Border Issues

This last summer, I went to Toronto for my vacation again. It was a two-part vacation this year with part on my
Before my part of the vacation, the kids enjoyed the trip to the amusement park in the harbor, with Lamb old enough to go on more of the rides this year. I admit to hanging on to Lamb for dear life on the ski-lift ride over the park, fearful that somehow she'd slip off and fall. Mister and I made it on the bumper cars this year.

Last year, I took Mister to visit his grandpa up near Sudbury and spent some time at a cabin there suffering in nature's splendor before returning to Toronto for a few days. Mister then stayed a week or so until his mom took Lamb up for several days and the big trip home. Mister didn't like that arrangement so asked for the former schedule of the four of us going to Toronto first and then me sending them on their way up north while I remain for my own down time.

I really like the Entertainment District in Toronto. This year, with my two favorite museums still under construction there, I needed afternoon alternatives to recovering from bar trips the night before. So I saw both the Dark Knight and Iron Man on vacation. I had fun. It's getting to the point that I probably should find where the somewhat older types like myself go for nightlife, but so far my age hasn't been fatal!

Anyway, I've begun to dread the border crossing at the end of these trips. For some reason, they don't like my story and this time I got a border agent with some personal issues that she really shouldn't have taken out on me. So even though I always remove my sun glasses so I can look directly at the agent when responding and always give a cheery "hi," that moment is always the high point of my Customs experience coming home.

Like I said, the basic concept is that me, my Ex, Mister, and Lamb travel by car to Windsor where we board a train for Toronto. After a couple days in Toronto, I get Lamb, Mister, and my Ex to the train station for the trip north to Sudbury where they meet my Ex's dad. They spend several days enjoying boating and whatnot while I enjoy the complete absence of responsibilities with healthy doses of Canadian beer. I take the train back to Windsor where I get my car and drive home. The rest drive back home through the UP. Simple, right?

Well, perhaps not simple. Life is surely more complicated than I'd like. But it is true and I prefer to stick to the bare bones truth since it is easier to remember and I figure trying to make up a lie that sounds simpler could just end up getting me grilled by Homeland Security types for several hours. As it is, I've had long inquiries as I've sat in my car about my job, origins, travel plans, the "suspiciously" empty child seat in the back, and even had my trunk searched.

This year, I assume my female agent was divorced and perhaps hasn't had a magical experience with that whole legal process. Because when I laid out the above facts (minus the beer part), the agent clearly stopped listening to what I actually said. "So you went on vacation with your ex-wife?" she asked, with some disbelief in her voice. "Well, only partly, I explained patiently. "Like I said, I sent them up north to meet her dad and their grandpa."

Much more animated now, having clearly abandoned the script before she could ask me about bringing over live plants or anything like chemical warheads, she began to fixate on the ex-wife part of the story, completely ignoring the basic narrative of who went where. I'll admit that I was starting to get a little annoyed. Three days of hangovers will do that to you, in my own defense. At one point, she asked, "So you're telling me that you all went to Canada and you now have no idea (at this point she looked off into the sky as if the strange explanation for this would pop out ot thin air) how your ex-wife and children will get back home?" My clearly sequenced narrative was being ignored. "No, " I said, "As I told you, they met my Ex's dad and they are all coming back home together." This was really getting bothersome.

"So you are telling me that you get along with your ex-wife well enough to get on vacation with her?" She clearly had trouble with that concept. Hey, a lot of my friends and family have trouble with that. But my first impulse is that children shouldn't pay for the mistakes of adults. I try very hard to live by that. Look, I don't want too much of that togetherness. Which is why I've never accepted the invitation for all four of us to go meet my Ex's dad up at Sudbury. The trip to Toronto isn't all that much fun for me and increases my stress levels. The kids having fun makes it worth it. I've pushed off offers of other longer vacations, but this one allows me to help out and head off on a vacation of my own. It works for me. It works for my Ex. And it works for the children. Why United States Customs would have an issue with this is beyond me. And why the agent's apparent personal issues should affect me was beginning to grate. So that's about when I snapped and replied to the agent, "Yeah." I should have just stopped right there. But no. "You sound a lot like my mom on this," I added. (Sorry, mom.) And I wasn't smiling or being cheerfully patient anymore.

That's when her personal issues merged with statutory authority. "Alright," the agent snapped as she emerged from the booth. "Turn off your car, give me the keys, and pop your trunk." So I did that. My luggage was in the back seat and she didn't even want to look through that for plants or whatever contraband one might bring back from our northern neighbor. She just had interest in the trunk. Based on past trunk interest, I get the feeling that they half expect to find bodies there. To make room for luggage for four, I had cleaned out my trunk of the extra clothes and stuff that I keep in case I break down on the highway in sub-zero temperatures, and with no luggage at all, it was pretty clear. What I could not remember was whether I had taken the big shovel out before the trip. Nor could I remember if I'd used it in the garden recently (I have no garage so leave my shovel in my trunk, where it can double digging me out of a snow bank or whatever) and so did it have dirt caked on it? Good grief, they'd have DNA testing and sniffer dogs out any moment, the way this was going.

But the agent spent only about 5 seconds determining that I had not--in fact--been trying to sneak "evidence" across the border before she closed the trunk, returned to my car and handed me my keys, and told me I was free to go. I thanked her, put my sun glasses back on, and drove off, thus ending another eventful Customs experience.

I really need to reconsider the whole truthfulness philosophy that I bring into the world of border crossings.