So, back in June, after one too many times waiting in a loooong line at the border hoping we'd make it to practice on time, and watching the odd car zoom through the Nexus lane and be on its way with barely a pause, I decided to get my own "Trusted Traveler" card. The name reminds me of the days I used to fly alone, yo-yo-ing between parents in different countries. They'd hang a "young traveler' tag around my neck, give me a bag of stuff to entertain me in-flight, and send me off down the ramp with an immaculately dressed, beautifully made-up and coiffed stewardess. (Yes we were allowed to call them stewardesses back then, when political correctness hadn't even been thought of as a concept yet.) My favorite part of those trips was collecting the little wing pins they'd give you - you had to amass a certain number to get cool stuff - and getting to go in the cockpit and hang with the pilots. Try doing that nowadays. One pilot even let me push buttons. I was terrified of sending the plane into a careening spin, almost wet my pants as I reached out to put the plane on autopilot, but we all survived.
Anyway...I have digressed. So I applied for this Nexus card, and waited. (You apply online, and you have to keep going back into the online system to check on the status of your application. They don't send you a message that you've been approved.. that's too easy. They make you work for it. If you don't check, you won't see that you've been conditionally approved, won't get to select an interview date, won't see that you have a conditional approval in the system that you need to print out and bring to your interview... etc. So you have to write down this insanely long and pointless-to-try-and-remember username and password (and hope you don't lose it because trying to get it reset is an exercise in futility) and remember to check where things are.)
I went to Hong Kong while my application was pending. When I got back and checked on it, there a few alerts in the system - I needed to respond and pick my interview date pronto or I my application would be terminated. Argh! So I picked a date. The first available was... early October.
On the appointed day, I drove to Champlain, New York, and followed the strange instructions on my letter. "Drive around to the building marked X (it didn't say X it said something else but I've since forgotten). Don't drive up to it, park your car in the lot, walk up to the building, go through the second set of sliding doors.." buckle your seatbelt three times, turn around twice, you get the idea. Anyway, I made it, I walked in, I got to sit in a cubicle with a nice US agent, then moved over three feet to chat with a Canadian agent, and we were done. "Do you want to go get your retinal scan now?" was the final question. "Uh...?" Oh sure, what the heck, I was already there and I don't have any privacy anywhere anymore anyway, what's a retinal scan gonna do?
So I got back in my car, hopped back on the highway, crossed into Canada ("you're going to that building, but don't go over to it there, go right here, then take a left at the THIRD stop sign, then go around to the side entrance..."), parked the car, shimmied myself between a jersey barrier and a bright yellow security gate thing, and marched up to a side-door (hoping it was the right one and I wasn't going to be met with pistol-wielding border agents).
Blah blah blah, got my eyes scanned, had a laugh, and off I went. Crossed back into the US and was on my way home again in less than 10 minutes.
So.. on Tuesday, with my brand new card, I decided to give it a whirl. I approached the border, saw that lane 5 was the Nexus lane, and pointed my car at it. Shit - there was the scanner thing and I'm rolling too fast and don't even have my card out of the protective sleeve yet! I pulled it out quickly, scanned it as I rolled by, thinking 'yeah, that wasn't even close to the 3 seconds pause they told me to make, oops' and continued to roll up to the booth and the lift gate/barrier. It's a booth identical to the other lanes, but it's empty. Instead, there is a little box on it, like at the Burger King drive through, with a note taped to it. "Press red button to speak to an agent."
Now I don't know about you, but in my advanced age, I find it helpful to mutter and read instructions and things out loud to myself. It gets the point across better somehow. So there I am, looking perplexed at this thing and wondering what the heck I'd gotten myself into.
"Press red button... I see a silver button, there is no fucking red button.." and just as I realized I'd sworn out loud at this box, a nasally crackle came through it.
"Bonjour madame!" Shit!
"Bonjour monsieur!"
Luckily the agent wasn't offended. Instead, he asked me a few questions, pressed his own button to lift the gate to let me pass, and wished me a nice day. Next time, I know what to do. (Keep mouth shut, press silver button, don't embarrass self.) Now if G would hurry up and get HER card too, we'd be all set.
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