Oh, Canada! - The Vacation 2006, Part 1A: A Customs Bitch Says "What"?

Well, this entry has been a long time coming, and if I didn't write this one out soon, I think I was gonna burst. This was probably the sorest spot of my whole vacation, which kept sticking with me throughout the rest of the trip. But damned if I was gonna let it ruin my good time. Let me roll back a bit...

I'd like to make it clear that I love Canadians. They are a fun-loving, smart, drink-you-under-the-table kind of folk that enjoy Curling, Canoeing, and Cottages - not always in that order. But I am wholly convinced that the coniving jerk-wads that give other Canadians a bad name, are all shoved into the same job together working Customs and Immigration. Granted, they are doing their country an important service, but do they have to be such, what is the word - "tools"?

Actually, this torture occurred in two stages - First, I was in the Customs line, just like everyone else, where you present your passport and entry card to the person working the counter. They swipe the passport, look over your answers on the form, and then ask you THE SAME EXACT QUESTIONS on the entry form. I'm not exactly sure why they do this - perhaps to test if you were the one that wrote the answers, or to test for language competency, but if that were the case, it still seems really asanine to me. Now here's the funny thing - every time I answer (no matter how ridiculous I feel about this exercise), I always answer concisely, politely, and to the point. However, even after I give them my reasons for coming to Canada, I am inexplicably excused over to the Immigration line without fail - for further interrogation. But the traveler in the line next to mine answered all his questions back with sarcasm and rudeness - yet, he was able to pass on through with no problem. I guess there's some sort of "Canadian-asshole speak" that I haven't quite mastered yet, so go figure...

I approach the VERY EMPTY Immigration section with much trepidation along with mild heart palpatations. Although I'm not doing anything wrong, I get really defensive all of a sudden, and shifty as a junkie coming off a meth-high. I'm also convinced that the hard-asses of the hard-asses are also the ones assigned to Immigration, to which this personality trait was supremely assigned to the Immigration Officer with whom we will refer to as "Karen".

Karen, who probably murdered her own spiritual kindness sometime in her early teens and now exiled to this exalted position, was clearly power-tripping this morning. She looked at me from a mile away, probably assuming that I'm some sort of illegal trying to smuggle my way to Canada or worse - act as some sort of emissary for the imminent American Invasion force that would never, appear. In short, she already hated my guts since breakfast.

Now, I can understand that there's a lot of pressure to spot the people who are legitimately coming to visit Canada - such as myself - compared to those that are entering for the sole purpose of causing a ruckus, but seriously - do they have to be rude while doing it?

"What is your reason for coming to Canada?", she asks in a tone both stern and uncaring at the same time.

"Vacation. Visiting family friends," I answer back in a quivering, meek voice.

"And how long will you be staying?"

"4 days."

"And where will you be staying?"

I give her the name of the hotel, my travel itinerary, and pretty much the first quarter of my life story. But she was still not satisfied.

She begins tapping on her keyboard, staring blankly at her computer screen. She types for what feels like hours, and then finally asks, "Have you ever been stopped before?"

I tap my fingers nervously on the counter. "Uh, yeah."

"What was the reason?"

"Failure to show proper papers for work status, and that was taken care of later, and every other time after that, I've just come in to visit, and that's it."

Karen gives me an evil stare, as if she's trying to perform a Voight-Kampff on me from Blade Runner. Her glower lasts for a good 10 seconds, and I can feel my retinas burn a little.

She takes my passport and opens it, looking at the various pages for an empty spot, then notices one stamp in particular. "What is this?"

"Oh, that? I got that stamp at, uh, this place in Ireland that puts the crest of the town as if it's a border crossing."

Karen is not amused. She looks at me as if I just told her that I enjoy swimming in sewers looking for diamonds. As our little interrogation comes to an end, she asks blithely, "Do you travel much?"

"Uh, gee, not really - why do you ask? Do you want to go with me somewhere, cause I'd rather eat rat excrement and wash it down with a cockroach smoothie than to spend one more second with you!"

Okay - I didn't really say that, but it just seems more interesting than my real answer:
"No, not really."

Having run out of things to scrutinize my existence on this planet, she begrudgingly takes out her Entry stamp and SLAMS it down on my passport. She slides it back to me as if she's giving me my food order at McDonald's - which is probably where she worked at before Immigration!

And then, I'll never forget this, she has the nerve to say,"Have a nice day."

But that is not what I heard - she may have conveyed a sentiment, but the tone she used made it sound more like "Get out of here ass-clown."

Again, I had one of two choices: 1, I could have "kept it real" and gone apeshit on her ass, which would have resulted in my being restrained and subsequent detainment, or, 2, I could let it slide and walk out of there and begin my vacation. I chose the latter, and walked out with about a micro-piece of my dignity intact. Do I wish I gave Karen a kick to the teeth? Of course I do, but I figured that karma will take care of her later.

I meet up with my father not long after that, and assume that he's driving us to Toronto, but I was wrong...

TO BE CONTINUED... ;)