Adventures South of the Border

Tom and I headed down to Newport, Vermont yesterday. Tom had some banking he needed to do and so we decided to tie this in with lunch at Wendy's and a trip to Dollar Tree. I really like Dollar Tree. It's one of those real dollar stores like Dollarama where everything is a dollar or less. The last time we went I found Michael Moore's book "Dude, Where's my Country?" for a dollar. This time I picked up two books that I would not have bought if they weren't a dollar; Leadership by Rudy Giuliani and I Am the Central Park Jogger by Trish Meili. I also bought Pez and Bubble Gum lip balm, Gobstoppers, mousse, floss and popsicles.

After Dollar Tree I wanted to check out the shoes they had in the store next to Dollar Tree. I ended up buying a pair. Tom warned me that since we had been in the States for less than a day and I had spent more than 25$ that I would probably have to pay duty. When we got to customs they had us park and go inside. He asked me for my driver's license and when I told him that I didn't have one, he asked how I drove there without a license. I guess he wasn't really thinking because Tom was standing right beside me. What he really wanted was anything that had my address, which I didn't have. Anyway all the fuss involved in paying duty distracted the customs officers from something they seemed to be obsessed with; the fact that Tom lives in Quebec but has a Vermont license plate. These custom agents seem to have a problem putting two and two together (I don't have a drivers license so therefore I must be the one driving and there is no reasonable explanation as to why Tom lives in Quebec but has VT plates). It also distracted them from asking Tom why he was still living in North Hatley. This is something he's allowed to do until his student visa is up but they have been bitchy about him being in Canada during the summer before and they acted like they didn't believe that Bishop's offered courses in Computer Science in the summer (which they do and he was taking one of them). We regular drive away from Canada customs making fun of the customs agents.

We'll be making another trip to Vermont on Sunday to have lunch with Tom's parents for their anniversary. Who knows what the customs agents will accuse of us of next time.