02 December 2008

Oh, crap!

This is the extent of my witty repartee when the other conversational contributor is a large man in a large uniform with a large firearm.

Oh, crap.

But let me give you a bit of backstory.

Himself has been a member of many bands during his musical career, but only one of them achieved the distinction of being picked up by a S.W.A.T. team. Yes, an honest-to-God armed S.W.A.T. team.

It happened on a cold, slushy winter night when they were playing for a bar set in a strip mall. At the end of the evening, the band members proceeded to load the equipment out the back door. All was going smoothly until a loud voice instructed them to "GET ON YOUR KNEES NOW!!!"

As this request was accompanied by the frighteningly stereo sound of many rifle bolts being retracted, they complied before the echo faded.

There were large and intimidating law enforcement types on every available rooftop and around every corner. They were armed and apparently irritated. They were also slightly mistaken, as they thought the band members were trying to break in to the doctor's office next door, which had been robbed on prior occasions. After much (initially fruitless) hollering for the bar owners, the misunderstanding was resolved. Himself summed up the entire incident with one statement.

"Them people are efficient."

Flash forward several years. Himself is now divorced from The Evil One, a control freak that defies description. He picked up the phone? She gave him a black eye. He brought her the "wrong" sandwich? She threw her soda in his face. He wanted to go to a jam session? She ran over his guitar. A horrible person.

Faced with his newfound freedom, Himself is much like a five-year-old boy offered his choice of puppies. Whims are to be fulfilled and authority is to be disdained. Understandable, but not the best idea in some cases.

Case in point, our recent trip to Detroit.

Detroit is right across the river from Canada. Himself has never been out of the country. Canada can be reached by the Ambassador Bridge. Himself believes that rules have their place, as long as they don't interfere with his plans.

You see where I'm going with this, don't you? He decided to go to Canada.

Now, he had been told repeatedly that one must have one's birth certificate in order to visit Canada, if one wished to re-enter the United States. While the two of us, with Junior in tow, were cruising the city, Himself began to whine. "We'll just go for a few minutes. I've never been out of the country. Let's just drive across the bridge. If it's a big deal, we'll just come back."

Ad nauseum. I finally agreed just to hush him up.

The toll-taker said, "No problem."

The Canadian Border Patrol said, "No problem."

Upon our return to the American side of the river, the large man in the large uniform with the large firearm said, "Do you realize you're in violation of a Federal Law?"

Oh, crap...Sir.

After several questions, dirty looks, and veiled threats from him and a look of horror from me, we were deemed non-threatening and allowed to go on our less-than-merry way. Himself was suitably chastened for about five minutes before he began grumbling about the fact that nothing was actually posted with regards to the aforementioned law. "I should go back there and tell him so."

Let it go, Dear. You don't mess with Border Patrol.

Them people are efficient.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

You copycat! We drove one evening, from outside Chicago up to Detroit, and decided, on a whim, to go into Windsor! It was fun at the border, they were asking us what purpose (for fun, we said), how long we we staying (an hour or so, we said), and you should have seen the look we got. I thought for a while there that the guy was going to call over the other guys to say, "Check out the stupid Americans, drove here from Chicago and they're only staying for an hour." Sure was fun though. Did you get to see any black squirrels?

Mags said...

Hey~
I too have a story!
Our friends had a French exchange student who had come to Pennsylvania because we were close to Niagara Falls which Fabrice wanted to visit....desperately. We decided on a whim to go..the kids and adults in separate cars.
We crossed the border; no problem there! The way home...sheesh (a nightmare)...the big question, from the armed guard, "Where are you from?" I heard Fabrice said, "Edinboro," with a French accent. Well, the s**t hit the fan, he had no passport nor ID. Luckily this was before 9/11.. sooo...we all got off with a warning. Sooo don't you just hate people coming to your blog and using your topic to tell their own yarn??? (TeeHee)
Happy knitting...glad you got home safely.

Lisa Marie said...

On the bright side of things, you will have a memorable story to tell 'lil T when he gets older about his first Thanksgiving holiday lol

Anonymous said...

They're supposed to protect our borders from being overrun by bad guys and their molls like you two.
:-) We had to have our passports when we went on our Alaskan cruise because we went to Vancouver Island.