Originally Posted by
WChou
Early 2000s at the Queenstown-Lewiston border crossing in New York, after checking my passport, the border agent ask me to pull into a garage. He closed the lane and walked behind my car. After pulling in, I was asked by the agent if he could hop into the driver seat. I consented and asked if there was a problem. "Oh, no problems. You are fine. I just wanted to see what it was like to drive this thing. Can I rev the engine?" At the time, I owned a rare, limited edition vehicle and the agent was a gearhead that wanted a closer look.
Originally Posted by
Efrem
Not customs, but I ran into his cousin working for the TSA at BOS. At the time I had a brand-new, top-of-the-line 17" MacBook Pro going through the X-ray. He said he'd have to confiscate it for inspection. Similar story; I got it right back. Some of those folks are, at least some of the time, human.
The same happened to us - twice with the same agent - entering one of the smaller border crossings into Washington State from British Columbia in our brand-new 2006 Toyota RAV4 with the V6 engine. He was interested in buying one. The second time he asked us to pop the hood so he could see the engine compartment, and I have no doubt the people behind us in line thought he was looking for something devious.
