Before I begin, I looked up the federal statute on limitations for smuggling. It's a felony, but the statute of limitations appears to only be five years. Not that I think the feds really care in this instance anyway, but this happened more than five years ago, so I should be in the clear. Just saying. This is my felony smuggling story.
I have a friend whose family is a bit dysfunctional. By "a bit", I mean that when she was a kid CPS was getting called out to their place on a monthly basis at least due to all the fights and drama going on. So when she started high school, she decided to get away and head up to be with her aunt, uncle, and grandma in Penticton, BC. They actually lived on a vineyard, so she lived in the picker shack by herself. Pretty sweet for a teenager.
It only took Canada one year to break her and make her move back stateside, though. Seriously, her school was weird. She showed us the courtyard that had a big yellow painted square which was the dedicated space for alcohol and tobacco use, and a smaller white rectangle next to it that was the dedicated space for MJ. I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it myself. (I tried to find it on Google Maps, but it seems they've since redone the courtyard.) It existed. In a high school. I swear.
I went up with her mom and sister to help her move, partly to hang out with her, and partly because her mom was bringing up wine and needed a third body to bring the booze across the border (1.5L of wine per person).
To set the stage: this was post-9/11 (I want to say 2003 or 2004), but pre-passport requirements. Currently, you need either a passport or enhanced driver's license for land crossings. Back when this happened, you could get by with a regular driver's license and birth certificate. In the post-9/11 world they were ramping up security though.
It is also important to note that my friend and her sister have dual American/Canadian citizenship (American parent, but born in Canada). Their father is a full-blooded Texan American, but when he married their mother took his assumed name instead of his legal name. Their mother was either also dual citizenship or was a Canadian with a green card at the time; I can't really remember. These details are important.
Going up, we discovered at the border that friend's sister had her driver's license but no birth certificate. She argued it was enough. We argued it wasn't. When we got to the border, the Canadian customs agent informed us it was not enough. It was good to get into Canada (they just let anyone in), but she let us know we might have trouble getting back to the US side. Okay, that's fair. Her driver's license lists her US residence at least, so it's not gonna be totally devastating when we go back across, right?
We get up there and are loading up the SUV with all of friend's belongings. This includes her pet mouse. Now, her mouse had no vet records, so bringing it across the border was a no-no. In fact, knowing how crazy said friend is, and the fact that she lived in a picker shack in the countryside, I doubt it was so much a "pet" mouse as a wild mouse that wandered in and got caught and became a pet. So, like, this was not an animal that was going to be welcomed at the border. So we hid it's cage underneath the rest of her things.
On the way back to the border, we were bracing for the fact that friend's sister didn't have all her ID when suddenly...
Friend's Mom: "Friend, where is your ID?"
Friend: "You kept it, Mom."
Friend's Mom: "You don't have it?"
Friend: "No, you took it back with you last time, remember?"
So my friend only has her Penticton, BC high school ID, has been living in Canada for a year, was born in Canada, and is trying to move back into the US. Her father's passport was left in the car, which is the only proof of her US citizenship we had on-hand, but since she took his assumed name rather than his legal name at birth, the surnames don't match.
This, plus her sister didn't have the right documentation either.
Plus, we're smuggling a live mouse.
It looks bad. It looks very, very bad.
We're fucked.
Friend: "Mom, take that lane. Quick, pull the shirts down!"
Friend's Mom: "Oh, come on!"
Despite her verbal protest, she went into the lane that had the youngest and tired-est looking male border guard. We all pulled down the shirts. I was wearing a low-cut blouse of course.
We pulled up to the guard shack. Friend's mom rolled down the window. We all leaned forward. She explained the situation and handed over the ID we had, including Friend's high school ID and their father's passport. The guard hemmed and hawwed, and told us he'd "be right back". He vanished into an office.
We looked around in silence. Surely we were going to get pulled into secondary screening. There was no avoiding it.
Finally, the guard came back. "Okay, I'll let you guys pass this time with a warning. Just be sure and have all your ID paperwork next time. Can I just check the cooler in the back?"
There was nothing restricted in the cooler, so obviously we let him go check. We looked around at each other, nervously smiling. We were gonna make it. We were gonna make it. We were...
The guard came back to the window. "Well, the cooler checks out, but do you know what's beeping back there?"
Fuck no, we didn't know.
It was almost on the hour, so my friend punched me in the shoulder, hard, and exclaimed "Katt, that's why the alarm didn't go off! We had it set for four PM instead of four AM!"
"Oh!" I replied. "That makes sense!"
We were teenagers who slept in all the time. We never set an alarm for four in the fucking morning. But the guard bought it and waved us through.
Slowly, we drove ahead. As soon as we were confidently out of earshot of any lurking audio-monitoring systems, we burst out laughing. We had made it through the border!
I think our border guard was tired and near the end of his shift and didn't give a fuck, but I also think the boobs helped. We were four well-figured women and I think we would have had a more difficult time without the boobs. I hope the guard appreciated the boobs at least.
To this day none of us know what was beeping in the back of the car. Best guess was the mouse making noises buried deep under the luggage.
No comments:
Post a Comment