border routine

"does this door open?"  "uh, yes sir."  he opens the door and goes, "oh, there's a lot in there."   i took that statement as a personal blow...

it was my third time entering canada during my trip.  the first two times i basically got waved through.   this time it was completely the opposite.

the officer had me pull to the side and wait.  i sat there and watched other cars pass without inspection - one every few minutes.  it was not a very busy border crossing point, plus it was early in the morning.  another officer drove up and parked.  apparently it was shift changing time and i guess mr night shift needed some backup so he could spend his last hour of work searching the innards of my vehicle.  another worker showed up.  two of them opened all my doors and started digging.  they quickly came across my pierced target papers that i had from using karl's gun.  ha! i'm sure that increased their appetite to find a weapon.  "do you have that gun in here?" they kept inquiring.

they searched my van thoroughly.  for national security, i won't say much about their searching, but they pretty much upheaved everything.  they even rolled out a cart for a place to pile up the guts of my traveling lifestyle from the inside out.  they were opening containers and pulling things out that i forgot i even had, including my wisdom teeth - mr night shift dug them out and upon discerning what they were he pondered allowed to me, "this is the strangest thing i've ever found! - not gonna lie!"  i felt honored.   i bet his wife and children heard about it at breakfast when he went home.

the whole time they were searching i got to sit on an adjacent picnic bench in the early day sun.  i angled myself so as to tan my right side and balance it with my "drivers arm" tan.  i sat there long enough that it may have helped a little.   during that time, yet another guy showed up to work and carried with him some unknown device in a bag.  at the end of their rummaging, mr night shift had me come inside and sign some paperwork for the prohibited item he found:  a ninja comedian's throwing star.   hm, does that mean i'm now a ex-ninja comedian? (reference earlier blog post and comments)

it took some time repacking my compact life.  i only did enough to get going.  some of the containers i'd have to give special attention to at a later time.   this whole event resonated with my ongoing feelings that i still have too much stuff.