We spent a day over the holiday weekend--the day on which it did NOT snow--on a trip to look at the leaves.
Our destination was Grand Marais, chosen in part because it's a Goldilocks distance (not too far, not too near) and in part because my husband has a new passport and wanted to cross the border with it.
And although the border guard did not ask me to smile, not once, he did ask us about the nature of our relationship. It's helpful to be able to answer "We're married."
One of the times when we weren't married and crossed the border, our answer was something erudite like "We're, uh, toGETHer." This stumbling-fumbling sentence (combined with the difference in our ages) apparently aroused enough suspicion in the U.S. border agent to prompt him to mention that he saw lots of Internet romances in which a Canadian hooked up with an American for nefarious purposes--namely, moving to the U.S.
Because Canadians of middle and older age all want to live in the U.S. For the health care. Yeah. That's it.
To be fair, Canadians of many ages are indeed snowbirds. But few want to STAY.
Anyway, the pre-marriage guard then asked my husband if he had proof of that he intended to return to Canada in a week. Proof such as the title to land he owned. My husband said "no." The agent shook his head sadly and eventually waved us through, evidently against his better judgment. Perhaps it was a holiday gift to us.
Why would someone going to a family wedding during the holiday season happen to carry title to property? Wouldn't that look MORE suspicious, not LESS?
And now, the new border requirements may resign those kinds of questions to the dustbin. Let's hope, anyway, that the passports are good for something.
However, this time, when we said "We're married," the border agent said, "Huh. So you're married but you have different last names."
The answer to that one: "Yes." And there was the head-shake again, but we were waved through.
Different last names. Sheesh.
I'd forgotten how big an issue that is in the U.S. Up here, having different last names hardly raises an eyebrow--although in a move reminiscent of Hillary Clinton, the Prime Minister's wife took his last name for the first time in their multi-year marriage only when he became Prime Minister. Why then? Who knows.
But for the most part--even in Thunder Bay, which is hardly a hotbed of radical thought--having different last names is not really worthy of comment.
Crossing the border: an experience that leaves people on both sides shaking their heads.
