A border crossing story. Sort of long.

[Dave Reynolds]

My wife and I took my stepdaughter to Windsor (Ontario) for LASIK. Afterwards, being it had been a long day already, we decided to stop at the local McDonald's for some unhealthy food with which to continue our journey home.

We crossed the Ambassador Bridge into Detroit, and pulled up to the border station. After handing over birth certificates and driver's licenses, we were asked if we were bringing anything back with us.

Me, being sometimes too literal, pointed to our bag o' Quarter Pounder meals and said "just lunch".

"Did you buy that in Canada?" was the question.

"Yes", was my reply.

This earned me the bright orange "look-everybody-I'm-busted-at-the-border" sticker on my windshield, and was told to pull into the parking area at the building where rubber gloves meet many an unwilling orifice. Upon our stopping, we were greeted by three agents who asked me to shut the vehicle off and pop my hood.

"But wait", said I (not quite bright enough to play along), "why are we here?"

The answer came back "you are bringing beef back from Canada, and that is not allowed."

Meanwhile, the person checking under the hood for the weapons of mass sirloin asked me for my keys, so that he could check my trunk.

Now, before I go further, let me say that my wife and I have no inherent disrespect for authority, but we DO have large problems with stupidity. When faced with both at once, it was a tough decision which to react to. My wife chose to react to the stupidity. When she was asked to surrender her Big Mac, she took a bite, chewed for a moment, and asked "may I just sit here and finish this?"

The answer was no. My wife swallowed her mouthful, took another, and asked around the special sauce "do you want me to spit this in the trash, too?"

The answer was a baleful glare from the border patrol officer, who held out a nice red biohazard bag for us to deposit our lunch into. My wife, not receiving a "no" to her question, spit the mouthful into the bag, took another bite, and then dropped her burger into the proffered bag. My stepdaughter and I, taking advantage of this little exchange, had stuffed our mouths so full that our cheeks had expanded. When the bag came around to our side of the car, we deposited the small bun remnants that were in our hands.

At this point, we were released to go, since no offending ground chuck was found in the trunk.

So thank your border patrol agents, for they foiled again a dangerous incursion of mad cow disease into our fair country. :patriot:

[livetohike]

1. I was hoping this was a joke

:-(.

Sorry for that experience, but it will give your daughter something to laugh about in the future.

[Dave Reynolds]

3. It was real,

but I thought it was funny as hell that day, and still do.

[SocratesInSpirit]

2. LOL

Nice to know the border guards are protecting us from...people eating lunch?!

Seriously, I can't believe how dumb they were! Unfortunately this type of thing seems to be all too common these days. Has the government become so steeped in bureaucracy that common sense has become a foreign language? Were things always like this???

(BTW, how did your stepdaughter take to the LASIK? I was thinking of getting it myself.)

[Dave Reynolds]

4. The LASIK was good for her,

I went later and had it done too. Some dry eye for a while, but I went from 30 years of coke bottle glasses to no glasses.

I would advise checking how many procedures the doctor of your choosing has performed, I picked the guy with the most.

[SocratesInSpirit]

6. Thanks for the tip. n/t

[SOteric]

5. I realise you feel this was stupidity,

but truly, mad cow is a prion disease. They've no suggestion that it could be destroyed by cooking. At this time it's a poorly understood peril.

An agricultural quarantine is a quarantine for a reason.

You can't bring apples over the border from Washington to Canada for similar reasons.

[Dave Reynolds]

7. Prions cannot be destroyed by cooking,

or anything short of formic acid. I'm in the pathology lab, prions are something we are acutely aware of, especially with autopsied brain tissue.

But it was not like we were going to take one Big Mac and two QPs with cheese and infect the entire city of Detroit with it, right?

:hi:

[SOteric]

8. It seems apparent that you don't think so.

An awful lot of folks, some of them quite bright and authorities on the subject put the policy in place.

:hi:

[Telly Savalas]

9. But didn't the Canadian cattle infected with mad cow

originally come from the U.S., and isn't the case that U.S. cattle/beef inspection is more lax than that of Canada?

It's not too hard to make the case that the policy is in place as a form of protectionism designed to circumvent NAFTA for U.S. cattle producers.

[A HERETIC I AM]

10. Whats really funny is the frozen beef patties cooked at that Windsor McD's

were probably packed at an American plant!

US Customs can be real pricks, no doubt. But then, they're just doing their jobs. Thing is, they are granted a WHOLE lot of discretion as to what they pick apart. A family with bags of McDonalds food seems to be a bit of stretch though.


Whatever you do, don't poop in a cattle feedlot for AT LEAST a month!

[Dave Reynolds]

11. When I start peeing my pants and drooling,

I'll know that they were right.

Either that, or I just watched "Showgirls".

[UTUSN]

12. They Gotta Equal the Stupidity at Both Borders

Welcome to the illegal-immigration-scare. At the Southern border, which is more racial-intensive, they only require drivers-license.

They ask OBVIOUS natives for national-origin and what-did-you-do-in-Mexico. Plus, the vigilante/Wingnut/A-hole "MinuteMan"/"Minutemen" are planning to expand into Texas in October.

In the '80s the KKK was going to PATROL THE BORDER and went to Laredo, TX. Newsflash: the Border is MIXED with Mexican-Americans, Anglo-Americans, AND Illegal-aliens. AND the ruling food is Tex-Mex.

The KKK ------------RAN--------out of Laredo lickety-split. The only 'murrican food they could find was a burger. With salsa on it.

[Suich]

13. They made me throw away an unopened bag of frozen chicken

breasts from Trader Joe's a year and a half ago going into Canada. He kind of mumbled something about a problem with chicken in California. :shrug:

[Dave Reynolds]

14. I've given up trying to keep current with

what animal or vegetable can't be taken somewhere.

From now on, my answer at the border will be LIES, I tell you, all LIES!