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Know the rules

Welcome to Stuff I Learned Yesterday. My name is Mark Des Cotes, I once blew $50 in quarters in a single afternoon playing arcade games, and I believe if you aren’t learning, you aren’t living. In today’s episode of Stuff I Learned Yesterday I talk about the consequences of not knowing the rules.

I want to thank you for taking time out of your day today to listen to me for the next few minutes. Time is a precious commodity and Darrell and I really appreciate your devotion to this and all the other great Golden Spiral Media podcasts.

Tell me, is the weather where you are as wonky as it is here? Last week we hit a high of 37 degrees celsius with the humidex here (that’s almost 99 fahrenheit) and this week we’re seeing lows around 4 degrees celsius, 39 fahrenheit. Why can’t someone just set the temperature at a comfortable level and leave it there for the season?

Today’s Fun Fact of the Day: There have been some very strange laws written over the years. Did you know that, even though they’re not enforced, the following laws are technically still in effect today.
In Florida, single women are not allowed to parachute on Sundays.
Also in Florida, men may not be seen in public in any kind of strapless gown.
In Tucson, Arizona, it is technically illegal for women to wear pants.
In Michigan, a woman isn’t allowed to cut her hair without her husband’s permission.
In Maryland, it’s actually illegal for a woman to go through her husband’s pockets while he’s sleeping.
In Delaware it is illegal for a woman to propose to a man. If she does, she can be charged with “disorderly conduct”
It really makes you wonder what situation arose for someone to pass these into law.

Here’s What I leaned yesterday.
I had a completely different episode planned for today. I started thinking about it on the weekend and slowly fleshed it out in my mind over the last couple of days until this morning I knew exactly what I wanted to say.

But life is funny. Sometimes out of the blue something happens that change your plans. That’s what happened to me today and I knew immediately that I was changing my SILY topic.

My other topic was good as well, but it can wait for another week.

So here goes.

As I’ve mentioned before, I live in a rural area just outside the city of Cornwall Ontario. Officially my address is in Long Sault Ontario, but I’m closer to Cornwall than I am to the town of Long Sault. But that’s not important to this story.

Cornwall is a border city. It’s situated along the great St. Lawrence river and offers an international bridge to the state of New York. It’s actually two bridges. The first one takes you across to Cornwall Island and the Akwesasne Indian Reserve. Akwesasne is an interesting place. The north side of this native territory sits Canada and the south side sits in the USA. To make it even more interesting, the northern portion in Canada is divided by the provincial boundary between Ontario and Quebec.

From the Ontario section on Cornwall Island you cross another bridge to Roosveltown, New York. Once in the USA, it’s a short 10 minute drive to the town of Massena.

Now, why am I telling you this? You see one of the great perks of living in, or in my case just outside a border city is the convenience of crossing to and from the USA. I’m especially grateful for this when it comes to online shopping.

I’m a big online shopper. Over the years I’ve bought hundreds of items on sites such as eBay and Amazon. Now you’re probably wondering what shopping on eBay or Amazon has to do with a border crossing into the USA? I can sum it up in two words. Free Shipping!

There are many great American stores and shops, both brick and mortar and online that either don’t ship to Canada or charge a large fee to ship across the border. Many of these same great shops do however offer free shipping within the continental US.

Many years ago I was told about a small business in Massena New York that caters to us Canadians shoppers. For a very small fee I can have my parcel shipped to this store and then simply drive across and pick it up. Depending on the item and it’s value I may have to pay duty and taxes when crossing the border but this usually amounts to less than the shipping costs to Canada.

As an added bonus, on my way home from Massena I would take a 5 minute detour onto the american side of the Akwesasne indian reserve to fill up my gas tank. Gas on the reserver is much cheeper than elsewhere and I can usually save between $20 and $30 when filling up my truck.

Now, I’ve been eying a new piece of audio equipment for quite some time now and last week I finally had enough money to buy it. An american store Darrell referred me to had the best price on the unit. Much better than anything I could find here in Canada so I decided to buy it and have it shipped to Massena.

Today I took some time off to drive over there and pick it up. It was perfect timing too since my truck had less than a quarter tank of gas left. So I drove to Massena, picked up my package and then drove to the Indian reserver for gas.

To my surprise, the place I normally stopped was closed. The main building behind the gas pumps was almost completely destroyed by a recent fire.

Now I knew I could drive another 15 minutes to another gas station on the reserver but that was farther away from the border crossing. I remembered that there’s a gas station on the island on the Canadian part of the reserve that I pass by every time I cross. It’s fuel prices aren’t as good as on the american side but in this case I didn’t want to add 30 minutes onto my trip. So I drove back to the border crossing, crossed the first bridge and stopped for gas before proceeding over the second bridge to Canadian customs.

I’ve been doing this for years so passing through customs is usually a breeze. If I’m lucky they just waive me through, and if I’m not, I have to go in and pay duty and taxes on my parcels.

When I got to customs today, the agent started with his usual questions; where do you live, how long have you been in the states, what was the purpose of your trip, what is the value of the merchandise you are returning with, did you make any other stops along the way.

Now as everyone knows, you don’t mess with custom officials so I answered the questions truthfully, showing him the receipt for my new equipment. When he asked his last question I told him the only other place I stopped was for gas. He asked me where so I told him that I tried to go to the place on the reserver but when I saw it had burnt down I just decided to stop at the place on the island on the way home.

This is when the agent stopped what he was doing and looked at me. “You stopped on the island for gas?” He asked. I replied that I had.

His next statement sent a pit down my stomach. “So you admit to stopping on Canadian soil before checking in with customs?”

I was starting to panic at this point and I’m sure he saw it on my face. “is there a problem?” I asked.

“Do you know the rules?” he asked.

“Know the rules to what?” I replied.

Then he told me that any time I cross from the USA back into Canada I’m supposed to check in at customs before stopping anywhere. Otherwise my vehicle could be seized and I could be hit with a $1000 fine.

I was confused. It’s a straight road from the centre of the island to the bridge and the only thing along it is that gas station. I told him as much. But he told me it didn’t matter, the rules are the rules. I’m free to stop for gas on my way into the USA but not on my way back.

Luckily, he decided to take it easy on me and let me off with a warning. I had to park my truck, go into the customs building and fill out a voluntary admissions form stating what I had done so they could put in my file. And the icing on the cake, before going in the officer at the gate told me he was going to let me through with my purchases but since I now had to go inside, he made me pay duties and taxes.

Here’s what I learned.

Know the rules!

Years ago, the customs office was on the island, but then the Mohawk people protested some changes the Canadian government was making to border crossings and kicked them off their land. The border remained closed for several months until it finally reopened at the base of the bridge in the city of Cornwall.

I remember the stink this made because people living on the island returning from the USA were supposed to cross the second bridge into Cornwall, go through customs and then go back over the bridge again to the island. To be honest I don’t remember how that dispute was settled, but it was quite a few years ago so I honestly didn’t know I was in the wrong when I stopped for gas. I didn’t know the rules.

It’s like when you’re driving somewhere away from home. Here in Ontario we can turn right on a red light providing we come to a complete stop before proceeding. Quebec has the same rule, but not everywhere. When you cross a bridge onto the island of Montreal, yes, in case you didn’t know it, Montreal is an island, when you cross any bridge onto the island there are signs indicating that right turns on a red light are prohibited. If you don’t pay attention to the sign or if you don’t already know the rules, you can easily be fined for turning on a red.

Last year when we took a family trip to South Carolina, passing through several states along the way, I made a point of asking people whenever we stopped if I could turn on a red light. I wanted to know the rules in every state just in case one didn’t allow it.

I remember my chemistry exam back in high school. We were allowed to bring calculators so long as they could only do simple math equations. The prep sheet specifically stated that calculators with scientific functions were not allowed. It warned us that every year someone doesn’t read the sheet and brings the wrong type to the exam. Sure enough, during my exam the supervisor removed someones calculator because they hadn’t paid attentions to what the teacher wrote on the prep sheet.

You have to know the rules, it doesn’t matter if you’re playing a game, driving a car, or crossing a border. Ignorance is not an excuse. I got off this time but it could have easily gone the other way if the customs officer had been having a bad day and decided to take it out on me. I was lucky. And I can guarantee you that that’s a rule that’s seared into my brain and I’ll never break it again.

I’m Mark Des Cotes and this has been Stuff I Learned Yesterday.

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