Oh, Canada

In keeping with trend--the anytime-I-make-an-effort-something-goes-terribly-wrong trend--when I tried to go to see my parents in Bellingham at the beginning of the month, I was delayed by a lady jumping in front of a train. She didn't jump in front of my train--they don't usually let passengers on freight trains-- but my train was delayed by the incident, and for a while, my mom and I were afraid we wouldn't make it to Canada on time. As a result, I almost called this blog "Oh, the Places You'll Go--Right After We Get the Body off the Tracks," but I thought that might be a little insensitive. Funny, but insensitive. (Discussion Question: What other Dr. Seuss book titles can we ruin? Seriously, post your ideas in the comments. The one that makes me laugh hardest gets a certificate or something.) The best part was how they announced the delay to my train. I was sitting in my seat, reading my book, when across the loudspeaker came the words, "We've just received confirmation of pedestrian interference with a train." Pedestrian interference with a train? What kind of euphemism is that? That's like saying "hostage interference with a bullet."  Luckily--or unluckily, depending on how you feel about Canada--the train was only delayed by one hour, and I got to gawk like a yokel at the cops searching the poor woman's car as we passed through Edmonds.

But the good times didn't stop there! We got on our way with plenty of time to cross the border, until the Canadian border patrol decided my mom and I were suspicious characters and ushered us quickly--glares included at no extra charge!--into the border guard offices. We waited in line for about 20 minutes, wondering if it was the banana peel under my seat that got us such attention from Canada. The whole wait I kept opening my mouth to say things like, "So, Mom. How long have you been smuggling weed?" and "Since when does Canada care what it lets in?" and shutting it only just barely in time. When we talked about it later, my mom told me she was doing the same thing. (This post could also be entitled "How the Rains Family Deals with Stress," but that's not nearly as funny.) We also had the privilege--lucky us--of watching an old man get searched for marijuana. The guard had him lift his pants and push down his socks, take off his shoes, turn out his pockets, and lift his shirt. Oh, why did they make him lift his shirt?! I didn't look away in time to avoid seeing his pasty white used-to-be-fat skin hanging over his pants, which is possibly the biggest regret of my life.


After asking us a long list of questions and searching our car, they determined that I wasn't the missing person they were watching for, and my mom must not have kidnapped me after all. We were released into Canada, which I'm not sure is sufficient compensation for all of that.


Fast forward through the cultural celebration for the Vancouver, B.C. temple (which was awesome, by the way. I may post some pictures and one amazing video from it later.). We were headed home, but I had to stop somewhere and get Cadbury Wunderbars--the real prize for venturing into the north lands. On our way, we made a pit stop at A&W for root beer floats.


Can I ask you something? When you get a root beer float, it's made either with soft-serve ice cream (typical of A&W) or scooped hard ice cream, right? That's been my experience. In Canada, A&W made our floats with the shaped middle part of a round ice cream sandwich. I thought they were putting astronaut ice cream in my root beer at first, and I was prepared to be disgusted and irate. Instead, I was just frustrated because it was impossible to get even a sliver of ice cream without splashing root beer all over the place. Looking at it, I almost felt like I was looking at part of the set of ABC's Wipe Out. I sort of expected to see a tiny person jump from my mom's scary round ice cream to mine, possibly falling into my root beer in the effort. I really hope I didn't look away at the wrong time and end up accidentally swallowing someone.

 What was really entertaining was that when I went to catch the train home, it was delayed at the border for about 15 minutes, but we weren't told why. In the five minutes before the train pulled into the station, at least three police cars pulled in near the tracks, and as the train rounded a corner into our line of sight, the cops started moving slowly toward it. (Picture lionesses hunting.) More passenger interference? Or was yet another mother kidnapping her adult child and fleeing the country? Or perhaps the Canadians just couldn't stand the bizarre cylindrical ice cream any more, and one had tossed the lot into the ocean and fled to the United States for sanctuary. Whatever the cause, the moral of the story is this: If you want a bit of excitement, all you have to do is put me on a train.