Standing on Guard for Me
Tim's Sexy Seattle Sojourn, Part II
Check, check check...check it out. Again!
In my previous entry, I wrote about my adventure in Marysville with Ashley. It was a lovely time, and despite the logical reason to end it at the time we did - cuz we were dead tired - neither of us wanted to. All I wanted to do was get hammered - ok, not so much, but buzzed and silly - and spend the night somewhere having fun. Don't read into that any further than that...because I seriously just meant having fun as in, chatting and being silly and whatnot. And not having to worry about driving either of us home anywhere by dawn.
But alas, that was the case. The drive home was nice. I chatted on the phone with disco_fox for a bit until I got gas at a Citgo and then I was back on the I-5 for the drive home.
That exit on the I-5 (exit 200) is EXACTLY 100 miles from my driveway. It's all freeway, too - save for the border crossing and the last few minutes up to my house - so I'd be home in no time, especially at the speed I drive. I love American freeways like that. 70mph as the suggested speed limit? Lovely.
The drive home, while quick, wasn't without its difficulties. It's a good thing I didn't drink a single thing on the ride home. I'm adamantly opposed to drunk driving for starters - save for like a beer or glass of wine with dinner (though that hardly would make your typical person "drunk"), and I think that anyone caught should have their license revoked for years and be tossed into jail for a time, even if they didn't end up causing any damage. Anyway, I needed as clear a head as possible for the ride home, because the visibility was low due to fog, and I was getting sleepy. I hate sleepy driving...so of course, the best answer is to drive even faster so you get to your destination quicker.
Especially tricky to navigate was the 10 miles or so of winding through mountains south of Bellingham.
It took me exactly 59 minutes to drive the 76 miles to drive from Marysville to the exact Canadian/US border on the 49th Parrallel at the Peace Arch Crossing. It was 1am...well, 2am, after daylight savings clicked in - and there was still a line-up of about five cars or so. A couple minutes later, I was at the window, talking to the customs dude, after flashing my passport and birth certificate.
And that's when my troubles began.
He asked me the usual questions of how long I'd been out of the country, the reason of my visit, and if I was bringing anything back. I clearly told him since 10am that morning, I went to see a friend in Seattle, and said that the only things I purchased while away were food and gas. The young guy in the booth looked at me while tilting his head and then asked, "How do you know your friend? What's her name?" And I responded, saying that her name is Ashley _______, and I've known her for about four years.
Next thing I know, he hands me back my passport with a sheet of paper, telling me to pull ahead to the parking stalls and talk to the immigration people indoors.
WHUH?
The last time this happened to me, it was because I didn't bring a passport - to which I was let off with a warning, like four years ago. Prior to that, it was at age 8, when I ratted out my mom for not claiming the potatoes she bought when crossing the border. So, what was it that made these guys so suspicious? Is it that unfathomable for a person like me to have friends that live in Seattle?
Maybe this was another random check of theirs...but from what I know, random checks very rarely go after...well, let's be honest here...white guys. Sounds racist? I know too many people with asian and african roots that have crossed the border and were always subjected to extra questioning - oddly though, it was usually when heading south, and it was the Canadians that were far more lax. We don't even carry guns, after all - which is a rant unto itself.
So yeah, knowing I've done nothing wrong in the least - again, thankful I didn't have a single beer all night - I walked into the customs lobby. I was asked to turn over my passport and keys to the officer so he could search my car.
Again, why? I don't believe this was a random check. They're never JUST random. What was it that tipped these guys off to even consider me worthy of a thorough checking like this? What, did they think I stole my Honda Civic? Smuggling drugs, maybe? I don't know. I don't care. I just wanted to go to bed, man.
It takes the guys about ten minutes to even leave the lobby from behind the desk to go to the car, too. I see them through the windows looking around and under the car, in the gas tank, the hatch, under the hood, and then they start rooting around through the glove compartment, my backpack, and under the seats.
Meanwhile, I'm first thinking of if I should be embarassed if they don't approve of my choices of burned music on CD, or the car flags I have in my car that I printed out at work - that being, a Canadian flag that says "CHillin' the Most". (The following instructions then suggest you should attach it to your antenna and then "rock that bitch up and down the coast." Thank you Kid Rock for the inspiration.)
A few minutes later, they come back with the hard questions.
"Who is Ashley __________?"
Me: "Pardon?"
"And Lori ________? And Robyn _______? And Katia _______ in...Mexico?"
Me: "Ohhh..." I interrupt.
"And why is Winona ________ written on a seperate piece of torn paper here? Who are these people?"
Turns out, the customs official had dug through my backpack and found my phone list of friends. All of the phone numbers and addresses of my friends are on a Word document that I printed before leaving, because I was feeling too lazy to look up just Ashley's number so I could contact her once I got to Seattle earlier that day. I didn't have it memorized yet, so I figured it was a smart idea. I guess he thought this was a list of my contacts for smuggling something or other, I don't know. And the reason Winona had her name on a seperate slip was because I did have time to write her number down before visiting her in February.
And this is what I told him.
I found it funny how of the names he selected to cite from my phone list (of which there were more said), he chose a handful of my nearest and dearest.
(I've left out the last names of these people for their own privacy, of course.)
The next thing he had to ask was about some things he found under my car seat - one of those being the book of Shell poetry that I had forgot even remained in my car. Years ago, I had removed this from Shell so the boss wouldn't see it - that being, becuase the book was full of poems the staff would write back and forth to each other (mostly Mike and I) - predominantly about how much work sucked, or, literally how gay their target was. Yes, it was immature - but at least this immaturity came in the form of iambic pentameter and heroic couplets. Let me give you an example:
Mike likes to play at the McDonald's playplace.
Mike slides down the slide with such sliding grace.
Watch as he jumps and falls
Into the pit of balls.
Mike loves feeling balls on his face.
Stupid? Clever? Both? Neither? Either way, apparently the customs dude didn't take to it (do these guys not have ANY sense of humour and fun?) and I had to defend myself again.
And then he brought up the fact I had another license plate, not registered to my vehicle, in the car. In fact, it's not registered to any vehicle - AWT 746 was the old plate the Civic had prior to me buying it off my parents. I just never got around to throwing it away, so I shoved it under the car seat and left it there for the past two years.
Now, I can see why the license plate thing could be an issue - no problem there. But what got these guys to even get a whiff of something awry in the first place is still confusing me to this day. I wanted to ask them right then and there, just what was it about my person that struck them as odd, but that could only further incriminate myself of nothing, so I kept my big yap shut.
I was hoping that Melissa would be working that night at the border crossing - she stands on guard for me (and 32 million other Canadians) after all - but no, she wasn't. She was one mile east at the truck crossing, so I wasn't able to pull any Booloo-strings to get her to bail me out of this time-waster.
Oy. It took me about half an hour to get through that mess. ANd what's worse, there are no magazines you can read while they harass and berrate you - just government pamphlets and such. Booo.
Thankfully, I was home 20 minutes after that. Minus my hold-up at the border, it took me 84 minutes to drive the 100 miles from Marysville to my driveway, which is very, very good timing - even over night. I remember hitting speeds of 150 km/h at some point, without even noticing it, too.
Oh yeah, I was also buoyed by the fact that the Montreal Canadiens have eliminated their other arch-nemesis, the Boston Bruins, from the playoffs but yet again - well, more correctly, from even being able to mathematically qualify for the playoffs. I love kicking that team's ass so much. Almost as much as I love beating on the Leafs. Almost.
Check, check check...check it out. Again!
In my previous entry, I wrote about my adventure in Marysville with Ashley. It was a lovely time, and despite the logical reason to end it at the time we did - cuz we were dead tired - neither of us wanted to. All I wanted to do was get hammered - ok, not so much, but buzzed and silly - and spend the night somewhere having fun. Don't read into that any further than that...because I seriously just meant having fun as in, chatting and being silly and whatnot. And not having to worry about driving either of us home anywhere by dawn.
But alas, that was the case. The drive home was nice. I chatted on the phone with disco_fox for a bit until I got gas at a Citgo and then I was back on the I-5 for the drive home.
That exit on the I-5 (exit 200) is EXACTLY 100 miles from my driveway. It's all freeway, too - save for the border crossing and the last few minutes up to my house - so I'd be home in no time, especially at the speed I drive. I love American freeways like that. 70mph as the suggested speed limit? Lovely.
The drive home, while quick, wasn't without its difficulties. It's a good thing I didn't drink a single thing on the ride home. I'm adamantly opposed to drunk driving for starters - save for like a beer or glass of wine with dinner (though that hardly would make your typical person "drunk"), and I think that anyone caught should have their license revoked for years and be tossed into jail for a time, even if they didn't end up causing any damage. Anyway, I needed as clear a head as possible for the ride home, because the visibility was low due to fog, and I was getting sleepy. I hate sleepy driving...so of course, the best answer is to drive even faster so you get to your destination quicker.
Especially tricky to navigate was the 10 miles or so of winding through mountains south of Bellingham.
It took me exactly 59 minutes to drive the 76 miles to drive from Marysville to the exact Canadian/US border on the 49th Parrallel at the Peace Arch Crossing. It was 1am...well, 2am, after daylight savings clicked in - and there was still a line-up of about five cars or so. A couple minutes later, I was at the window, talking to the customs dude, after flashing my passport and birth certificate.
And that's when my troubles began.
He asked me the usual questions of how long I'd been out of the country, the reason of my visit, and if I was bringing anything back. I clearly told him since 10am that morning, I went to see a friend in Seattle, and said that the only things I purchased while away were food and gas. The young guy in the booth looked at me while tilting his head and then asked, "How do you know your friend? What's her name?" And I responded, saying that her name is Ashley _______, and I've known her for about four years.
Next thing I know, he hands me back my passport with a sheet of paper, telling me to pull ahead to the parking stalls and talk to the immigration people indoors.
WHUH?
The last time this happened to me, it was because I didn't bring a passport - to which I was let off with a warning, like four years ago. Prior to that, it was at age 8, when I ratted out my mom for not claiming the potatoes she bought when crossing the border. So, what was it that made these guys so suspicious? Is it that unfathomable for a person like me to have friends that live in Seattle?
Maybe this was another random check of theirs...but from what I know, random checks very rarely go after...well, let's be honest here...white guys. Sounds racist? I know too many people with asian and african roots that have crossed the border and were always subjected to extra questioning - oddly though, it was usually when heading south, and it was the Canadians that were far more lax. We don't even carry guns, after all - which is a rant unto itself.
So yeah, knowing I've done nothing wrong in the least - again, thankful I didn't have a single beer all night - I walked into the customs lobby. I was asked to turn over my passport and keys to the officer so he could search my car.
Again, why? I don't believe this was a random check. They're never JUST random. What was it that tipped these guys off to even consider me worthy of a thorough checking like this? What, did they think I stole my Honda Civic? Smuggling drugs, maybe? I don't know. I don't care. I just wanted to go to bed, man.
It takes the guys about ten minutes to even leave the lobby from behind the desk to go to the car, too. I see them through the windows looking around and under the car, in the gas tank, the hatch, under the hood, and then they start rooting around through the glove compartment, my backpack, and under the seats.
Meanwhile, I'm first thinking of if I should be embarassed if they don't approve of my choices of burned music on CD, or the car flags I have in my car that I printed out at work - that being, a Canadian flag that says "CHillin' the Most". (The following instructions then suggest you should attach it to your antenna and then "rock that bitch up and down the coast." Thank you Kid Rock for the inspiration.)
A few minutes later, they come back with the hard questions.
"Who is Ashley __________?"
Me: "Pardon?"
"And Lori ________? And Robyn _______? And Katia _______ in...Mexico?"
Me: "Ohhh..." I interrupt.
"And why is Winona ________ written on a seperate piece of torn paper here? Who are these people?"
Turns out, the customs official had dug through my backpack and found my phone list of friends. All of the phone numbers and addresses of my friends are on a Word document that I printed before leaving, because I was feeling too lazy to look up just Ashley's number so I could contact her once I got to Seattle earlier that day. I didn't have it memorized yet, so I figured it was a smart idea. I guess he thought this was a list of my contacts for smuggling something or other, I don't know. And the reason Winona had her name on a seperate slip was because I did have time to write her number down before visiting her in February.
And this is what I told him.
I found it funny how of the names he selected to cite from my phone list (of which there were more said), he chose a handful of my nearest and dearest.
(I've left out the last names of these people for their own privacy, of course.)
The next thing he had to ask was about some things he found under my car seat - one of those being the book of Shell poetry that I had forgot even remained in my car. Years ago, I had removed this from Shell so the boss wouldn't see it - that being, becuase the book was full of poems the staff would write back and forth to each other (mostly Mike and I) - predominantly about how much work sucked, or, literally how gay their target was. Yes, it was immature - but at least this immaturity came in the form of iambic pentameter and heroic couplets. Let me give you an example:
Mike likes to play at the McDonald's playplace.
Mike slides down the slide with such sliding grace.
Watch as he jumps and falls
Into the pit of balls.
Mike loves feeling balls on his face.
Stupid? Clever? Both? Neither? Either way, apparently the customs dude didn't take to it (do these guys not have ANY sense of humour and fun?) and I had to defend myself again.
And then he brought up the fact I had another license plate, not registered to my vehicle, in the car. In fact, it's not registered to any vehicle - AWT 746 was the old plate the Civic had prior to me buying it off my parents. I just never got around to throwing it away, so I shoved it under the car seat and left it there for the past two years.
Now, I can see why the license plate thing could be an issue - no problem there. But what got these guys to even get a whiff of something awry in the first place is still confusing me to this day. I wanted to ask them right then and there, just what was it about my person that struck them as odd, but that could only further incriminate myself of nothing, so I kept my big yap shut.
I was hoping that Melissa would be working that night at the border crossing - she stands on guard for me (and 32 million other Canadians) after all - but no, she wasn't. She was one mile east at the truck crossing, so I wasn't able to pull any Booloo-strings to get her to bail me out of this time-waster.
Oy. It took me about half an hour to get through that mess. ANd what's worse, there are no magazines you can read while they harass and berrate you - just government pamphlets and such. Booo.
Thankfully, I was home 20 minutes after that. Minus my hold-up at the border, it took me 84 minutes to drive the 100 miles from Marysville to my driveway, which is very, very good timing - even over night. I remember hitting speeds of 150 km/h at some point, without even noticing it, too.
Oh yeah, I was also buoyed by the fact that the Montreal Canadiens have eliminated their other arch-nemesis, the Boston Bruins, from the playoffs but yet again - well, more correctly, from even being able to mathematically qualify for the playoffs. I love kicking that team's ass so much. Almost as much as I love beating on the Leafs. Almost.