mapleg

Walked from US back to Canada on the Rainbow bridge in Niagara Falls. Showed my Nexus card (and he clearly knew I was a Canadian Citizen)..agent looked at it, asked me where I lived and then said what was the purpose of my visit to Canada. I said, Umm, I live there.

Annalisa12

Priceless!!

I returned from a 6 week trip to Egypt with hardly any souvenirs and when customs asked what I had brought back. I held up a small wooden hippo and a small vial of sand that had my name written in the sand and said "I was either boring or too tight with money and only got these two things". The customs dude said "well, you've come back with one other thing... a sense of humour!"

Doc Savage

Poor provincial sap was incredulous that I would travel "all the way to South Africa just for a vacation," a fact he reiterated several times.

I told him the steak and beer were great there.

mapleg

Had same reaction. Took my son to Japan over Xmax/NY period and we flew back to Vancouver. They asked where we had been, and why.

She must have repeated it several times.."You went to Japan...., for a vacation" etc and finally I said why not?

Honestly, you would have thought I had said we had been to Mars and back.

CosmosHuman

Do you need batteries for that?

krazykanuck

Taken as a group, Canadian border officers are probably the least friendly I've ever encountered. I'm a Canadian citizen and they are still almost universally jerks when I re-enter. For some reason they're barely happy with the explanation of "visiting family" when I go back. Why else would I be going up to the land of expensive beer and mosquitoes?

IAD_flyer

Many years ago back when I was nine or eight years old. My mother and I were disembarking from a cruise out of Miami. When this lovely exchange happened:

Mom: Good morning!
Mom: [Hands the Customs declaration form to officer.]
Customs Officer One: [Says nothing and spends a minute or two reviewing the form. He holds it very close to his eye within a inch.]
Customs Officer One: Ma'am, why did you not declare the Rolex watch you brought from the Caribbean?
Mom: Sir, I do not know what you are talking about. I did not buy a watch on this vacation.
Customs Officer One: Ma'am, it is on your wrist and looks brand new. This is your last chance to declare it.
Mom: This watch is from Lord & Taylor is over a year old. It cost me about fifty dollars. Would you like to see it?
Customs Officer One: Give it to me!
Mom: [Takes off watch and hands it to the officer.]
Customs Officer One: [Puts watch face within one inch of his eyes and still cannot read the label.]
Mom: See, it is a [name of low end watch maker] and it is felling apart.
Customs Officer One: [Name of Customs Officer Two], come over here. Could you tell me what kind of Rolex this is?
Customs Officer Two: [Puts watch face within one inch of her eyes and still cannot read the label.]
Me: The ring around the watch face is replaceable and spins on/off. Do not think a Rolex would do that.
Customs Officer Two: [Spins off and back on the ring around the watch face.]
Customs Officer One: I guess it is not a Rolex.
Customs Officer One: You should do why I do... I have stopped using watches and use my cell phones time.
Customs Officer One: [Pulls out larger 1990's Nextel phone and shows her the time on the screen.]
Mom: [Rolls eyes and we starts to leave.]
Customs Officer One: I did not tell you that you are free to go.
Mom: Are we free to go?
Customs Officer One: [pauses for few seconds]
Customs Officer One: I have concluded my investigation and you are now free to go.

LondonElite

In the picture dictionary you'll see his face when you look up <removed by moderator>

mapleg

What a power tripper. Probably goes home at night an gets bossed around by his entire family. Just comes into work to take his frustrations out on the public who pay his wages

mikeycanuk

I had a nice experience I wish I could have handled better. We arrived in YYZ after a long SYD-LAX-YYZ flight. My internal clock was at 4am with no sleep possible on the AC 319 leg to YYZ. Anyway I had wooden carvings from our 18 day Scuba trip to the Solomon Islands and showed them to him. The customs agent was obviously a diver and said he had goosebumps. I was so groggy I just stood there and he let us through. I at least could have said thanks...

John Teague

I live in New Mexico. Coming back into the US from Mexico (into Houston, Texas) the customs agent asked for my US passport. "That is my US Passport" I said. He told me "No, this is a Mexican passport". I said 'No, that's New Mexico, which is a state here in the US, in fact it's the next state from here just West of Texas". Ok. I thought about calling him an uneducated, untrained redneck, but I didn't. He finally realized his mistake and just said "Ok, I was just checking"!!

joshwex90

Where was he looking?

DaveBlaine

Great question.

I wonder if OP didn't mean driver's license or are states issuing their own passports now too?

joshwex90

Except OP wrote "customs agent" and it was arriving in Houston from Mexico, so DL wouldn't have helped. But I can't imagine how anyone could have looked at a US passport and thought anything but American passport

DaveBlaine

Uhhhh, because it said [New] MEXICO.

Yeah, I don't understand it either.