We interrupt our overly-long and involved description of what was actually a very short trip to Ouarzazate to discuss confiscated goods. Eileen over at Bearshapedsphere started a group post inviting anyone who wants to participate to share their best customs stories. I’m sure between us, we can add some good ones to her collection. Also, you’ll want to go read the ones she’s posted, especially some very funny ones about a hot-sauce sampling customs official and a guy who accidentally gave his wife a foot-long serrated knife to take though customs. Here are a couple of mine:
Many years ago now, Donn and I and our friends Ed and Jeanni planned an extensive backpacking trip into the wilderness north of Jasper, Alberta. It’s an area known for bears, and we were going in late September, so as part of our preparations we invested in some fairly-expensive bear mace, which our research told us was not available in Canada.
The four of us and all our packs, bags, food, etc. crammed uncomfortably into our Nissan Sentra and set off. We spent the night with friends in Mount Vernon and hit the border about 10 the following day. The customs agent rattled off his normal “alcoholfirearmsdrugs?” (the effectiveness of which I’ve always wondered about. I mean, who is going to respond, “Yes, and thank you for giving me the opportunity to come clean.”) But, for the first time ever, he added “or mace?” to the end of his question.
We admitted that we had mace. It’s not for people, we explained, it’s for bears. We told our story. The customs official was not sympathetic. Neither were we. We were not prepared to give up our mace.
We were taken into a small office, manned by a sharp-faced woman with faded blonde hair and no hint of a smile. We pleaded our case. She told us that mace was illegal in Canada, and that she would have allowed us to bring guns across the border if we wanted real protection from bears.
“If a bear attacks you, you can shout at it,” she told us. “You can bang pots and pans or blow whistles to frighten it. You can shoot and kill it. But you may not mace it.”
“You mean I’m allowed to shoot a bear and kill it, but not just stop it from harming me?” Donn said in disbelief. “That doesn’t make any sense. That’s just ridiculous!”
“Is it not my business to make sport of the crown,” she snapped back, which we had to admit was the best line we’d ever heard from a customs official.
We lost, of course. We actually, stubborn as we are, got back in the car and drove to the Sandpoint, Idaho, border crossing, where we had the same problems. Before that day, we had never been asked about mace; since that day, we have never been asked about mace. But they won. They kept our illegal and expensive mace. And the first thing we saw when we walked into a backpacking supply store in Jasper was a huge display of…you know what’s coming…bear mace.
When we were moving from Mauritania and on our way back to the US, we really got hassled. In the Casa airport here in Morocco, the customs official confiscated Abel’s lego swords, claiming “It’s your government that makes us do this.” Yeah. Way to take out your dislike of Bush on the 10-year-old, who was in tears as we boarded the bus to take us out to our plane. Best of all? Lego has discontinued the “Knight‘s Kingdom“ line, so they couldn’t be replaced. And, as I pointed out to Donn, one could do a LOT more damage with the flimsy plastic knife we were given with our meal than with the tiny dull plastic “sword.”
It just wasn’t a good trip for the twins. In JFK, our family was “randomly” picked for a special search, the whole family. The zip on Ilsa’s beloved new-to-her boots got stuck, and the customs woman, growing impatient with my efforts to unstick it, brusquely broke it and yanked it off. Ilsa shuffled off in tears carrying her broken boot. They made her unpack her carry on and rifled through her stack of books (she had about 10 with her, I think). Because naturally, that would be where we’d hide the…what exactly? “Welcome to your home country,” I muttered grumpily at my distraught children.
Probably my fondest customs memory, though, is of my mother trying to smuggle Welsh butter into the country. My mother is about 5’1” and has never had so much as a parking ticket in her life. The summer that I was 17, she and I went to my cousin’s wedding in Wales, and on the way back she decided to bring Welsh butter and bacon with us. Of course we got asked about it. Mum feigned innocence. She would have been about 60 at that point, but I swear she fluttered her eyelashes at the customs official, and her voice went up about an octave in range. To no avail, of course. The customs official had specifically asked about dairy products, so she surrendered her beloved butter. He didn’t mention meat though, so we didn’t mention it either, and managed to bring home the bacon after all.
14 comments
May 7, 2009 at 9:52 pm
eileen
poor kids with the confiscated toys and the broken boot! And your mom is hilarious, if a wanted porkproductspurveyor. Thanks for playing! Your link is live!
May 7, 2009 at 10:01 pm
Bystander
A curse on all customs officials everywhere who make small children cry. Welsh bacon is worth smuggling!
May 8, 2009 at 1:23 am
allison
Interestng about the butter. I had no problem bring butter into the US from Finland. They just wanted to know about fruits and veg. and I actually told them about the butter, but she didn’t care. It was fabulous butter.
May 8, 2009 at 5:39 am
Linda
I had a friend who arrived in NYC from a month in Europe. She innocently asked about something she wasn’t able to get a tax refund on in Paris and they made her open her suitcases and asked her about everything in it. She wasn’t able to prove where she bought anything and most of it was hers before she went to Europe. They were “kind” to her and charged her $1000 in taxes and told her she was lucky it wasn’t more.
My own tale is when I went to customs to pick up a crystal chandelier we had bought in Austria. I had a very cranky customs lady who told me to figure out my own taxes owed while she carried on an argument with a fellow coworker. Math is not my strong subject but I did it, paid what we owed and went home where my now exhusband told me that I had left off a zero on what was owed. If I hadn’t had the cranky lady it would have been much more. I was dishonest and didn’t even know it.
May 8, 2009 at 8:57 am
planetnomad
Allison, this was absolutely years ago–I think they change things depending on whatever the most recent “scare” is.
Linda, I like your story! It’s nice that it worked out in your favor, since the woman was too cranky to do her job.
May 8, 2009 at 2:15 pm
Sara
EEEk! What is it about Canada and their fear of mace? And, that is sad about them hassling your kids at customs. I think sometimes they just get off on being jerks. What are we going to say “No, I don’t think you can take my bottle of expensive Evian water. I’ll just miss my flight. Thank you”?
May 8, 2009 at 5:27 pm
Kit
I’ve always been lucky at customs (touch wood) – my worst smuggling was when I drove back to the UK from Italy, before all the duty regulations were relaxed, with a Landrover stuffed full of things like a Carpegna cured ham, several pecorino cheeses, a few more boxes of wine than allowed, grappa all for a series of presentations for the travel company I worked for. i think I got through on pure innocence, just drove through the green channel and kept going, fuelled by the Pocket Coffees that had got me up the autoroute through the night!
I once gave my mother some of our own honey to take to my brother in Melbourne, and was furious when they confiscated it at the Australian customs – I bet the customs official was enjoying it on his toast every morning.
May 8, 2009 at 7:22 pm
Katie
I loved the snappy comeback by the Canadian official. That was brilliant. And Welsh bacon sounds divine…I’m glad your mom snuck that one through. 😉 Thanks for sharing your stories!
May 9, 2009 at 11:28 am
robin
I just discovered your blog. Love your stories & love your blog!
Several years ago we were returning to the US from Canada. My husband, A., was worried that customs officials would confiscate the cheese that we bought in the Oka Monastery. When we reached the tiny Vermont border crossing, he headed for a nearby gas station to tank up before crossing into the US. Although the gas station was across the street, technically it was in the US, not Canada. We had an irate customs official chase us down, berate us, and threaten us with a thousand-dollar fine because we went to the gas station before officially crossing the border. No one ever asked about the Oka cheese, which was our original concern. By the way, Oka cheese smells like dirty socks ….
Another customs story: A. was flying home from South Africa via Germany. He was talking to his seatmate, a German flying to the US to visit his relatives In Cleveland. The German proudly announced that he had two 5-liter kegs of beer in his suitcase to surprise the relatives for Oktoberfest, then asked A. if he thought this would be a problem with Customs. A. decided not to ruin the German’s festive mood, “Nah! I do it all the time,” he said. We never learned of the German’s fate.
May 9, 2009 at 1:12 pm
Kelly @ Love Well
“It is not my business to make sport of the crown.”
LOVED THAT. What a classic, grumpy line.
I have few stories to share re: customs, unless you count all those people we snuck through the Tijuana border in our trunk. Customs are so busy there, they didn’t even wonder why our car was 1 foot lower in the back.
(Kidding of course, although we did routinely cross the border there. But it’s so highly trafficked, customs is the easiest part of the puzzle.)
May 9, 2009 at 3:54 pm
Beck
I think the worries about bear mace is that it’ll just infuriate the bear and cause them to kill you. I carry regular ol’ pepper spray for the benefit of all of the stray dogs in town, although I have yet to actually mace a dog.
May 11, 2009 at 11:27 am
meredith
I am a terribly guilty cheese smuggler. One time on my way to the US at CDG in Paris, I had my suitcases opened by security and the customs guy told me I couldn’t get into the USA with all the cheese I had wrapped up in there. I asked him if I couldn’t at least try and he shrugged and let me close my suitcase and let me go without throwing anything away.
I did get called into customs back at the CDG airport again once when my mom tried to mail me abox full of Chicago Cutlery knives…a wedding present. I had brought the wooden holding block back to France in my suitcase, but she’d mailed me a bunch of stuff, knives included. That didn’t go over too well. After explaining why I was getting sharp knives in the surface mail, I had to pay so much tax on them that they didn’t seem like much of a gift after that.
The funniest thing I smuggled back into France was a tickle me Elmo. When customs in the USA inspected my bag, they found him wrapped in my dirty clothes, took him out and started to play with him. I was being retained on one side of the desk while my tickle me Elmo went on a complete tour of customs, laughing all the way. This was back when he was a novelty. They did give him back to me…
May 12, 2009 at 9:16 am
susan
We get our worst receptions going home – mostly by Customs in Chicago and Dulles.
My worst was the apple I threw away. My 8 yr old daughter had been sick with the flu, she & I delayed our trip by 2 days (hub & other kid went ahead as planned) and she really only wanted banana bread or apple slices – so that’s what I took on the plane so she could eat something.
At direction of the flight crew – I threw the apple away before I went through customs. But an agent saw me. I got the biggest chewing out. Over an apple. From a source which has no known biological hazards (such as fruit flies) – it even had it’s little tag still on it.
He said “We’re just lucky we don’t have to quarantine all the trash cans in the airport because of you and that stupid apple.”
OK – point taken. I would highly recommend that TSA and Customs Officials be given training in effective and non-combative communication/customer service skills. Just a thought.
May 20, 2009 at 2:24 pm
jolyn
Oh my gosh. Whatever patience your family has you have EARNED, for certain! You think the border guard called all the other ones nearby and told them to make sure and check for mace, knowing you’d try again? So funny. So aggravating.
My worst story I guess was when I’d been stuck in Atlanta for three days after an overseas flight alone with my then 3yo and 1yo. An “act of God” (aka “weather”) had stranded many flights and then there ended up being a problem with the ticket for the flight we finally got on. After finally straightening it out, we got randomly picked for a security search, which made us miss the plane. A frazzled mom traveling with two toddlers flying from Atlanta to Kansas is so suspicious, you know. Honestly, I was so beyond exhaustion I couldn’t summon any iota of emotion that would have been considered at all threatening, much as it might have been deserved.