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Today's adventures with customs
What's with all the "ooot"s? Watching too much South Park? :)
Seriously though, no one in southern Ontario talks like that! North of
Toronto you start to hear the "Canadian" accent, but around here we
sound like any other red blooded American, except for the odd "eh"
added in for effect...
I'm ooot of here,
Mark.
Oh ya, I just remembered another border story. About 15 years ago when
I was working as a lot boy for a car dealership I was sent over the
border to deliver a check to a furniture store in Buffalo. Well, I'm
happy as all hell to be out for a nice drive in a nice car, not to
mention the possibilities to do a bit of "dog fornication". But all
that was replaced by a sinking feeling as I'm crossing the bridge. As
I'm approaching the toll booth I realize I have absolutely NO money on
me. The toll at the time was only 50 cents. So I pull up to the toll
collector and explain my situation. After himmin and hawin, he asks if
my plates are U.S. or Canadian. After replying "Canadian", he asks his
supervisor (over the loudspeaker of course :-), who tells him to turn
me back. So back I go, only to get a major grilling by the Canadian
customs official. He finally lets me go. So rather than drive a half
hour back to the dealership (and not to mention that I would look like
a complete idiot), I decided to bum some change off someone on the
street in Fort Erie... After several strange looks, someone finally
took pity on me and gave me two quarters. I still can't believe that I
had to go through all that BS over 50 cents! (oh ya, I had to ask the
furniture store clerk in Buffalo for 50 cents to get back :-) -
although I don't think I needed it cause they only collect one way...
--- 16V Jason <jason@scirocco.org> wrote:
> At 05:29 PM 4/1/2002, John C. Worden wrote:
> >What the hell, did Canada become a dictatorship or something? Maybe
> you
> >should just have someone from the US bring the stuff over. I've
> never been
> >inspected(and the last time I had the truck with a cover on the bed
> and 2 semi
> >automatic rifles from a hunting trip and i told them I had guns in
> the back)
>
> John, that was my experience in the past as well -- as was Mardak's
> impression of the CDN guys being nice and the US guys being pricks.
> That
> was -- until 2 weeks ago.
>
> A friend and I packed up a trailer full of Jetta remains and hauled
> them up
> to The Mad Bastard's place. At the border, I can understand, we
> looked a
> bit suspicious. 2 guys in a Honda with a trailer on the back packed
> beautifully and covered up with canvas. So off to the inspection we
> went. No surprise there.
>
> The surprise was that the CDN customs officials were assholes! We
> had all
> the parts in the trailer, and then 3 dufflebags in the car -- one
> with a
> gift for Jason, one with my clothes, and one with my buddy's shit.
> And
> then a couple CD cases, laptop bags, bla bla. The one cop was
> SCREAMING at
> us that he wanted to see everything. Mind you, we were completely
> cooperative and moving quickly to unhook all the canvas in the
> trailer as
> fast as we could and helping them lift things to inspect
> everything....
> with 3 guys standing in 3 different spots around the car screaming to
> hurry up.
>
> The guy was like "GET ALL YOUR SHIT OUT OF THE CAR NOW. I WANT TO
> SEE IT
> ALL ON THE GROUND NOW! **NOW!**" -- as we're taking it out of the
> car. Then he proceeds to berate us for taking so much stuff with us
> for
> the weekend "What is this shit, you guys have everything but the
> kitchen
> sink in the car with you..."
>
> I explained our (true) story about 4.3x10^7 times, which was that we
> were
> going up for a bachelor party. I had one gift with me for the
> bachelor,
> and the parts in the trailer were going to him since he's a member of
> VWoT
> and he would be able to disburse the parts amongst his club. They
> had been
> in my buddy's mom's garage for a year and she wanted them out -- so
> this
> was the perfect way of getting rid of them. I told them that I would
> try
> to recover our gas money for the trip up, but I'd value all the parts
> at
> like $150 max anyway, and be glad to pay on that if need be.
>
> Long story short, he sent me in to pay our duty, and they set up a
> nice
> little trap. As I'm walking towards the officer behind the counter,
> he
> said "No worries, he made a mistake oootside, if it's all a gift,
> then
> don't worry abooot it." I smelled a rat immediately and said "Whoa
> whoa --
> wait a second, it's not all a gift... " and explained my story again,
> as
> another officer behind him starts laughing and says "oooh, you just
> ruined
> your day guy -- you' just cost yourself a lot of money".
>
> So at the conclusion of my story, I said to the guy (the only one who
> was
> nice btw) that I had stated a value of CDN$150 for the parts because
> that
> was the _maximum_ I expected to sell the parts for. I had also
> claimed my
> US$75 gift to my friend and detailed on numerous occasions the
> contents of
> the car allthewhile being verbally assaulted by another customs
> agent. I,
> therefore, had been more than completely honest, and I had nothing to
>
> hide. Apparently, he agreed, because he shot a smile at me and said
> "Allright -- get ooot and enjoy the stag, eh?".
>
> Getting back into the US with a 32,000 mile 2.0 was a whole lot
> easier...
> no questions, all we said was "Blown motor we picked up for parts...
> worked
> out perfectly cause we needed some weight back there to keep the
> trailer
> from bouncing around." "Sure, you fellas have a safe trip back
> home."
>
> So, in conclusion, I don't know what happened to the Canadian border
> patrol
> up there. It is their job and responsibility to be courteous and
> obviously
> that has gone completely "ooot" the window. I understand that
> security is
> a concern for all of us -- and I have no problem emptying everything
> from
> my car and stripping to my bare ass if necessary to protect all of
> our
> safety -- but there's no reason for customs agents to be rude to you
> while
> they're doing it.
>
> I'm ooootta here. :)
> Jason
>
>
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