Today I had a little jaunt in to the States, and when I say little I mean little, I was only there a couple of hours. Thank goodness the border is so close! 🙂
Why bother going for such a short visit? Simple, I had to ship my dragon boat paddle back to the company that made it (Burn Water) for repairs.
Why did I have to go across the border to ship my paddle you wonder? Simple, Canada and the States are weird and like to have random rules in play in regards to what can be shipped where and my paddle was a big no-no for going across the border in a box.
Makes no sense? Lemme explain!
I went to FedEx on the Canada side of the border to find out how much it would cost to ship my paddle, it had to go to Northern California. The guy took one look at it and said they can’t ship it, there are rules that prohibit them from shipping my paddle. I asked for clarification and his explanation was this:
The States has a policy that we can’t ship used personal items across the border in to the States. Apparently the American government is worried people will ship over all their personal items then drive or fly over as if on vacation and then be all “haha, I claim squatters rights! my stuff is all here and I’m not leaving!” Basically they are afraid Canadians are going to try to sneak move-in to the States.
*rolls eyes*
Listen, I may be happy you have ObamaCare now but don’t think it sounds good enough for me to leave my healthcare system behind…even if I do desperately want to live in LA and pursue my acting career there *big epic sigh*
Oh, and on top of all that, if they could legally ship it, it would have cost me in the high $200’s! That’s just crazy!
It is cheaper to drive the paddle over the border and ship it from within the country, which is exactly what I did. 🙂
The wait at the border crossing looked like this…
And I didn’t bring a book, sigh.
I thought mid-day on a Thursday would be nice and quiet, don’t any of these people work?? Eesh. 😛
While sitting in the traffic that closely resembled a parking lot two border guards started walking down between the cars, I did my best to look innocent but I guess it didn’t work because they stopped at my suv and said they were doing a “spot check”.
Those are never good words to hear from someone with a badge and a gun.
While I sat super still in my vehicle, with the engine turned off, they searched and questioned, and searched a bit more. When the one guard asked the reason for my trip today I explained about the paddle and having to take it to FedEx on the American side of the border and they both looked at me like I was crazy. I wanted to point out that if I was up to something I would have come up with a far less odd sounding story but figured they wouldn’t appreciate hearing that, shrug.
Eventually they left me and my vehicle alone and I continued to slowly inch my way up to that little booth thing the border guards chill in while asking questions of those of us trying to pass through. The guard in the little booth asked a lot of similar questions, to which I provided the same answers and he also looked suspicious and unimpressed.
I should have just said I was going shopping, sigh.
The guard in the booth let me go and zoom! Off I went, in to America!
I am navigationally challenged and seriously doubted my ability to find the FedEx without getting lost but my directions were perfect and I got there quite quickly.
The poor guy at the FedEx though, I made his day harder, not intentionally though! Apparently if I had an American PO Box the amount of effort he would have to do is diminished by quite a bit but I don’t have one so he had to get me to fill out a form and he had to manually enter information in to his computer – oh the horrors! 😉 Luckily FedEx has a box that is perfectly sized to fit a dragon boat paddle, so yay! But the FedEx guy didn’t let me put packing peanuts or bubble wrap or anything in there so I am now paranoid about my paddle and how well it will endure transit. I got insurance for it though soooooo if they mess it up even more than it already is I guess I can file a claim, now doesn’t that sound like fun? lol
I finished at FedEx way sooner than expected so I went to Fred Meyer (that is a grocery store) and bought some super delish, Weight Watcher friendly, yoghurt that we don’t get in Canada. I have bought them twice before, once on a trip to the States for shopping and once when I was visiting a friend in LA and both times my taste buds have been super happy. 🙂 I didn’t only buy the ones marked with the Weight Watcher symbol because they didn’t have that large of a selection so I branched out to some of the non-Weight Watcher ones, they are all low sugar options though.
Why oh why can’t you be in Canada?
Ok, fine, I lied, I bought one that is not low sugar, non aspartame, Weight Watcher approved, heck, it isn’t even a yoghurt lol
Chocolate Whip? Yes please!
The yoghurts were on sale, 10 for $5 and I was trying to not duplicate flavours so I was forced to pick up a Chocolate Whip, it is such a hard life, teehee. 😉 I ate it this evening and it was…ok…not as good as say a chocolate pudding but hey, it could be worse.
I also took a look at these soups I always see ads for that I’ve never been able to find over here either, yup, they are Weight Watchers also, well, affiliated with WW.
The ads make these soups seem like the most delicious healthy option ever, they are only 4 points for the entire can! Not every Progresso soup is a Weight Watcher friendly one but I took one of each of the flavours that don’t contain pork so I could give them a try.
After the grocery store, which fyi, uses paper bags! That was different…Anyways! After the grocery store I hit up a frozen yoghurt place, mostly it was because I needed a washroom and if I was going to have to buy something in order to use a washroom they were the best option out of what was around lol
The place is called Menchie’s and it was cute. 🙂 It is a serve yourself type of place and you are charged 0.51 cents per kg. Seems a weird amount to me, I mean, why not fifty cents? You pick up a bowl, walk through a selection of soft serve machines that have all sorts of flavours and then choose your toppings.
I swear I wasn’t the only one there!
You can combine any amount of flavours you want as well as sample as many flavours as you want before you commit to what you buy. I ended up with peach and red velvet cake, Mmm! I topped the peach with sliced banana and the red velvet cake with broken up pieces of waffle bowl.
Ok, so obviously making frozen yoghurt look pretty is not something I excel at but hey, it tasted good and that’s all that really matters!
So after all of that I came back to my side of the border, the line was way shorter on the way home and the guard was less suspicious lol When I told them why I went over (the FedEx issue) he just shook his head a little, gave a small smile and waved me through. He was a cutie so I wouldn’t have minded being questioned more by him! 😉
The Amazing Shrinking Woman 