chickenfeet

Yesterday involved a brief trip to the US caused by Canada mysteriously failing to ratify a treaty on legal documents in 1961.  This, naturally enough, involved crossing the border in both directions.  The crossings had one thing in common; an utterly tedious wait as hundreds of vehicles crawled slowly and fumily to the examination points.  In other respects they could hardly have been different.  The US guy was gruff and unsmiling.  He asked very "suspicious" questions at a level of detail that was quite unnecessary (why did he need to know who was selling what to who?).  The whole attitude was that he was a terribly important person defending the US from Terrors Unknown.  The Canadian dude was laid back and chewing gum.  His main concern seemed to be the state of the California real estate market and how that must suck for the lemur.  He seemed quite unconcerned by the lemur's Canadian passport being out of date.  He smiled.

It's odd really as the the real threat at the border is to Canadians.  It's the illegal import of US firearms.  The murder weapon of choice for Canadian gangs and America's contribution to Canadian culture.