Now it’s time for us to move to New Zealand. Ruth Bader Ginsberg wasn’t the only one thinking this.

The prospect of a Trump presidency led to some prominent Americans — including Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg — joking, or perhaps half-joking, that they would move to New Zealand.

Ginsburg gave a nod to this splendid isolation during an interview with the New York Times in July. “‘Now it’s time for us to move to New Zealand,’” Ginsburg said her husband would be urging if Trump won the election.

Billy Crystal had the same idea. “I might consider finding a nice little ranch in New Zealand,” he told Australian media earlier this year. (By the way, Billy, we call it a “farm.” Yes, even the ones with animals only.)

But the idea has taken off this week. Web traffic from the United States to the New Zealand government websites that deal with immigration has skyrocketed.

Let me tell you about my last visit to Canada (I know it is long...but as anyone who ever gets subjected to these knows, it is a story that you end up taking some odd pleasure in telling, as it seems so stupid in retrospect it almost makes you want to laugh at it):

I travelled up to Canada in the early spring, just by myself, going on a road trip.

Middle aged, white, short hair, glasses, wearing a military veteran hat.

I had been driving for several hours straight (through northern Maine) when I hit the border. I figured I would stop and use a men’s room at the border crossing facility, which was good, because at that point, I had to go pretty badly.

When I got there, they asked me questions, then told me to pull my car to the side and come inside the building. When I came in (around 20:00) there was one person in this big room with benches, and when I asked him if I could use the men’s room, he said no. I had to wait.

So I had to urinate pretty badly at this time, but felt like I had no option, so I paced back and forth, because that can get pretty uncomfortable. After about five minutes, two border guards came out (male and female) and walked me to my car, asking me questions about whether I owned guns, etc. and then proceeded to take the entire car apart. Took my luggage out and completely emptied it, pulled out floor mats, emptied my glove compartment, emptied my trunk, searched the engine compartment, etc. The female pulls my container of prescription pills out (to save space when going on short trips, I just take what I need and throw them all into one container) and asks what they were, so I explain each one, and she admonishes me and says “You shouldn’t put them together in one container” which starts to REALLY piss me off. They are pulling other stuff out saying “What’s this? Why do you have this?”, etc.

Then, they pull my secured gun safe from under my seat, and ask if I had a gun in it. I said no, I already told them about a half dozen times I did not have a gun with me. They asked me to open it, and for some reason, the key didn’t work. At this point, I had to go so badly I said “Look. Why don’t you get a crowbar and force it open, I really have to go to the men’s room?” But I did finally get the blamed thing open.

All this took about 30-45 minutes, and by the end of it, as anyone who has ever had to pee that badly knows, you almost begin to salivate from the sheer discomfort.

I was pretty pissed. I’ll bet I went through a lot more discomfort than that jackass in article, and for less reason.

To make it worse, on the way home the next day (only stayed one night) I got stopped by two police cruisers outside of St. Johns, where again, I was asked several times if I owned guns. Turns out they stopped me because I had apparently not paid for a tank of gasoline about forty miles back, and the attendant called the RCMP. When the police told me I didn’t pay, I was pretty adamant that I had, but agreed to drive back and straighten it out. As soon as I walked in, the guy behind the counter was apologetic, and said “I told them not to be hard on you, it was an accident!” We had a good laugh.

It was due to confusion about the difference in the way credit card readers work up there, and I had ended up paying for a soft drink I purchased, not the gasoline.

Needless to say, I wasn’t feeling any love from North of the Border. Don’t feel like going back up again soon.

Someone told me that type of behavior is tit-for-tat in response to increased American security procedures on people coming in from Canada.

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