I don’t know why airport limo drivers always get lost on the
way to my condo building, but it seems like an epic fail for car GPS systems. Every
time I have to talk a lost limo driver through the directions to my door, it makes
me grumpy. It’s probably my own fault for always buying cheaper airfare for
flights that leave at the crack of dawn before the airport express train starts
running.
This time I was on my way to Seattle, and it was just two
days after Trump’s election and one day after the women’s march I’d
participated in. I’d posted photos of the march on Facebook and Instagram but
-- in a fit of paranoia -- had deleted
them all in case the U.S. border guards decided I was a troublemaker not
admissible to the States.
After my limo driver finally found me, our mutual alarm over
Trump’s victory overcame my grumpiness. But we would still be arriving at the
airport later than I’d planned, and that was a problem because I was already
cutting it close – something I tend to do with departure times.
Inside the airport my fears of being late and missing my
flight skyrocketed when I confronted a total mob scene. I found a giant lineup
of people who, like me, did not want to deal with the self-service kiosks and
were overloading the “Assistance” lineup. (This labelling implies that you are
somewhat defective if you don’t want to use the kiosks.) Large groups of jovial
Chinese senior citizens with massive suitcases, giant families with neither
English nor French, couples in the wrong lineup until the very last second –
they were all there, remonstrating and straining the capacity of the three agents
working the counters. Everyone seemed to have multiple giant suitcases.
Experimenting with carry-on luggage to avoid paying Air Canada’s
exorbitant baggage fees, I had a small, wheeled, designer-brand suitcase I’d
found cast-off in my storage locker room. I’ve found excellent furniture,
clothes, and accessories this way, and love telling people that the purse they’ve
just complimented me on was “found in the garbage.”
I’d never had a wheeled bag before and always made fun of
people for being lazy and not carrying their bags. But here I was, rumbling
along in the lineup, feeling sheepish but part of the mainstream for once.
At security I felt I was being singled out, though of course
it was all “random” as one of the guards told me. My silver belt buckle set off
alarm bells, and so did my boots with all their metal hooks. I was frisked
thoroughly and asked to go through a body-scanning machine.
In Vancouver airport, I had just under two hours to kill
before my flight to Seattle. Following signage, I walked into the Duty Free
area on my way to U.S. Customs. But the departure board there said my flight
was delayed by 1½ hours. That left me
just enough time to take the train downtown and go for a walk along the seawall.
I looked for an exit and found a staircase leading downstairs.
But I was stopped by an airport employee. “You can’t go down
there. It’s a restricted area,” she said.
I asked how I could get outside. She flagged down an Air
Canada agent.
“You’ve officially left Canada,” she said, “If you want to
go outside, you have to clear Canada Customs.”
“That’s ridiculous,” I said.
The Air Canada agent said she would escort me through the
restricted area and down to the arrivals hall so I could clear customs and leave
the building.
I approached a Customs agent in the arrivals hall and
explained that I had not really been out of Canada, that I had just
inadvertently walked into the zone between “Canada” and “U.S. Customs” and had
only been there about 30 seconds.
“You still have to clear Customs,” he said and handed me a
Declaration form. “Fill this out,”
“But I haven’t actually been out of Canada,” I said.
“Officially, you have,” he said.
I sighed and filled out the form, No, I hadn’t bought
anything, nor had I been to any farms, and for sure I had been out of Canada
for less than 24 hours.
I breezed through Customs without having to explain my
30-second absence from Canada.
And when I arrived back from downtown Vancouver, I cleared
U.S. Customs without being interrogated about my political affiliations. I
celebrated by going for a “flight” of Okanagan Valley wines at a small café.
My positive view of America persisted when I left Seattle to
fly back to Canada a few days later. The Seattle airport was fully staffed, so
all the security gates were open and there were no bottlenecks. No one searched
me, and no alarms went off. All security staff seemed efficient, knowledgeable
and polite. I was impressed. Americans have Trump but they’re organized! We
have Trudeau but our airports are chaos!
The little wheeled suitcase was not a success, though. It
was so small that I was ridiculously short on clothing and even had to buy a
new pair of boots because there hadn’t been enough room to bring a second, more
winter-oriented pair with me. Of course, the $150 I spent on the boots was more
than I would have paid to check my full-size duffle bag.
Once home in Toronto, I decided to put the suitcase back
where I’d found it on the storage locker room floor. This was exquisitely bad
timing, as the building management were about to do a storage locker inspection
in concert with a cleanup.
A couple of days later a perplexed resident of my building
gave me a call.
“I have your suitcase,” he said. “It was on top of my
storage locker, and I got a notice from the building manager to say I was breaking
a bylaw by storing something outside of the locker! Anyway, I found your
business card in the suitcase, so I thought I should call you.”
He gave me his suite number, and when I showed up at his
door, he was holding my suitcase.
“Actually….” I said, “You can have it. I was trying to get
rid of it but the building management people figured it was yours.” I explained
about the cast-off area of the storage locker, and apologized for the
confusion.
He was happy to get a free suitcase, which I found funny,
since his condo looked way more swanky than mine.
But everyone loves free stuff.
