part 1 of my trip to boston, welcome to the customs agents being made of serious fail!

well folks, where to start.
Le’ts see.
this trip started out all right, with the city bus actually being on time for a change, holy shit. then, us, *gasp* actually getting the hell outta hamilton less than 5 minutes behind schedule. Even with a passenger arguing with the driver after trying to board the bus with an expired ticket.
Yeah that’s all kinds of brilliant, you stupid idiot.
We made it to toronto around 9PM, and finally bounced clear at around 9:45PM, 15 minutes behind schedule.
Interesting part about that departure from toronto, was the bus didn’t wanna start, so that was kinda nifty, in a fuck you kinda way. Then things got, shall we say, extremely not cool.
We hit the boarder around 11PM, ok, fine, 40 minutes to buffalo, right? we might make buffalo before oh my god o’clock, right? meaning we’ll hit nyc by 8:00Am at the outside, right?
totally, not!
I swear to god, the customs agent was a royal goddamn bastard, he found every excuse to delay us, from repeating questions, to nearly, in my case, not clearing me across, because, holy shit, I didn’t have my over the counter meds in the right bottle! Why didn’t I? simple fact, I didn’t want to be carrying this huge bottle of painkillers around, so I simply put them in a smaller bottle to take with me.
That the worst of it?
No, not likely.
The stupid agent then decides to call and grill the goddamn hell out of krista, while doing this, I’m forced to stand on a leg, that’s already in enough pain, and me without access to my painkillers because sir ass tard has them.
I finally get tired of it and stop another customs agent and go, with all do respect, if I expect to be able to move, and get out of here, 1. I’d like to sit down, and 2. I need both my painkillers, and a glass of water, preferably before next century!
The customs agent, a female, helps me to a chair, and in this really demanding voice, Mr. Lucas, this man’s painkillers, right, now,. move! he attempts to deny the agent’s request, and she goes, Lucas, if you wish to keep your job, you’ll get up out of that chair, and bring his medication over here, and don’t make me have to come over their.
I got the meds I needed, but that’s not the end of my boarder wos.
by this time, we’re 20 minutes behind schedule, and still a long way from being completed.
The stupid pompus moron rechecks my bag, and regrills me, like I’m some common criminal, and when I respectfully ask him why he’s acting unprofessional, he tells me to be quiet and speak when spoken to.
I then inform him in a really cold, and professional manner, get your supervisor out here, now.
He has the balls to ask why, and I very coldly respond, because you sir, have given me the impression that your power hungry, and don’t give a crap about the common person, now, if you don’t want me picking up my cell phone and dialing the canadian embasey and filing a formal complaint, you’ll get your supervisor out here, now!
He walks away, and I never did get to see his supervisor. but I didn’t have to deal with him the rest of the time. but the next person’s just as big of a prick.
so Then, I’m sent over to another agent, who, FYI, is just a big an idiot as the last one, where, he yet again re-asks where I’m going, how long I’m gonna be their, have I ever been in the states, and the complete address, and telephone number for krista,, I give him everything, then to prevent a blow up, I in a very cold, and professional voice, respond, sir, did the other agent fail to put pen to paper and write this information down as I’ve already given this information twice before, and your coleague has already utalized it to wake my girlfriend up, at this time of night.
his response, sir, I’m only doing my job. my response, with all due respect, In my opinion, I think you and your coleague are incompitent. but to speed this along, here, have this. and I hand him a copy of krista’s contact card, that I’ve printed up in the event of their being a medical emergency while I’m here.
I never did get that back, but I’ll print another one on ray’s printer in fitchburg.
Then, to top it off he runs my fingerprints. Like holy shit, kids, the fuck am I, a common terrarist? jesus christ.
he ends up clearing me on a conditional bases, in the fact of, you have to be out of the states by november 30th, 2010.
He also informs me that he’s stapling a card into my passport I have to show canadian customs upon my reentry into canada to proove that I did, indeed return.
Needless to say, krista was beyond pissed by the time I got back on the bus, and called her, burning most of the $13.30 calling her, jerry, and wes, at 12:30AM, 90 minutes after we hit the boarder.
Did we leave then? no, it’s nearly another hour later by the time we GTF outta their, putting us, you guessed it, 2 hours behind!
This has shoved us nearly 2 hours behind schedule, and could possibly cause me to miss my 9:30AM connection to providense, Road Island.
We didn’t get to searicuse, NY until 4:15AM 2 hours fifteen minutes after we should have been their.
And by that time I wanted coffee in the worst fuckin’ way, so thank god for dunkin doghnuts.
I’m seriously hoping that part of this trip was the worst of it, as I’m writing this on the bus at just after 8AM eastern time and we’re still on the move and greyhound’s wifi, at least on this bus, is equal to busted.
Oh, we did make up some time, as frank, the driver from searicuse to nyc, went through pensilvania witch shaved a significant amount of time off and brought us a little farther back on track.
oh, as an aside, greyhound’s policy about cell phones having to be turned off, is utter horseshit, this isn’t a plane for fuck sakes.
I just put mine on vibrate, and the driver can just fuckin’ deal with it.
on another note, I thought hamilton traffic was bad, new york city traffic is goddamn insane!.
ok, I’m done, for now, I’m posting this from a really shitty internet connection in the nyc terminal so let’s post this and we’ll post more once I’m actually in ma on real internet.

6 thoughts on “part 1 of my trip to boston, welcome to the customs agents being made of serious fail!”

  1. Yeah…That’s just ridiculously insane. I’m convinced, having dealt with both border patrol and customs, that one of the requirements on the application is “Must be a completely incompetent asshole”, because I have yet to meet one with a brain.

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  2. Man, that’s a total epic fail! What is it with those customs agents? Might their problem be the heightened threat level (due to those packages that were sent from Yemen which contained explosive devices)?

    Reply
  3. I can’t believe the nerve of those idiots. I’ve never had to deal with such idiocy and incompetence when I’ve gone to the US, but somehow, it doesn’t surprise me in the slightest. I have to give you huge props for dealing with them in the way you did though. You, like me, don’t put up with bullshit, and I like that. Hopefully this won’t happen on the way back. You should definitely file that complaint. Hopefully they can track down the idiots you had to deal with specifically, maybe with the help of the female person who was actually decent enough to help you get to a chair. Clearly she was also fed up with the moron, possibly not for the first time. Good luck.

    Reply
  4. To my knowledge, Greyhound doesn’t *have* a policy on turning off cell phones. Or if they do, every bus I’ve ever been on has had half the passengers in violation. I do believe this one just turned personal preference into corporate policy.
    Also: Yes, I just saw this now. You may blame life. I do.

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