Nominatissima shared some hilarious stories about passing through the customs at the US-Canada border as a person in a long-distance relationship. I was such a person, too, and have funny stories of my own to share.
“What is the purpose of your trip?” the customs officer asked me the first time I traveled from Montreal to Indiana.
“I’m going to see my boyfriend,” I responded.
“A boyfriend? When did you meet? Where did you meet? Have you stayed with him before? What does he do? How old is he? What is his income? Has he been married before? [Before what, I wondered.] How serious is this relationship?”
“I’m sorry, officer,” I said. “I just wanted to mention that my boyfriend is a citizen of Russia.”
“Oh, you should have just said so!” the officer replied, looking relieved. “Have fun with your boyfriend. Next!”
In the future, I just stated outright, “I’m going to visit my boyfriend who is a citizen of Russia”, and nobody had any questions.
Clarissa's Blog 
Now I’m dying of curiosity, why did his Russian nationality ease the worries of the customs officer?
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He was worried that I was trying to marry an American citizen for papers. If the boyfriend isn’t a lucky owner of an American passport, they can’t care less. 🙂
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Oh, I see!
That explains a lot of my own interactions at the border, actually.
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Here is one of my stories:
About a year ago the whole American border guard crowd at Lacolle (or how is it called on the other side?) was in extremely cheerful mood. Maybe the people of Montreal were smoking weed more than usual, and the wind was blowing directly from Montreal to Lacolle, I do not know.
The guy in the booth was cheerful. Unfortunately we had to stop by the building to get photographed and fingerprinted. On the parking lot a young border guard was chasing a balloon which apparently escaped from the car he has been searching.
The guy in the building was also extremely cheerful. He asked where I work and when I answered he asked me about the value of free-fall acceleration. It was so unexpected that it took me several seconds to answer. Then he asked, literally “You are not going to hijack anything, are you?” Then he started to complain that I am not in his system. By then I felt safe enough to crack a joke, which I do not normally do with US border guards – I responded with a multi-meaning “that is because I am so good” and a wink. And that did not get me arrested. 🙂
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Worst mistake I ever made going through Customs was to say “I going to work on a budget proposal”. The customs’ agent couldn’t understand why we couldn’t hire a 3rd Party (American) to review the proprietary budget and business strategies.
Lesson learned – now, I’m always going to a “meeting”. Never working. Never.
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