Blasted Border Guards

Okay so I have a slightly unfriendly title for them. So can you blame me? After further reading you will understand my frustration. My only true regret is that I didn't get the individuals name in question so that I could point it out on here.

When crossing the border after my delightful trip last week, we were pulled over...get this....because of liquor. Muahahaa. They asked us a whole bunch of questions, not the least of which being where we bought the liquor. Jeeeeeze People. Do you know what question came last? The VERY last. And is something that bothers me? DO you have any weapons in your possession?
OKay people. I will pause for dramatic effect.......



Do you have any weapons in your possession is the LAST question?? What is wrong with our system that this is the LAST question asked? Perhaps our border guard just was having an off day, but to me that was the most backward way of doing things.

Okay moving on...so we got pulled over because of the liquor. FINE. (We had one van with people, and one jeep so you know.)

So we go into the building with our claim forms the same way we would normally do it. And walk up to this lady working the desk. I say lady now because I always initially give another chick the benefit of the doubt. *wink - this refers to further in the story*

And she looks at our claim forms, and automatically assumes that she knows what the problem is and that we are 30 ounces over the legal amount to bring into the country. Which, I might add, we were not.

My mother-in-law tried to calmly explain things. Saying "I know it's confusing, but this is what happened..." Only to be cut off by the woman with her saying " Oh no ma'am it's not confusing. You owe taxes on 30 ounces of liquour."

Automatically, myself, my boyfriend and his father are ready to duel this chicky. You notice of course that she is no longer a lady. She has her hackles up and wants to fight and personally I found what she said to my mother-in-law to be highly rude as she cut her off before she could even hear the reason. (At this point I will mention that I am trying very hard to control my anger and my big mouth)

My father-in-law pipes up and says, "Well actually we don't owe anything" and he tries to explain to her, but she keeps cutting him off. I will now mention that my father-in-law is a RCMP officer and a very smart man, and to be talked to like an idiot by someone who clearly wants to just charge us without listening, he would consider this person a moron. Rightfully so, I might add.

Anyways she got her hackles up and said "Well, you can either pay or speak to my supervisor"
*ooooooooooh Don't tell your supervisor.!! I mean jeeze. Were we expected to run to the hills at this comment?"

Anyways, of course my father-in-law accepted the second alternative, and quite forcefully said actually that "Yes I would love to speak to your supervisor"

So instead of letting us speak to the supervisor because she's a silly person (changed my true wording to behave myself), she went onto the phone and explained while whispering in a corner. At which point she kept saying uh huh...ok...uh huh...ok...uh huh.... Which I took to mean him asking questions for further details and when she didn't have any more information because she cut us off, he was telling her to go check out the story and not to bother him with such silly stuff. She should technically be able to figure out the story by herself without getting hostile, but nooooooo.

Anyways, to basically bring an end to this story for those of you who just want to know what happened....

She asked like 4 other border guards about the question and this other lady spent forever trying to figure out how 3 - 26 ounces equaled up to the 80 ounces. It doesn't even make 80 ounces woman!! Jeeeeeze. Ya think they'd be able to count. Ha Ha. *Naughty Me*

Anyways, so when our lovely guard came back over, my temper got a little out of control when she said yet again, that we would have to pay taxes on the liquor.

So I said "Can you please explain to me, why...when we have 6 people claiming liquor that we are over the limit? Especially when we are 3 couples all residing in our own respective households?" (Possibly said with a bit more feeling :P)

She said "Oh, oh there's 6 of you claiming? And you are all over the age of 19?"
UH well Ya...that's what we were trying to tell her 20 minutes before hand when she cut us off...This is what I am talking about...all they care about is making money. What if we had of just said "Ok, I'll pay the taxes." ? They would have been making us pay for something we didn't owe them anything for.
Tsk Tsk Tsk

So finally basically to try and save face she said she needed to see the liquor, we said "fine." And we all headed out to look at the liquor in our vehicles.

My fiance and I headed over to the jeep as we were in that vehicle and laid out the liquor on the backseat so she wouldn't have to dig through our vehicle, and as she had already wayyyy Past my tolerance level, I was trying to keep my comments to myself or at least somewhat quiet.

After she finished looking in the Van she came over to the jeep. "Is this all the liquor"? She asked. We said yes, and she looked at the liquor, not saying anything (Because of course we were right), and then she saw the EMPTY liquor bags on the floor and said, as she was jumping into the vehicle like an ignorant person "I thought you told me that you had all the liquor out"

Pause.....

Okay, so do you think that maybe, should we have wanted to hide liquor to bring across the border, which we wouldn't because that's "wrong". That we would hide it in plain view so that some nosey chickita could come, see it and make a dive for it....

Well that'd be a no. So I must say that when she grabbed nothing but an empty paper bag, I chuckled. I chuckled quite loudly. LOL

So as she pulled out of the jeep this is what she told us "You are very lucky that I am so understanding, et al." And my eyes were probably the size of saucers as she was saying this because of how ridiculous the statement was. If she was any good at all she would have realized 3 minutes into the conversation what the situation was, but because she felt the need to be Queen of the Hill, she failed to do her job. I felt very strongly that we should talk to her supervisor, but in the end my father-in-law was right that we should just forget about her, but boys oh boys I would have loved to have spoken with her supervisor.

SO as she was pulling away from the vehicle saying "You are so lucky that I was here, because no one else would have understood, and I am scoffing as quietly as I can to not appear completely belligerent, So I piped up "So we were right though?" And she kept saying "Oh you were lucky", so I got a little louder and said to her, "We were right in how we divided up the liquor though right?" She just nodded because I don't think she wanted to actually admit how wrong and how silly her judgment actually was.

I also said, "Huh, so the problem was that you didn't look at the passports. Ok thanks then."

She walked away still saying how lucky we were that we got her...and I must tell you all, that right there, I cursed her in my head so that her supper burned that night as she cooked it....so Border Guard, where ever you are, you know who you are, I hope your supper wasn't too crispy.

Ha Ha to the Border Guard.