I'm in Canada!

Getting into Canada last year, in the bus, was a huge ordeal. For a couple days people would come up to us every time we stopped and say, “you going through Canada in that? You’re gonna have a hard time getting across the border.” I wasn’t worried about the bus. We didn’t have anything to hide. I was worried about the dogs, so I had health certificates, rabies certificates, and everything else I could think of.

When we finally pulled up to the booth last year, the Customs guy took one look at our old school bus covered in the painted handprints of all our friends and said, ” uh, yeah. You’re gonna hafta pull in there and go inside.”

So we pulled into the parking lot and went inside, where we got background searched and stuff. Then they told us to go outside and pull the bus into the search bay. When we got outside we were met by three customs officials who told us not to pull the bus into the search bay because they thought we had explosives. They told us to sit on a line in the parking lot, and they went through the bus for three or four hours. The whole time my poor dogs were going nuts. Luckily I had a deck of cards in my pocket, so my then-girlfriend and I were able to entertain ourselves while sitting on the line. When the customs people finally emerged, they told us to go ahead and enter Canada. I offered the paperwork for the dogs, but they didn’t want to see it.

This time, I was prepared to go through all that. I had a little bag packed with a book, cards, and snacks to entertain myself with while they searched the van and I was planning on sticking up for poor Bro so he didn’t have to be stuck in the crate while they tore the van apart around him. I pulled up to the booth with my passport, driver’s liscense, and rabies certificate in hand.

“Where are you from?” he asked.

“Alaska.”

“What are you doing down here?”

“Seeing the world, but now I’m going home.”

“What do you do in Alaska?”

“Hike, pick berries, read books, you know, the same things you do here.”

“Does that mean your unemployed?” (Oh, that’s what he wanted to know!)

“I’m self employed”

“Self employed doing what?”

It is never ever a good idea to tell a man with a gun and the percieved social sanction to use it as he sees fit that you’re a stripper. Seriously. Really seriously. Like, serious as a gun in your sternum while some crazy man yells at you for making your living lying to men on a backroad in West Virginia.

So, a little white lie. “Cleaning houses, babysitting, you know, whatever people will pay me for.”

“I see,” he frowned. That was a bad answer. I should have said I was a writer. “Do you have any alcohol?”

“No.”

“Tobacco?”

“No.”

“Firearms?”

“No.”

“Knives or other weapons?”

I showed him my pocket knife, which I’d had the presence of mind to remove from it’s normal unfolded position in the drink holder ahead of time.

“That’s all?”

“Yes.”

“When was the last time you talked to an immigrations officer?”

“Last year, leaving Canada.”

“And what did you talk about?”

“Pretty much the same things you and I are talking about. Do they give you guys a script?”

“I’m a Customs Officer.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. I don’t know if I’ve ever talked to an Immigrations Officer before, then.”

“Well you’re going to talk to one now, pull in there.”

“Oh, those people. I’ve talked to them.”

“And what did you talk about?”

“My lack of criminal background and where I was born, and then they searched the bus I lived in for a really long time and wouldn’t even look at my Rabies certificate.”

“Ah. Well, no need for you to talk to them again then, carry on.”

I don’t get it. Just cause I wasn’t doing anything illegal last year they assume I’m not this year? I mean, I appreciate the not being searched. But I think their logic is a little flawed.