Oh Canada - Day 1 continued...

Customs

After our jaunt in our second flight over the border, I am a rock and a shining beacon of patience.

Just as I am drifting off to sleep, eyes weary from well-written poetry, a small child approaches my seat. I'm guessing that this must be the child who had been shrieking like the devil's own cat had been set aflame for the first 40 minutes of the flight. I guess this because there is a strange silence on board. I disregard the obviously too young to be roaming the aiplane unatended toddler as my eyes have begun to fall on the shoulders of a young woman. She is about 6 rows up from me, on theright hand ailse. Her skin is lightly tanned and her dark hair falls lightly over a strong neck. This is not the neck of someone who lifts weight at the gym or something like that. The point at which her deltoids and trapezius muscles meet is defined, but not overly. She knows a day's work, I say to myself as I watch her speaking to an equally interested man 6 rows exactly in front of me. I close my eyes again, briefly.

Now mom and another child have made their way back to the row right behind mine, a full 3 seats across the small commuter. The screaming begins. Logan is upset about something. I know his name is Logan because his mother keeps softly repeating it while he screams at the top of his fucking lungs. Parents, please forgive my ignorance of parenting styles and such and call me a bad person if you wish, there is no reasoning and reassuring tone of voice that appeals to the rest of the goddamned plane or Logan at this point. He's been screaming ans she's been quietly asking him 'what is the matter, Logan?' 'What is that you would like, Logan?' I decide that I am all for dialogue with a child about his or her needs but right now, Logan doesn't give a flying fuck at a rolling donut about what mum is saying. He can barely say 'nana' which mum takes to mean gramma, who is picking them up at the airport. He doesn;t have the capacity to undertsand her reasoning out these presumptious and prolific sentences about how they will arrive shortly on the ground and that he simply cannot go out onto the sky and see her. He does not get it. He does not care. He screams again and again. This toy does not work for him and that one isn;t fitting something correctly as mom points out. She cannot fix it, it doesn;t really fit that way because it wasn't made to, Logan.

I become zen.

I am patient. I am barely there. I am a quiet observer that no longer has the ability to hear or feel what does not fit.

I become zen.

Then the other child begins to punt my chair. Rather, the child begins to punt my spine as the well worn leather doesn't seem to come with proper foam padding in the middle, just right above my kidneys. I count 7 times he does this with some seat-back tray table slamming just to see how zen I am. I am steadfast. Even when mum begins an arduous description of just why he shouldn;t kick the nice man's seat as he is writing and when someone writes and another person bumps them like he is doing (punt) that sometimes it will make the lines messy on (punt:slam) his paper and he probably doesn't want messy things on his paper...I stare through the page. I am a rock. I even let a knowing smile slide across my glazed mug.

I am cool. To paraphrase the poetry of OutKast. I am cool. I am Ice Cold. I am cooler than Freddie Jackson sippin a milkshake in a snowstorm.

The pounding of my seat stops. The offending traytable goes into it's upright and locked position. Meanwhile the retired couple to my right left their zen somewhere in Minnesota. They moved to the front of the plane as soon as Logab approached the rear. The stewardess even whispered to me that I could do so if I wanted to. I look up to see the young lady and her closer admirer locked in aparently meaningful conversation as I note the ring on her finger. I nod and reply that I'll be just fine. and I was. We even landed without real incident and we were off to go and prove that even though most of us were Americans, we didn't bring a bale of pot in our asses or exotic fruits loaded with diseased insects in our luggage. Most of us even managed to leave our arrogance and bullying kits behind.

We're off the plane and now I'm noticing the driver of the luggage cart on the tarmac of the Thunder Bay airport. What is a stunningly beautiful and fit girl like this doing driving a fulthy luggage cart out in the middle of a morning cutoms schedule? Are all the women here of this caliber? I begin to think so as she drives up and throws on some greasy gloves, ready to dig in and grab our fishing poles and thick bags. In about five minutes, she has boarded the plan and is heading straight towards me. I was not wrong. She is stunning or I am really sleepy and in need of a date. A little of column A...a little of column B. She's working at the back of the plane, near Logan. It seems something is jamming the cargo door on the plane and there's a way to get inside it from here. I try to not turn around and objectify. I remain a perfectly ice cold gentleman in Canada.

We disembark and begin a walk through a door that looks like it can seal up tightly should Canada go to defcon 4. This is the waiting room. We are met with the barely smiling faces of two armed and vested customs agents. One of which is a pretty attractive blonde girl. I begin to contemplate how pissed off my boss will be if I accidentally forget to go back to the US and never reprint those graphics that need to go back out to Logan airport because it's so bloody humid there that the adhesive basically washed away...

We wait and then wait a little more. Apparently something is jamming the cargo bay door still. We wait for a good 50 minutes before another officer shows up and grabs a handfull of common sense, brute force and a small crowbar. He mentions that if he gets it open before the mechanic on call from the next airline over gets in, he wants to hear the mighty mouse theme. I yawn. It's still early in my brain.

He manages to pop the trunk and we finally get to answer questions. I finally will be able to get my first passport stamp. One new country a year, I tell myself. That's a good goal, I think. Captain Mighty Mouse got some light applause and he gets to question me so I step up and suddenly he becomes some NYPD Blue reject. Arrogance bleeds out of his eyes and he rifles off a few questions about food, what I'm there for and how many people in my group. He asks me whats in my bag besides my clothes and I think about the run down of light fishing tackle, granola and sunflower seeds etc as the words spill out of my mouth. I lose track and mutter lots of Um's and Uh's. A shining example of my education. I pass. But wait...no stamp?! What the hell? I didn't come all this way and answer questions for no stamp. I NEED this, man. C'mon.

In my weary dissapontment, I notice a small Canadian flag pin on the counter. "What's this all about?", I ask Cpt. Mighty Mouse. "Help yourself." He smirks. I take it. I put it on my hat.

A passport stamp, it ain't. But its better than a cavity search.