloading the maps into my HP palm device, my cell phone and a spare battery, my digital camera, some magic the gathering decks, and even some spare clothes. All the essentials a recent bachelor would need when visiting his friend. I had a truck locker in the back of my single cab ford truck and knew it had road spare water, road flairs, and other essentials already in there. I even went online and printed off a map of my route in addition to listing the location of gas stations and some of my banks ATM’s as a precaution. Being affluent in the ‘Laws of Murphyism’ I knew full well that ‘stupid shit’ could happen.

I get up there okay and do some sight-seeing around the Seattle area with him which includes a visiting a comic and game shop on one of the days. It was a spontaneous stop and so I wasn’t planning ahead. I had left my PDA palm back at his place and upon finding a number of comic back issues, which I wasn’t sure if I had or was still looking for, I wrote them down on the back of my printed off map list which I got out of my truck. I thought all was well.

The next day he had to go to work which meant I had the day to myself. I thought it would be cool to drive up and go into Canada to ‘look around.’ So I drive up Interstate-5 and reach the border crossing. It’s around eight in the morning at this point and I’m rearing to go. I’m wearing shorts, I’m a Californian after all, and a thick fleece poncho top with a huge kangaroo pouch in the middle which has my cell phone, spare battery (The ‘ex’ got the car charging cable), my PDA, my camera, my wallet, my passport, my spare roll of toilet paper (not really but I hope you get the idea).

The Canadian agent waives the cars through and as expected they have one pull over every so often for further scrutiny. My trucks plates are Californian so I wasn’t that surprised when they had me pull over.

The lady agent asked to see my identification and I reached into my pouch and pulled out my American Passport. She looked it over and looked me over, I gave her a big cheesy smile, and she asked, “What is the reason for your visit.”

Being the idiot I am, I had no reason to hide the truth, I answered, “To look around.” Of course in hindsight I probably should have said it more like this, “To take in the glorious land that is Canada and visit some of your lovely tourist attractions.” Did I mention I’m an idiot?

She asks me to verify my place of birth to which I reply, “Germany.” Yes that is 100% true. It even said so on my passport. My dad was a G.I. during the Vietnam War and was stationed there, hence me.

She asked me to get out of the truck and saw me in my shorts and poncho gloriousness. I realize she must think me in my scruffy California wardrobe are quite strange. Hey it’s not my fault my German heritage gives me incredible leg warmth. As I’m thinking of my scruffy nature, being a nerd, I can’t but help thinking of my favorite nerf herder.

She then asks, “Have you had any modifications done to your truck?”

Still being naïve, as well as a dork, I just wasn’t in a post 911 kind of mindset. With Star Wars on the brain I answered, “No, I don’t have any smuggling compartments on my truck.”

She nearly pulled her gun out on me right then and there by the look I got. She said “I am going to need to you come inside with me.”

Not wanting to start trouble I did as she ordered and went inside. Once in the building they had me go into a room and dump out the contents of my poncho pouch. I would learn later that they were fearful, due to my answer outside, that I had explosives of some sort upon my person. They x-rayed my stuff and then went through it by hand.

What they did find was my computer printed off listing with hand scribbled notes on the back. They asked me what that was all about. I answered, still not being sure what they were thinking, that it was a list of Gas Stations and ATM’s leading up Interstate-5 all the way to Seattle. What got them rattled even more was the code names I was using on the back of it. You see what they thought it was is a map of places I was robbing along with Al-Qaeda code words scribbled on the back. As naïve as I was I can only imagine how stupid a terrorist must be to google map a route from their own front door to their contacts front door in Seattle. I’m also having trouble believing that any terrorist worth their indoctrinated salt would use ‘Captain America’ or ‘The Incredible Hulk’ issue numbers as part of their coding system. I had to spend several hours explaining to them that I was essentially nobody and this was all a big misunderstanding. They admitted during this time that they had never had a person answer the ‘modifications’ question in such a way as I had. I know Star Wars was a huge financial success but I had no idea the movie never made it to Canada. Just think of the profits George Lucas must have lost out on due to this simple oversight.

It also turns out that they weren’t done with me just yet. It was during this interrogation time that they asked me to release to them the key to my lockbox in the back of my truck that housed my road supplies. I had already surrendered my keys to them and mentioned it was on the ring. It wasn’t. Apparently that was one of the things I had forgotten to get off the other key ring from my ‘ex’. They said they were going to have to break it open since I was unable to produce a key. I then asked that they not do this and just let me go home instead of causing me a couple hundred dollars’ worth of damage.

The agent eyed me and said slowly, “Can you repeat that?” To which I did. I saw no reason to be there and have my stuff busted when I could just turn around and call it a big misunderstanding. His response was, “So you are attempting to flee?”

I quickly replied that I just wasn’t looking forward to having my stuff busted up if I could avoid it. It was settled, they weren’t going to let me go. I then asked if I could contact a locksmith to come out and open it without ruining it. Apparently Murphy has a sense of humor because they agreed. They brought in a phone book, finally figuring out that I was from out of town, and let me call a locksmith. I searched for an American locksmith, not a Canadian, but an American locksmith. It cost more because they had to travel out and was going to take longer but god damn it I didn’t care.

Hours later my locksmith arrived and he popped open my truck with me present as the Canadians didn’t want it to explode without me being at ground zero.

Once opened they looked through it and I feared they were going to have an issue with me carrying my two road flairs as incendiary devices or something. Apparently they had enough of me at this point and returned all my stuff and told me I was now free to enter Canada.

The first thing I asked was “Where is the return lane to get back to America?”

They gave me puzzled looks and I said, “Aside from this taking most of the day I also wasted all of my spending money hiring the locksmith.”

Only after leaving, and making sure I was on the American side again, did I pull over and get out so I could give Canada the bird. I stood there for close to another half hour before going back to my friends place.

-FUn Canada