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My wife and I went to Vancouver some years back, and I am no country bumpkin but it was shocking at that time to see people shooting up heroin right out in public.

Back then, I was astonished to see that, but I suppose now I wouldn't even break stride.

I had a terrible experience last time when I went up to Canada. (When I relayed this to someone, they told me there was bit of a border war going on because they felt Canadians were being treated to greater scrutiny and inconvenience coming into the USA like that, but...I would say that nobody is trying to explode, kill, or maim Canadians.)

I travelled up to Canada in the late spring, just by myself, going on a road trip. Had to burn some vacation time or lose it. It was in March, and there isn't much going on up in New Brunswick or PEI, which is where I was going.

Middle aged, white, short hair, glasses, wearing a military 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 use the head pretty badly at this time, but felt like I had no option, so I paced back and forth, because that can get pretty uncomfortable as everyone knows. 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 go that badly knows, you almost begin to salivate from the 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 they called the RCMP. When they 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.