Seriously? From their own website.
But yeah, they're bad...just as bad as customs. Last time I went through ground customs it was a fucking nightmare. Basically, the story is that myself and two buddies went on a two week road trip down the coast highway to San Diego, over to Vegas, and back. We stopped in a lot of places to say the least. Coming back through, the fucking idiot wrote something wrong down on his paperwork, causing us to be flagged. Well, that's their story because I don't know how he could have wrote something wrong down on his own paperwork and then looked back down at it, grow alarmed, and flagged us to be security raped.
At this point I need to stop to say that this is immediately following a 2 week drink and eating garbage fest, capped off by spending a lot of money on a lot of cheap drinks in Nevada and then trying to drive straight home only to get stuck in some shit town in Oregon where all there was to do was drink. No one is feeling great. So, my buddy has to go to the bathroom once we're in the questioning area, so he asks the chick questioning us and she basically proceeds to search him down to his boxers. Never mind that the 6 kilos of Columbian cocaine that he was trying to dump out would have obviously been corn holed...they don't want to violate your rights to that extent...they just want to see you in your boxers because you might have a small child stuffed down your pants. So, after that's over she points to the bathroom. He kind of looks at her and asks for the key..."You don't need one." Why is that retarded? Because it's right beside the main door you walk in on your way to customs. There's nothing stopping you from just going in there on your way between the car and the main desk. In fact, as he was walking out, some lady walked into the other bathroom before going to the main desk apparently.
That was kind of retarded. Not as retarded as watching the guy search the car through the window. Apparently shaking ipods is a good way to catch criminals who don't properly fill their secret compartments or secure the contraband within. Oh, and carefully inspect that case of bottled water. The fucked up thing we thought about later was that the car we were driving (a 2005 Pasat) somehow wound up with a broken hood latch on the way down through Oregon. It was still under warranty but we couldn't get into any of the dealerships without doing something drastic like staying in LA for two more days than we wanted to (because aparently it's a complicated problem that involves pulling the grill...FROM THE OUTSIDE!!!). Eventually, some grease monkey mechanic in some gas station in San Diego managed to pop it with some contraption and rigged up a system where he tied half a coat hanger onto the latch, but because of the way it worked, you needed another little stick/coat hanger contraption to reach in and pull it the right direction (toward the driver's side door and "in") in order to pop the latch and unlock the hood. A lot of work but you need to check your oil before you drive through Death Valley (actually, we totally didn't - it was fine - we're just pussies). It's kind of hard to visualize but there is no way you can open the hood without the second part of the contraption to reach in and pull/push the loop in just the right way. Long story short, the handle part was untouched on the back deck of the car but every personal item was basically ripped apart. They didn't even ask any questions about why they couldn't get into the hood.
The most retarded part was the questions. Obviously we had no consensus of where we were when. I blacked out most of the trip shortly after hitting up some dunes on some ATVs in Oregon, coming through for a Kings game, blacking out until some spring break after party in San Diego where I got in a heated debate with one of my friends over who could drink more. This culminated in us going to 7-11, buying 12 beers each and sitting on a No Smoking/Drinking sign on some beach in some 'hip' San Diego suburb at 3 or 4 am and smoking and drinking a lot when we really didn't need to. The police came. I think they followed our empties. One was cool and let us off when he realized we were very well mannered tourists, but the other really wanted to arrest me specifically. I think it was because he thought I was Mexican or something. We till have no idea where the other friend was during this, and he claims not to remember at all (I think he does), but the whole night he really wanted to go to Tijuana so we really couldn't say if any of us had left the States. Well, we could, but he's an idiot. The point is that we're totally contradicting each other on where we stayed and when.
So the hard ass questioning chick throws out "Well, you guys certainly had enough time to venture into South America. Did you?" This isn't the fake kind of teacher accusation either, this is this chick's Columbo moment...SHE'S CAUGHT US! So, obviously, two of us say "No." and one says "I don't think so" (because he's an idiot). Then she goes in for the kill: "Let's see your hotel receipts." Ummm......what the fuck? I don't even remember if hotels give out receipts and it's not like I haven't been staying in them my whole life. Aparently "we're supposed to keep them or else there's no evidence that we were where we said we were." Look, bitch, obviously there's a flaw in your logic since we can't even say without a shadow of a doubt where we were.
"Shithole county Oregon where some fucking clown bet me I couldn't finish the sick plate of nachos his bar running wife makes and won, followed up by somewhere with Sand Dunes and the only diner in the world that still sells Cherry Coke. Next thing I remember I'm in a cold beer in wine in San Fransico and I'm scared because some tiny little black guy is screaming "look at my little black dick" to the mexican working behind the counter who's screaming "You're all fucking bald!". And yes, his little black dick was fully out in the open. That would have been funny, but the guy beside the guy with the little black dick was sharpening something shank looking on the brick wall and that was kind of fucked. Then I was in a submarine and I ate a shrimp salad. Then I was drinking beers on some cliff on the non san fransico side of the golden gate bridge or something like that and sneaking by the cop who was parked beside our car. And then I was in some university bar in San Diego getting shot down, and then some girl was telling me she didn't think Canadians smoked, and then I was eating oreo cakesters on the beach and then I was driving the car really really fast and my friend woke up and freaked out, and then I think we were back in LA and then somewhere else I totally don't really remember right now but probably will in a week and then a few days later we were in a traffic jam in Nevada and then we stopped at some outside of Las Vegas casino because the traffic jam sucked and the non Vegas casinos have the best buffets. Then we were back in gridlock and I had to go outside of the car to take a piss and a trooper asked me to stop but I couldn't because it hurt but he was cool about it because he knew...that guy knew. And then I was going to hook up with the girl that worked at the pool at Caesar's Palace but that totally didn't pan out so I got really drunk and the next night I had to hide from a black girl who must have been from the ghetto because she scared me. And then we couldn't find mike for about a day and had to call the police and they gave me the number for the state prison because if the holding cells and drunk tank cells in the jails were full they would have just held him there if it was assault or anything like that. And then he showed up really drunk in a suit talking about God and demanded we let him drive even though he never drives drunk. And then I was in Idaho and that place fucking sucks but there was a sign that said "Rabbits for pets and food" which rocked."
That doesn't really cut it, so I don't know what she was trying to prove by demanding the receipts....we already admitted we didn't know shit and combined we had probably blacked out like a week and a half. So, being stonewalled there she decided to move on to the next big guns...
"Are you all employed?"
-Yes,
-Yes,
-I've been in school for like 9 years.
-Oh yeah, I'm in school too....but I'm employed.
"Do you all work together?"
-No,
-No,
-Uh...I don't work? I've been in school for like 9 years. I owe so much goddamn money it's awesome.
"Well, then how do you know each other?" The eyebrows raise...Columbo moment number two.
Well, I grew up with Trav, and we played soccer together but I didn't really know Mike until highschool where I'd hang out with him sometimes because he played football with some of my friends, including Trav. I'd say we really cemented the friendship when we all played rugby together and got really really drunk all through grade 11 and 12. Oh, and Trav totally nailed my ex girlfriend but that bitch was crazy and we got in a fight about some shit and he threw me through a wall and I decked him a few times so we really didn't get along for a few years there. Then we all went to different universities and I started hanging out with other highschool friends when I got back and we really didn't start hanging out all the time again until a couple of years ago when we moved into a house with like 4 other dudes. That house just got torn down, but I like to say that
we're the ones that demolished it. *goes for the high five*
Now, this was the moment of truth. Would that satisfy the beast or did she need more time to stall while her partner totally failed at searching our car for the skin of all those missing children we obviously molested? Hells no she wasn't satisfied because those Columbo moments were just leading up to the true parlour moment:
"WELLLLLLL then. That's a pretty long time you guys took off. How did you manage to do that..........ALL AT THE SAME TIME!?"
-I asked my boss. I get 6 weeks a year. 6 weeks!
-Spring break and skipping a bunch of classes I don't really need
-I'm basically self-employed but the contractor was cool with it.
At which point her partner probably gave up trying to get the hood open, knocked on it to make sure nothing knocked back, and gave her the thumps up after taking all of our change (probably...who counts change?). We were probably free to go. I don't really remember.
The point is that you can go through like that and walk out kind of pissed off at the waste of time but somewhat satisfied that someone is doing their job or something like that....except you can't because they're not. I mean, if we really were up to something we'd probably (probably) have a much better story or at least have a one without massive week long loop holes in it and a hood that opened. Trav would probaly also have just jettisoned the 6 kilos of blow down the shitter as well. I mean, what's the fucking point?
When I went down to Cancun for spring break a guy in the resort I was at was telling me that he went straight from work to the airport and accidentally packed his "I'm using these to hijack this motherfucking plane" chef knife roll/case/thing in his carry-on...that they scanned...and didn't notice. We was contemplating trying to bring them back the same way just to see if they'd be more vigilant on the not scared shitless of terrorists side of the border.
