You know, one weird thing about Yank customs agents -- they love the show of force of popping your trunk and inspecting it. Sometimes when you get a really macho asshat, he'll make sure to pull his beatstick out, too (this all sounds bizarrely sexual, doesn't it?), just to be extra threatening. The trick, apparently, is to never put anything iffy in the trunk. I've gotten in the habit now of crossing with anything that could be problematic in the front of the car, usually under a coat or something on the back seat, if it's not too huge. They focus intently on trunks, but almost never pay attention to the things inside the car. I used to go up all the time with this person who became nearly hysterical at the border and would start trying to admit things that were perfectly legal, but she was so unglued about everything that she made them sound illegal, and I got in the habit of preparing, even though now I usually go up with much calmer folks.
not that this, of course, in any way helps what happened to you.
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Date: 2006-05-30 05:04 am (UTC)You know, one weird thing about Yank customs agents -- they love the show of force of popping your trunk and inspecting it. Sometimes when you get a really macho asshat, he'll make sure to pull his beatstick out, too (this all sounds bizarrely sexual, doesn't it?), just to be extra threatening. The trick, apparently, is to never put anything iffy in the trunk. I've gotten in the habit now of crossing with anything that could be problematic in the front of the car, usually under a coat or something on the back seat, if it's not too huge. They focus intently on trunks, but almost never pay attention to the things inside the car. I used to go up all the time with this person who became nearly hysterical at the border and would start trying to admit things that were perfectly legal, but she was so unglued about everything that she made them sound illegal, and I got in the habit of preparing, even though now I usually go up with much calmer folks.
not that this, of course, in any way helps what happened to you.