There was a simpler time in my life when I thought that during a trip to the lovely country of United States the hardest part was entering it. I’ve heard many scary stories from my friends who said how unlawful and cruel the American customs officers are, when they make you take of your shoes and steal all of your liquid containers. So every time I went to States, I was literally terrified that one of my buddies left some weed by accident in my backpack or, worse, I have a signed picture of Osama Bin Laden as a bookmark in one of my books. However, all of these was before I had a very exciting encounter with Canadian customs officers on my way back to Toronto.
Back in summer of 2008, I was living in Bay Area, while on an internship with one of the IT companies there, call it XY Inc. In the end of August it was the time to head back to school, so I booked my plane ticket, San Francisco – Toronto, through Air Canada. Given that the Toronto International is stupidly one of the most expensive airports in the world, my preferred way of getting home is usually through Buffalo. However, this time I was way too lazy and resistant to extending my trip by the extra two hours of driving on QEW, so Air Canada was my airline of choice. As I realized in the near future after that and so will you, it was a big mistake.
It’s been about 4 months since the last time I was in the Great White North, so I was quite excited to go back. I packed all my crap in one gigantic suitcase and whatever didn’t fit there, I threw in a big gym bag. It was finally time to head out and to get to the airport and I decided to use one of the airport shuttles. My driver ended up being a hillarious Russian dude, who told me almost his entire life story on my way to San Francisco International, but that’s a different story.
In anyway, everything was going great. I was in the great mood and pretty well rested. Assuming that I will not be able to sleep, I picked up myself a pretty good read for the flight - Rigged by Ben Mezrich. For those of you who don’t know who Ben Mezrich is, he is the guy who wrote bestsellers such as Bringing Down the House and Busting Vega$. And for those of you who don’t give a tiny rat’s ass about books and have never heard of Bringing Down the House, it is the book that the recent Hollywood flick 21 is based on…
Well, going back to the point, I finally got on board of 747 with a huge red maple leaf on its fuselage. Unfortutanely, my trip back to the big T.O. wasn’t going to be a direct one and we had to make a 3 hour stop in Calgary. I couldn’t care less about the delay since I was around 150 pages into Rigged and it looked like it was going to keep me well entertained. However, what I didn’t realise was that Calgary was the point of my physical entrance to Canada and, thus, I had to go through the customs… That’s when the shit started hitting the fan.
To begin with, I had to go to the baggage claim to find all of my stuff. Moreover, when I got to the customs, the crowd there was enormous. There were at least 500 people spread over 10 single long lines. I fished out my passport from my bag and got ready to enjoy the wait. The line I was in was moving ridiculously slow. People in front of me started freaking out about missing their connecting flights and quietly complaining to each other about how stupid the system is.
Finally, after over 30 minutes of waiting, it was my turn to talk to the lovely customs lady. She looked about 45 and pretty harmless. Boy, was I wrong… She spent good 5 minutes studying my passport and asking my pointless questions such as “Have you declared everything?” and “Are you bringing in any illegal substances?”. I was as clean as a catholic virgin, so my answers were firm and assholish “No”s. My guess is that she didn’t really dig that. She drew a big red cross on my declaration form and told me to proceed.
I continued down a narrow dark hallway thinking that was it, until I noticed a big “nightclub-bouncer-looking” black dude, who was checking everyone’s declaration forms. He immediately saw the big red cross and arose in front of me like a gate of a medieval castle. He took my form, gave it a couple of disapproving stares and finally blessed me with a two-word phrase – “Go there!”. He pointed to the big open space to the right of me where I could see 3 or 4 tables that looked much like supermarket checkout lanes. Another customs officer near of one of the lanes told me to put all of my luggage on the counter and wait. I had absolutely no idea what I was going on, so I obeyed.
10 or so minutes later, the customs lady from earlier came out of the service door nearby. I finally snapped out of it and asked:
- “What is going on?”
- “You are a subject of random baggage check.” – answered the lady – “Please remove all belongings from your suitcases and bags and place them on the counter-top.”
“F**king A…” – I thought to myself. It took me good two days to pack everything in, so I was not pleased. Given that I had no other choice, I started unpacking all of my crap and she began throughfully examining it. Good thing that my stop-over was 3 hours long, since the whole procedure look like it was going to take a while. To calm myself down I tried to make some small talk:
- “So, does this happen to a lot of people?”
- “I can’t say.”
- “I see. Are you looking for anything specific? Maybe I can point you in the right direction.” – said I, stepping towards the table and putting my hands on one of my bags.
- “I can’t say. I’d prefer if you stay away from the table and not talk.” – responded the customs woman without even looking up.
Clearly, this was not going well. I shut up and stepped away. She looked through absolutely everything including the insides of my 3 pairs of shoes. She finally looked up and told me to take everything out of my carry-on laptop bag. I started getting more pissed off:
- “There is nothing, but my laptop there. Do you really need to see that? ”
- “Yes. Please remove your laptop and turn it on.”
- “Why?”
- “I need to make sure it is a working machine.”
I figured that was their way of checking that I’m not hiding packs of cocaine inside of my crappy old Compaq, so I obeyed again. It got weirder from there:
- “Please, enter your password.” – requested the customs bitch.
- “Why?”
- “I need to check your files?”
- “Why do you need to do that?”
- “I need to verify that you are not carrying any child pornography.”
Wow…. Do I look like a freaking pedophile? I’m 21-year-old dude from Ontario. For all I know, some people would consider naked pictures of me as child porn:
- I don’t have any child pornography.
- Well, that is what we are going to find out.
- OK, fine – I didn’t want to argue and delay the process any longer. Plus, I knew that even if I tried to resist she would end up getting what she wanted. Also, I thought I didn’t have anything to hide and it would take her million years to look through each one of my files anyway. I entered my password and pushed the laptop back to her. Watching her work it was priceless. Imagine how would a brainless monkey look with an iPhone. Her awkward attemps to use the touchpad finally got her to open up “My Pictures”. Damn… I suddenly realized that I did have something to hide. It’s no child porn, but it’s not something I want a random stranger to see. I obvisiously had some revealing pictures of my girlfriend, but who doesn’t? If you’ve ever dated anybody long distance, you would understand. I started protesting:
- Excuse me. I would appreciate if you do not look through my photographs. Those are personal. Plus, do I look stupid enough to hide my child pornography in “My Pictures” folder? I would probably be somewhat more creative regarding where I hide it.
- I have to look through everything.
- But isn’t this invasion of privacy?
- “We are allowed by law to inspect all of your belongings, even digital ones.” – proudly responded my searcher. I figured she was happy about herself for saying word “digital”.
- “Fine, do whatever you want.”
I had no idea what to do or say anymore. She started making her way through my pictures. Eventually, she came accross my girlfriend photos:
- “What is this?”
- “Those I pictures of my girlfriend? Those are private, is that not clear to you?”
- “I apologize, but I have to look through them.”
- “Whatever… Enjoy…” – who is the pervert now, I thought to myself.
- “How old is she?” - What the hell kind if question is that? Does she look like a 9-year-old Thai boy???? That bitch was getting on my nerves.
- “Even though, it’s none of your business, she is 22.” – that’s right, she is even older than me, you dumb-ass.
- “What is her name?”….
Anyways, this interrogation went on for good 10 minutes. I’m not going to go into any more details. In summary, she kept asking stupid questions and looking through the rest of my pics. In the end, I was really pissed. I was trying to keep myself from yelling at her, so I stuck to simple one word answers – “Yes”, “No” and “Sure”. Finally, she finished her inspection and instructed me to pack up. I grabbed all of my stuff, quickly threw it into my suitcase and started walking away. I heard her say “Good day, sir”. I ignored it at first and kept walking. I couple of seconds later I turned around and yelled: “I hope you enjoyed that. I’ll let you know when we release a DVD.”
I walked to the terminal and went in to the first bar. I grabbed a cold pint of Canadian. Sign read “Welcome to Canada”. It was good to be home.
December 19th, 2008 at 9:47 pm
This hasn’t been proof read, so if you see any spelling mistakes, let me know.
December 20th, 2008 at 3:21 am
So when’s the DVD come out? Can’t wait to watch it
December 20th, 2008 at 5:06 am
great writing,
but you decided to cut right through the climax of the story and end it with a summary which was the only thing i didn’t like. in my opinion thats the only part you shouldn’t have summarized.
I’m glad you didn’t end up with a strip search
thats the first thing that came to my mind when i first saw the yellow sign above.
December 20th, 2008 at 11:47 am
Thanks Sina, maybe I will write the end at some point.
December 20th, 2008 at 2:51 pm
You are such a terrorist. Ridiculous!
This was a good read, though I’ve never had anything like this happen to me at the border. I’ve always left/entered through Toronto. Maybe Calgary is just a bit fd up…
Of crap, I guess I’d better erase my child pornography hahaha
December 21st, 2008 at 11:33 pm
Man, i’ve had to deal with canada customs “randomly rummaging through my crap” as well, but at least they did it by “losing my luggage” and then sending it back to me a day later, bag zipper broken and poorly duct-taped together with a friendly “random screening” tag attached.. although sounds like you had alot of fun with the customs lady
December 25th, 2008 at 12:31 pm
hahaha Raheel…..keep dreaming! lol
April 25th, 2010 at 1:15 am
Your website is excellent I will have to read it all, thank you for the diversion from the books!
July 16th, 2010 at 9:01 pm
yup that is the kind of people working our customs counters. I get that sort of thing all the time. The most annoying thing is they are total idiots, the ones that do this. They think they are cops and our government gives them all that power. Oddly, one of the wrost experiences was a return flight from SanFrancisco. The guy was determined I was on blow. Checked everything, put all my wallet contens under blacklight etc. I havent even had a beer in years. Meanwhile Allah allah islams were pouring into Canada. And we all know the pedophiles are the “upstanding” types they never check.
I find the females to be the worst. They want to show their power and its ridiculous. They start with my respect then lose it with their retarded behaviour.
September 3rd, 2010 at 2:14 pm
Amazing post, dude! I’m gonna follow your blog!
October 17th, 2010 at 11:24 am
I was reading something else about this on another blog. Interesting. Your position on it is diametrically opposed to what I read before. I am still pondering over the different points of view, but I’m leaning heavily toward yours. And no matter, that’s what is so super about modernized democracy and the marketplace of thoughts online.
October 27th, 2010 at 1:54 pm
I had to deal with them too.. But my experiences were even worst. I’ve been interrogated 4 times by them! Each time they claimed it was a “random” check. The first time i got harassed was at the gate in the country I was visiting, departing back to Canada. This man came running and screaming “Excuse me this a random check!” checked out my passport and asked if I was born in Canada and I said “Ya, whats the problem?”, “oh nothing sir this was just a random check”.. The guy had a British accent and he was harassing me about being Canadian??.. that one wasnt bad, it was just a taste of bad experiences I would encounter everytime I travelled. It was my last flight that was bad. I was waiting at the gate to leave for the country I was visiting when 4 agents came up to me, harassed me, and searched me in front of everyone waiting at the gate. That was so embarassing, they found pictures of my friends on my camera who are CANADIAN university students of different ethnicities. I told them they were my friends, but they refused to believe me. One agent even accused me of trying to smuggle people into Canada!! They let me go right before my flight left and didnt give me back my flight ticket. They left it on a counter and I had to search for it myself and barely made my flight. On my way back I knew for sure I was going to get checked. I got the same old big red cross you got when I checked in, and was lead to the same type of room. There they harassed me for a good hour or so, smelling all my clothes, asking obsurd invasive questions and pretty much trying to get me to admit something I didnt even do. They werent listening to any of my answers and even threatened to have me detained. And no I was not rude or being arrogant to them, I tried very hard to keep calm. I was born, raised and grew up in Canada, but customs sure knows how to make you feel UN-Canadian and like you’re not from Canada.
January 5th, 2011 at 8:51 am
Great read!
January 6th, 2011 at 6:22 am
Thank you for this entry. Looking forward to another one.
January 12th, 2011 at 2:51 am
Like your post, I will share to my friend facebook.
January 12th, 2011 at 11:15 pm
Hello there, just became aware of your blog through Google, and found that it is really informative. I’m going to watch out for brussels. I’ll appreciate if you continue this in future. A lot of people will be benefited from your writing. Cheers!
January 19th, 2011 at 7:03 am
I had to deal with them too.. But my experiences were even worst. I’ve been interrogated 4 times by them! Each time they claimed it was a “random” check.
January 23rd, 2011 at 3:20 am
Thanks admin. Thats good web site. I found your web site on your google.6
January 23rd, 2011 at 3:25 am
Get Latest Xbox Microsoft Points Code generator website
February 10th, 2011 at 2:25 am
ll appreciate if you continue this in future. A lot of people will be benefited from your writing. Cheers!
March 13th, 2011 at 11:26 pm
I have thought a sufficient measure of civilization is the influence of good women.
March 14th, 2011 at 3:42 am
I was waiting at the gate to leave for the country I was visiting when 4 agents came up to me, harassed me, and searched me in front of everyone waiting at the gate. That was so embarassing, they found pictures of my friends on my camera who are CANADIAN university students of different ethnicities. I told them they were my friends, but they refused to believe me.
March 23rd, 2011 at 7:26 pm
I had been a little bit acquainted of your post offered bright clear concept.Therefore, I will subscribe your blog because you have an awesome post.Thanks in advanced
March 31st, 2011 at 3:10 am
First off nice website. Im unsure if it has been addressed, nevertheless when utilizing Chrome I can by no means get the whole weblog to load without refreshing alot of occasions. Could just be my laptop computer. Appreciate!
April 7th, 2011 at 4:43 am
That was so embarassing, they found pictures of my friends on my camera who are CANADIAN university students of different ethnicities.
April 8th, 2011 at 2:48 am
CBSA are a bunch of ego trip a-holes. They terrorist innocent Canadians with their stupid questions and rummage through your stuff to see if they can tax you. Did you declare this, that? Where are the receipts? Gifts? Blah blah blah. Going back home is like going through prison. I found that female officers are worse. Not being sexist here but everytime they act like bitches. Once it’s over they say welcome home! Yeah…right
May 9th, 2011 at 8:26 am
Really a very good post. Waiting for your other useful posts.
May 11th, 2011 at 12:42 am
Could you please incorporate a lot more tips on this . topic? By the way your websites are smart. Regards.
May 13th, 2011 at 10:25 pm
I love your blog.. very nice colors & theme. Did you create this website yourself or did you hire someone to do it for you? Plz reply as I’m looking to construct my own blog and would like to find out where u got this from. thanks a lot
May 19th, 2011 at 4:56 am
Thank you for another magnificent article. Where else could anyone get that kind of information in such an ideal way of writing? I’ve a presentation next week, and I am on the look for such info.
May 27th, 2011 at 3:12 pm
Thanks for posting such fantastic articles regards. I discovered a great from your posting, I will come back for much more information
June 3rd, 2011 at 6:28 am
Thank you for posting. That one goes straight to my bookmarks.
June 6th, 2011 at 5:40 am
The beauty of these blogging engines and CMS platforms is the lack of limitations and ease of manipulation that allows developers to implement rich content and ‘skin’ the site in such a way that with very little effort one would never notice what it is making the site tick all without limiting content and effectiveness. —————- Chaise longue
June 15th, 2011 at 9:04 pm
Worth it to read post.Thank You
June 19th, 2011 at 7:39 am
Thanks a lot for the goodinformation.
July 9th, 2011 at 12:00 am
I learned about your blog a few days ago and I have been reading it often. You have a large amount of helpful information here and I really like your kind of the website too. Keep up the good work!
August 19th, 2011 at 8:10 pm
How many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb? Only one, but the bulb has to really WANT to change.
August 24th, 2011 at 1:44 am
The codes listed here will most likely NOT work, but it can be worth a try.
September 1st, 2011 at 11:49 am
Another copy and paste blog post? Yours,
xyxytodwhy.2011
September 24th, 2011 at 7:27 am
I was recommended this web site by my cousin. I’m not sure whether this article is written by him as no one else know such detailed about my difficulty. You’re incredible! Thank you, franke faucets
December 14th, 2011 at 11:14 pm
I was recommended this web site by my cousin.
December 15th, 2011 at 5:37 am
hello, nice tips, thank to share,very userful for beginer as me
December 15th, 2011 at 6:45 am
Thanks
December 15th, 2011 at 7:10 am
This article will help me to go to Canada next time, Thank you mans.
December 15th, 2011 at 2:12 pm
I completely agree with the author of this article.
December 15th, 2011 at 8:41 pm
It is a great post, I will follow your blog.
December 15th, 2011 at 10:21 pm
Thanks a lot for. I feel very good about where to find me what I want to I do a lot of good articles to read your content, please keep reading and I will visit again, thanks.
December 16th, 2011 at 12:31 am
I wrote it. It comes with a new
In this case there is nothing that interests me very much.
December 16th, 2011 at 1:23 am
Thank you. Is something that interested me.
We will keep track of what I write to you and me.
December 16th, 2011 at 1:24 am
I was recommended this web site by my cousin.
December 16th, 2011 at 7:32 pm
It is a great post, I will follow your blog.
December 17th, 2011 at 9:59 am
programdl
December 17th, 2011 at 10:06 am
thank I Like
December 17th, 2011 at 10:12 am
thank I Like Programdl
December 18th, 2011 at 5:19 am
thanks for share article
))))))))))))))))))))))))))))))
December 18th, 2011 at 6:38 pm
tv sales Polite to become browsing your blog once more, it has been months for me. As it should be this write-up that ive been waited for hence lengthy. I lack this write-up to unmitigated my assignment within the college, and it has obtain consistent topic with your article. Gratitude, admirable reveal.
December 20th, 2011 at 7:45 am
nice Article thank for your blog
December 24th, 2011 at 2:54 am
Thank you for Best Content I like very much.
January 10th, 2012 at 4:07 am
This article is very interesting I like it. I will always come to visit after.I would recommend to friends more
January 10th, 2012 at 9:25 am
thanks for share article
January 26th, 2012 at 8:42 pm
Great good article Thank for-sharing-tips.
February 8th, 2012 at 8:25 pm
Great good article Thank for-sharing-tips.
March 6th, 2012 at 7:35 am
……..
I am also writing to let you be aware of what a amazing encounter my girl obtained going through your site. She mastered lots of pieces, including what it’s like to possess an excellent teaching spirit to have many more easily know just exactly certai…
March 16th, 2012 at 3:54 am
Thanks so much fun to read. A very good thing about this is that you see. For Canada.
March 19th, 2012 at 5:00 am
I’ve recently started a site, and the information you provide on this website has helped me greatly. Thanx for all of your time & work.