chikinhammr

Every time I make the border crossing into Canada, I am reminded why other drivers bitch and moan about having to deliver there. I arrived at the International border crossing at Blaine, WA early on Tuesday morning about 9 AM. There were just a couple of trucks ahead of me in line at the Canadian Customs guard booth and I was speaking with a Customs Agent after less than five minutes in the line. I handed over my passport and paperwork and was informed that my load was not "in the system." By that, I mean that customs duties (taxes) were not showing up in the computer as having been paid. So, I had to park the truck, walk across the street to the customs broker, and sit on my ass for an hour while the broker processed the duties. Normally, this shit is done well in advance electronically, allowing the driver to pass through customs after the agent scans the barcode on the paperwork. In my case, the hillbilly back in Tennessee who filed the paperwork last week fouled something up, causing me to lose an hour at the broker and an hour back at Canada Customs (Douanes Canada for you Frenchy Quebecois) re-filing the papers. I will never get those two precious hours of my life back. In two hours I could have done one of these things: watched a movie, read an entire magazine, baked a lemon sponge cake, mowed a half acre lawn, made love 7 times, played Monopoly, written 4 blogs, contemplated the meaning of Spoon, watched two episodes of CSI, caused the temperature of the Earth to rise .0000000000000000000000000000167 degrees Centigrade, driven 136 miles, or hand crafted an heirloom spatula out of recycled milk cartons. So anyway, I arrived at my delivery destination around 11 AM only to be told I was an hour early. I argued with the fork lift driver for about 2 minutes, telling him that I was told to deliver anytime between 7 AM and 5 PM. He told me that they scheduled it for noon, and I said, I had no way of knowing that, and we went back and forth like idiots for another minute playing "I'm a badder badass than you." I gave up and decided to go ahead and park the trailer in the dock. I don't know what it is, but 90% of the warehouses I've delivered to or picked up from in Canadia (I love calling it Canadia) have very tight loading docks that are a pain in the ass to back into. This one was one of those. I had to back into the dock from the street. In the process of backing up, I basically blocked both lanes of traffic for about two minutes. I was (successfully) trying to avoid contact with the trailer in the other dock to my left, and simultaneously avoiding crashing into the red Honda Civic parked next to my dock on the right. Two minutes is an eternity for people in cars to wait for a stupid truck driver to block the street. This time, I only got 1 guy revving his engine menacingly (i giggled at that,) and 1 horn honk. No middle fingers. Most of the waiting cars bypassed the street by driving through the parking lot across the street from the dock I was parking in.

So I got unloaded at noon in Langley, BC and then drove 23 miles to Surrey, just outside of Vancouver, I got a glimpse of the city's outskirts and some of the many bridges, It was very lovely and the air smelled of fresh pine trees. That, and Vanilla Bourbon. I'm guessing the vanilla smell was from a nearby factory.
I picked up a preloaded trailer from Catalyst Paper, faxed the US Customs paperwork to the border, and drove back to Blaine, WA where I waited in line for another 90 minutes to get back into the US. Oh, joy. At least I had time to make a peanut butter (buerre d'arachides) and strawberry jam (confiture des fraises) sandwich (sandwich.) Did you know that the government charges commercial vehicles $5.50 to get back into the country? I mean, I live here and shit. Why must I pay to get back into my own damn country? I blame George W. Bush. When Clinton was President, the fee was only $5. Damn you W. Damn you to Hell.

End Blog.

Peace.