I’m working on a few pieces and it’s holiday time so for the next couple weeks I’ll be posting things I wrote for previous issues that are now out of print.

Originally from issue #14, May 2008.

I have no idea how customs work. I’ve never been overseas and my previous crossings into Mexico and Canada were over land many years ago. This time I was flying into Canada. It was my first trip there in 10 years. The last time I was there was in my senior year of high school and I was taking an English class that was studying some plays that would be performed at the Stratford Theatre Festival. It was mainly Shakespeare but there were a few others we covered, too. It was an easy course: read some plays, write some papers, go to the festival, come home, and write some more papers. I would highly recommend the Festival. Hopefully your trip will involve less awkward teenage sexual tension than mine did.

This time I was flying Seattle to Toronto with a connection to Ottawa. I was going to visit my friend, Manon, who I met online many years ago when I was doing an online zine. I had done an interview with Mark Kozelek and she emailed me to tell me she liked it. We’ve kept in touch over the course of the past seven years but never had the chance to meet until now. This is something that many people find weird, but I’m used to meeting people in this way. It comes with doing zines, having an online journal and being on MySpace. It’s the age we live in I guess.

I was flying on Air Canada and let me say that is a kick ass airline. Each seat had a touch screen TV embedded into the back of the seat in front of yours with tons of movies (Classics, Canadian, French, Hollywood, etc.), music and the like. When I got on the plane, the flight attendants gave me a form that’s in both French and English. I wrote in my name, purpose of visit and any declarations (fruit, vegetables, weapons, alcohol, fireworks, small animals, etc.) I filled out the form on the plane and it seemed simple enough.

When I disembarked, we were shuttled to customs. A friendly airport employee directed me to the correct line. I stood there for about five minutes and finally reached the desk of the customs agent. I was at the far left of the lines. To my right were ten or twelve more queues like mine.

I handed the fairly cute customs agent my paper and my passport. She asked me the basic questions: What’s the purpose of your visit? How long are you staying in Canada? Where do babies come from? And so on. She placed a mark on my customs sheet and then told me to go ahead. I complimented her on her cool glasses (everybody likes getting those random compliments, right?) and she gave me an embarrassed “Thanks” and off I went.

There was a chrome railing and on the other side was the passageway to the terminals. But first I had to give my customs form to another person at the little gate which would let me through to the other side. The people in front of me showed their paper to the official and she waved them through. They then gave their papers to another customs official who was collecting them in a box. I showed my paper to the woman and she told me to go to a room to my right. Red flags started going up in my head. Thus began an extended period of profuse sweating that would abate only once I was on my connecting flight to Ottawa. I suppose the two heavy bags I was carrying and the puffy winter coat I was wearing weren’t helping things. Unsure of what I heard the customs agent say, I did my best polite white person version of “Whatchoo talkin’ ‘bout Willis?” For this particular instance, the role of Willis was being played by a female Canadian customs agent in her fifties.

I was reassured my destination was indeed this other room. I hauled the bags and my customs form and inside I felt as though I was in a bank. There was that lined path which never seems to have people in queue (as was the case here) so it made me wonder why it’s there and then there were a dozen or so booths with customs agents behind them. I stood in line and anxiously waited my turn to be called. It took about ten seconds and then a cute, dark-haired girl in her twenties, probably not much older than me, called me up.

If this whole process were a prepping session for a date, the portion I was now in would be the more in-depth Q&A. Some of the standard questions were asked again, but now I was thrown some new ones. How do you know Manon? (After this trip Manon and I decided we were just going to tell people we met through a mutual friend named Mark.) While I don’t find it strange to say I met people over the internet, I guess a customs agent might. Why are you visiting Manon? Can you give me her phone number? Where does she live? Uh, Ottawa. Duh. That’s why I’m flying there. Oh! You mean what part of town? I have no idea. I’ve never met her. I just told you that! Where does she work? Some non-profit that does environmental work. What kind of work? I don’t know.

At this point besides sweating in buckets, I began to kick myself for leaving my government ID at home. It was in my bag that morning but I decided I wasn’t going to need it so I laid it on my desk. I was sure it might help show the Canadians I wasn’t a terrorist. I was also thinking about how I had passed three security background checks related to my job: one for the federal government, one for the sub-contractor I was working for and another when I got promoted to the main contractor. I have looked at layouts of plants that handle chemicals and learned their security measures, I have seen confidential business information for companies and discussed confidential EPA legal documents but evidently getting to Ottawa was a big problem.

The customs woman asked me to have a seat as she went to call Manon. I looked around and realized for the first time that I was the only white person being questioned in the room. It appeared everyone else was either from India, Pakistan or South East Asia. I started to wonder if I was the token white person, like some sort of champion of a contest no one wanted to win. Customs agents were getting frustrated and seemed to be repeating themselves often. Mine called me back to her presence. “I couldn’t get a hold of Manon at either of the numbers you gave me.” Shit. “I left a message for her and I’m going to let you go ahead, but I want you to have her call me.” Can do. Does Canada have a Gestapo that is going to follow up on all this?

I took my bags and customs form and went out a different door than the one in which I entered. I walked out, turned a few corners and found myself at another checkpoint. There were other people there who gave a customs agent their forms. I have no idea where those people came from, as they hadn’t been with me in the interrogation room/bank. The agent took a look at my form and gave it back to me. “You need to go into the room to my right.” I did a nervous check in my head. “His right? Not my right. There’s no room to my right. So it’s my left. His right is my left. So I’m going into that room there. On his right.” And that’s where I went.

To say that the situation that unfolded before me was unique would be an understatement. As I went into the gigantic room, on my right was what can best be described as a dozen or so grocery checkout lanes, but with aluminum counters instead of the conveyor belts. I saw a large suitcase open, its’ contents strewn across the length of the counter. Clothes, toiletries and the like were displayed and two Asian men stood there while the customs agent looked over something on the computer at his station.

Before I could give the high-ceiling room more than a once over, I saw an Asian woman to my right with a cart filled with her luggage and she was talking on her cell phone. Suddenly a male customs agent came her way from behind his “check-out lane”.

“What did I just tell you?” he yelled at the woman. “Hmm? What did I tell you about talking on the phone? I said DO NOT talk on the phone! Now give me your phone and go sit over there until I call you.” The woman didn’t seem to be too freaked out – she took her cart of baggage over to some seats on my left. About the same time as I mumbled, “What the hell is going on here?” I heard a “Next!” and being the only person in line I knew that meant me.

I walked up to lane five and thankfully had ten items or less. In the fifteen feet to the lane I said to myself, “Just be friendly and act natural.” I placed my bags on the counter along with my heavy winter coat that by now I had taken off. I was still sweating a ridiculous amount, which has never done much to help prove one’s innocence. The customs agent was a physically imposing guy in his thirties with short brown hair and a goatee. To continue the dating analogy, if the previous segment of questions had been a more in-depth Q&A, this part would be the equivalent of the dad or older brother grilling you.

I smiled and said hello in as friendly a manner as I could. He seemed unfazed. He asked me for my passport and my customs paper. The same types of questions were asked. The problem comes when I’m asked, “How do you know her?” Through work. (Meaning my old zine.) “What work?” Oh, I ran an online magazine and she wrote me about an article I did and we’ve been in touch ever since. “But you’ve never met in person?” Nope. “What was the name of the magazine?” What? “The magazine you did, what was it called?” It was at this point in my mind I said, “Ahh, shit.” Um, Action Attack Helicopter. Shit shit shit. His eyes lit up a bit, at least more than from anything else I’d said up to that point. “What does that mean?” I don’t know. “Why don’t you know?” I didn’t come up with the name. I really wanted to start getting snarky at this point but decided against it. I mean, I’d already done nothing and felt like I was on the verge of rendition so I decided to be straight with the man, although I must admit I was getting a little impatient. I only had an hour layover before my flight to Ottawa left. I now had less than 30 minutes until that point. “Who came up with the name?” My partner. “What did he say it means?”  I don’t know. He never told me. (Which is actually the truth. I kind of liked the mystery of it all, so I never asked him.) “Why are you so nervous?” I realized later this was probably just a standard question to try and catch people off-guard but my thought at the time was, “What the fuck?!” Well, I have a connection to catch and I wasn’t expecting this. I don’t think I need to describe how sweaty I was at this point.

He looked at the form and the passport. He placed the latter on to the counter and takes the form while he mumbles something. I’m sorry, what did you say? “You can leave.” I suddenly felt like the owner of a Chinese restaurant who thanks you a million times for visiting while you’re on your way out. I grabbed all my stuff and left. The strange thing? He never opened my bags or even mentioned them.

As I was leaving, I walked by an aisle where a white European male was getting railed on by a customs agent. All I heard as I walked by was the agent saying, “Go ahead, keep talking. Every time you open your mouth the fine is going up.” In my head I chuckled. Enjoy your rendition to some shit prison in Bulgaria via the United States, buddy. Having given up my customs form, I am pretty sure I was in the clear. I just had one more hurdle: the metal detectors. I went right through with no hassles and made it to my gate as they made a final boarding call.

When I got to Ottawa I finally met up with Manon at the airport. We hugged as I said, “Hi!” and then the second thing out of my mouth was, “You need to call Canadian customs.” Yeah, it’s good to finally meet you, too. I explained to her the story and she checked her home voicemail from her cell phone. Nothing. There was a call on her cell phone from a Toronto area code but no message had been left. She called the number and it was a general number for customs in Toronto. She explained things and they told her that unless she had a name and extension they couldn’t help her. Thus, the agent had lied to me.

I understood the agents were just doing their jobs. But I still had no idea why I had been picked out. I wasn’t sure how the customs agents would act when I wanted back in the States. Like I said, I had no idea how customs worked. After a few days in Ottawa, I found myself back at the airport. When I went through customs back to the US, I actually had to talk to an American customs agent who is stationed in his little booth surrounded by American flags.

I was braced for the worst. I had my tickets for my flight to Detroit that would then take me to South Bend to see my parents. I gave the agent my passport. He was very friendly and asked me the basic questions: did I buy any fruits or vegetables; did I make any purchases, etc.? To the last question I responded, “Just some food. But I’m not bringing it with me. I just purchased food. At a restaurant. And I ate it there. At the restaurant. I don’t have it with me now.” I smiled awkwardly. And the sweating began. The agent grins, stamps my passport and wishes me a good trip. What? No Guantanamo because I accidentally suggested I had brought food with me? Wow. Thanks America!

I met my parents later that night at the airport. I told them the story and how neither I nor anyone I told the story to in Canada could figure out why they had pulled me aside. With no hesitation and practically at the same time they said, “You had a one way ticket. It probably looked to them like you were going to Canada and never leaving.” I slapped myself on the forehead. Of course! If they had just asked, I could’ve shown the customs agents my itinerary printout for my trip to Indiana. But they never asked and I hadn’t the faintest notion it would be relevant. Like I said, I have no idea how customs work.

But at least I got this great picture from the top of Parliament.