“Go back to where ya came from!”
As a pilot that flies to Canada often, I have to go through U.S. and Canadian customs multiple times a month. It is one of the biggest annoyances of the job. It would be all right if the officers working customs had any standardization. But they don’t. Some of the officers are very pleasant people just doing their jobs. Others are hard-core A-holes; just a GED above a TSA agent. To be honest Canadian customs officers are generally friendly and good dignitaries to their country. Most of my negative experiences have been with U.S. customs officers. For some reason or another they feel like a pilot in uniform is one step above drug mule.Not that they treat anybody else any better. I once witnessed a hard- ass customs flat-topped reject verbally abuse an elderly Chinese couple in San Francisco.He was yelling at them about where they had put their bags. “Where are your bags?!” Confused looks. “Where are your bags? Answer me!” Still puzzled looks. “Why don’t you answer me? Don’t you understand English?!” No dipshit. They don’t understand English. They are Chinese. Nice welcome to the U.S.Anyway, last weekend in Calgary, I had a run in with a particularly massive douche bag agent. Which is saying something, because the U.S. agents in Calgary are a particularly strong breed of douches. (For those of you that don’t do much Canadian travel, many of the airports in Canada are what they call “pre-cleared.” Which basically means they have U.S. customs in the Canadian airport, so you go through U.S. customs before ever leaving Canada). The line was especially long. usually they have a crew line, so that aircrew go through pretty quickly, but on this morning they were just mixing in crew with normal passengers.
Maybe some of you are saying, “Good. I’ve been in a security line before or a customs line and the crew went right to the front. They should have to wait like everyone else!” I understand how you feel. I am the first to have a spike in my internal rage-o-meter when anybody cuts in any line. Often as aircrew we spend a minimal time on the ground though, only enough to get the legal amount of rest which is not very much, and I am sure that you can agree you would like your pilots to get that extra half hour of sleep as opposed to standing in a customs line.
Where was I? Oh yeah. Long line and a big douche bag on a power trip sitting behind his little custom’s window. When I finally get to the front of the line, I walk directly to the open customs officer and I give my usual upbeat greeting as I hand over my passport. “Good morning! How are you doing today?”
He responds with, “I’m fine. Did someone tell you to come over here?”
“No, not exactly but the…”
“You need to wait until I call you.” Oh sweet. I knew at that moment that more than likely I was F’d. When you get the guy who likes to do the, ‘you will approach me when I tell you to approach me. You will respond when I ask you questions, do you understand?’ routine, you are in trouble. Plus there is something about this emphasis of power that just spikes my blood pressure. I am in uniform. He can see on his little computer screen that I have been through this routine three times in the past week and haven’t been highlighted as a weapons smuggler and yet he still talks to me like a cross between a four year old and a convict (or maybe I HAVE been as a weapons smuggler and that is why he was such a dick)
“Are you carrying any food with you?” I always try to be as honest as possible and tell them what I have. As a poor regional airline pilot, I try to save money and eat healthier by carrying meals with me (in a beat up black cooler bag.) So I always have food with me. Here is where a little standardization would be nice. I never know what any particular agent is going to get a hard on about. Some agents get pissed about oranges, some apples…I have had agents take my black berries and strawberries. Some claim that if they have a U.S. sticker they are fine (even though in the U.S., tons of our fruit have South American stickers.) Now some agents use the common sense approach, that what ever I have in my little lunch bag, I more than likely bought in the U.S. (which is of course true), and they just let me pass unmolested.
I knew this was not going to be the case with the shiny headed, strong-chinned mother-f’er staring up at me. Truth be told I was pretty certain he was going to take every fresh anything that I had with me. So I had to do some strategizing: I had two ziplock bags of fresh broccoli, that although I should eat, were definitely that last things that I wanted to eat. Ah, but I also had a delicious, ripe and fresh nectarine, that I was planning to eat for breakfast (as soon as I settled on the plane with a fresh cup of Tim Horton’s coffee). I must add that I really love a ripe nectarine, and there is such a small window that it is perfectly ripe to eat, in my mind it would be criminal to see it go to waste. So I started listing all the things that I knew he would not have any issue with:
“I have some canned chilli, some canned salmon, uh some almonds…”
“Anything fresh or perishable?”
“Well I have some fresh broccoli…” Before I could even finish my sentence, he exploded in a deep, patronizing laugh.
“Oh that’s not coming in here.” Even though I was secretly using the broccoli as a sacrificial lamb, I was still pissed because I had declared my fresh broccoli all three times I had been through the same customs line in the previous week.
“Really, because I have been through here three times this week and no one seemed to have a problem with my broccoli…” He answered with a condescending sneer, like fresh broccoli was a huge problem.
“that’s because they probably thought it was cooked broccoli. Cooked broccoli is fine. But there is no way you are bringing fresh broccoli into the U.S.” I was fuming inside because I was pretty certain none of the other customs officers assumed the broccoli was cooked when I specifically said it was raw. Of course at that point, when you are in a contest of wills with someone where they have all of the power, there is nothing you can do once they justify their actions in their own mind. On a side not, I couldn’t help but think of the major obesity problem in the U.S. and how ironic it was that at our borders we have armed guards turning away fresh fruit and vegetables. I am not saying it isn’t the whole reason for fat people, but it is definitely not part of the solution.
“Okay what do you want me to do with it?” He points to a waste can fifty feet away, that requires a humiliating, heads down trip across the front of all the other customs lines.
“You can put over there and then I will let you though.” So I make the march, come back for my stuff, grab my passport, smile facetiously at him and give him one more,
“Have a great day.” He nods at me like ‘I guess you thought you could slip something by old customs officer Handjob McCracken, well maybe next time you’ll think twice.’ I zipped my lunch bag and rolled of with my roller board and secretly celebrates that I still had my fresh nectarine. It gave me a lot of joy. Maybe too much joy. I couldn’t help but think, “The only reason I had to forfeit my broccoli was because I answered ‘yes’. If you are a drug dealer or arms smuggler, do you just have to answer ‘no’ to those questions and you walk through scott-free?” They may have just turned an upstanding, broccoli eating citizen into the biggest smuggler in the Western hemisphere. This one broccoli incident could be the exact point when a good man turns bad and an arch villan is born! Way to go customs.
What are some of your worst experiences going through customs? Do you have any friends or relatives that work for customs? Can you finally admit that they have always been assholes and that their moms never loved them?
