Monday, June 20, 2011
LCA departs for her summer job Saturday; she will return just in time to shower and hit the road for Smith. This means that college shopping has been telescoped, so on Saturday we took a roadtrip to Ikea. On the ride up we saw that there is a Costco en route. A. is powerless before Costco, and we had a lot of Costco requirements for the coming week, so we stopped there on the way back. Most of our purchases were pretty unremarkable. We had a border to cross, so the bag of limes and lemons went back on the shelf, but the flat of pomegranates seemed safe, as too the mangoes.
I am always tempted to beat the system at the border, because I resent the intrusion, but I never do. Mostly this is because A. chimes in, and the daughters cannot be depended upon to prevaricate convincingly, but there is also an element of let's-get over-this-quickly to my border-crossing honesty. We pulled up to the booth with the receipts in hand, and the Customs guy had a look. "Agriculture is going to have to have a look at this," he said, then put our passports in a zippered portfolio, waived another guy over to take it, then directed us to the low building on the side. We were met by another Customs guy who told us to have a seat.
Now, you can call this whatever you like, but as far as I'm concerned we were in custody. We didn't have our passports, so we couldn't get back into Canada or into the US. We were not free to go, which I reckon is the best practical definition of being under arrest that there is. Even though the I.C.E.man was genial and pleasant, he had my car keys, and he impounded my pomegranates and mangoes. This was not cool. As it happens A has a partner with a cottage just down the road, so we told the Customs guy that we wanted our friends to have the produce. "I'll have to give you a note for Canadian Customs," he said, then filled out a form. In the space the said "Reason Admission Denied" he printed "Fruits", which seemed a little value-laden to me.
Addendum: CLA's account is here.
I am always tempted to beat the system at the border, because I resent the intrusion, but I never do. Mostly this is because A. chimes in, and the daughters cannot be depended upon to prevaricate convincingly, but there is also an element of let's-get over-this-quickly to my border-crossing honesty. We pulled up to the booth with the receipts in hand, and the Customs guy had a look. "Agriculture is going to have to have a look at this," he said, then put our passports in a zippered portfolio, waived another guy over to take it, then directed us to the low building on the side. We were met by another Customs guy who told us to have a seat.
Now, you can call this whatever you like, but as far as I'm concerned we were in custody. We didn't have our passports, so we couldn't get back into Canada or into the US. We were not free to go, which I reckon is the best practical definition of being under arrest that there is. Even though the I.C.E.man was genial and pleasant, he had my car keys, and he impounded my pomegranates and mangoes. This was not cool. As it happens A has a partner with a cottage just down the road, so we told the Customs guy that we wanted our friends to have the produce. "I'll have to give you a note for Canadian Customs," he said, then filled out a form. In the space the said "Reason Admission Denied" he printed "Fruits", which seemed a little value-laden to me.
Addendum: CLA's account is here.
// posted by Bill @ 10:21 AM 
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