I would like it to be known that from this day forward I would like to be included on the list of people who prefer to keep business travel at an absolute absolute absolute minimum…at such time as any business travel may be required, I also require that my destination be to a cool and interesting place like, say, Toronto, which is where I was Monday and Tuesday of this week…on business. Should you require any kind of business travel to non-cool uninteresting places, please send someone else in my stead. Somebody need a demo in Kansas? Customer in Oklahoma needs training? Nah-ah. Send somebody else. Send Bill, or Bob, or Todd. Yeah, send Todd. He’s fresh outta college, eager to prove himself, has no spine. Send his dumbass…So, this was my first business trip, and I was honestly looking forward to it, seeing as how it was Toronto and, like many liberal minded Americans these days, I’ve been developing a bit of an interest in Canada ;) and I’ve heard good things about Toronto. Little did I know that when I arrived at customs in Toronto, after missing our connecting flight in Chicago and experiencing firsthand the beautiful sprawling joy that is O’Hare, I would inadvertently confess to violating NAFTA. Here’s what happened. I get up to the customs agent after standing in line for-goddamn-ever, and like all customs agents he is a surly bastard who drinks too much and hates his father and himself and has a secret stash of women’s clothing that he pulls out late at night and parades around his cramped shitty lonely apartment in, and gets a big fat hairy-knobbed thrill out of being a pain in the ass to weary travellers who have just spent two hours sitting in O’Hare waiting for the next flight to Toronto and just want to crash land on a pillow and sleep and dream and sleep some more. So this clown wants to know what the hell business I have in his country, breathing his air, drinking his beer, wearing his wigs, whatever…and I answer all his questions politely and accurately “I’m here to meet with a client…Honda Canada…a training demonstration…yes, we have a contract with them.” And he makes some marks on my customs slip and hands it back to me with my passport. I say “thank you” and he just rubs his eyes and laughs. I’m not kidding, he laughed. So I walk on through to the next customs agent who wants to see my form, specifically whatever marks Mr. Funnyman made on it. My boss, by the way, has already made it past this point and is standing just on the other side waiting for me. But instead of sending me on through, this lady deciphers the cryptic markings on my form and sends me off the other way to talk to yet another goddamn agent…this is getting scary! Not to mention the fact that NOBODY ELSE is getting sent off in this direction. What the hell did I do? Did he confuse me with Todd? So I go up there and talk to some lady who starts asking me the same exact questions, and I give the exact same answers…and then she wants to see an invoice. Well I don’t have an invoice, lady, but I am very tired, how’s that? At which point she whips out a booklet entitled “Temporary Entry to Canada under the North American Free Trade Agreement.” They had highlighted the N, A, F, T, and A in red to emphasize the fact that this is NAFTA we’re dealing with here, by God, not some shitty little bullshit policy but muthafuckin NAFTA. She turns to page 6 and circles a section that tells me that, yes, according to muthafuckin NAFTA, I do need to provide copies of an invoice or a sales agreement of some kind. She dogears the page, hands me the booklet, and tells me to have a nice night. I can go now…and I know I should just hush and go, but I gotta ask, I say “you know, my boss just got waved right on through and she’s here for the same reason I am.” And the answer I get, this woman looks at me from her crappy little booth and says “yeah, well, we normally let people right on through, but every now and then…” and she shrugs. That’s my answer. A shrug. I still have the booklet if anyone’s interested, I kept the motherfucker as a souvenier.

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Comments

Tara

2004-02-05T07:46:12.000Z

I’ve never violated NAFTA before! I’m so proud of you!