Memorable Memorial Day Weekend

Best Line of the Weekend:

“Well I had to go away for a while but…”

After a fun eventful weekend in the states, I am thankful I am Canadian. I just think about their crappy beer, their overambitious political views, their “in-your-face” patriotism, and their insane teenage-pregnancy rate and I cringe. We may live in the murder capital of Canada but I am thankful to be a Winnipegger and more specifically a “Canuck”.

So we leave Winnipeg at 9 am packed full of snacks, (Gin brings flavored water and carrots and I bring chocolate pudding, Reece’s Swoops…ha ha )
We head smoothly to the border… chaos ensues. I’m guessing because we told them we were carrying alcohol …(12 Coolers! Ha ha …. I’ll come to that story) we were asked to come to the garage and follow their instructions. Going into that garage was like going into Edward Carriere’s for a haircut: six million people buzzing around you asking you a million questions and making you feel claustrophobic and nervous. They take our Id’s and ask us what we do for a living, whether we are Canadian citizens and if we were born in Canada. They ask us where we are going and why and look confused when we tell them we are going to a friend’s birthday party (yes sir, we are friends with one those American type people!!) Another boarder patrol dude comes to me and begins asking the same questions (I guess to see if we keep the same story…. oohhhhh) I answer his questions and the first dude tells us to get back into our vehicle. As I step towards my door the second dude with the thick southern accent barks at me “ WHERE ARE YOU GOING, WHO TOLD YOU TO GET BACK INTO YOUR VEHICLE…” The first dude tells the second dude that he did and I scramble for the door and get in. It’s amazing how nervous you get even when you haven’t done anything wrong. The other 4 dudes put all of the contents of our trunk back in and tell us to follow the arrows to get back onto the highway. So we depart thankful for no strip searches or anal probes.

We whip through Grand Forks, and head to Fargo because of better shopping purposes. Let me tell you something, there are a lot of things that make me happy in life: my husband, quading, hockey, food but they are all competing today against Super Target. I fucking love that store…American’s love to laugh at me when I go in there…I’m amazed by anything they don’t sell in Canada, no matter what it is. We purchase a “ghetto-blaster” to play the burned cd’s that we couldn’t play in the Honda, Frank’s Buffalo Wing Hot Sauce and Coco Puffs (the latter 2 are not available in Canada, I’m so psyched!) We then proceed to our destination, but somehow get lost in Fargo for about an hour, ask for directions twice and finally make it on to Hwy 10, now 3 hrs late for the party, and are on our way. We arrive there and find Jackson and Karen, and give hugs to my favorite cop birthday girl Angie. They all proceed to tease us mercifully about how we talk and our “Canuck-isms” especially how we bought a “ghetto-blaster”. Apparently they don’t say that down here. Which makes no sense, since isn’t this the country that invented the term “ghetto” ???????? The party is fun, Angie’s brother and sister live on a farm, and it was an outside bonfire type party so I felt right at home. The majority of the group was cops, which was pretty funny in and of itself. A Breathalyzer was pulled out, and it was the evening’s fun to see how drunk Angie was every hour. At one point I heard she blew a .115 what ever that means. She did exceptionally well for drinking all the Jagermester and her share of the endless supply of homemade schnapps. Ginny was really funny too, as we all know her limited alcohol tolerance, she was chatty and began chatting to a tall, dark and obviously troubled young man. Now if there is one thing I am good at, it’s picking out the trouble in a crowd. This crackhead, on a scale of 1-10 was a 9.5. He began chatting her up and she reciprocated, worrying the majority of the group we were with. It turns out he was in prison for like 6 years for attempted murder/assault on a blind person. At this point I am trying to listen to what he is telling her and I hear….
“Yeah I had to go away for a little while” Holy shit, at this point I would have been running back into the car and back up to home. But a few compliments in her ear and she was buying into him. We are invited in by a few boys to learn more how to play Texas Hold’em and get pretty involved in that. Mr. Prison Psycho is keen on teaching the girls so he gets right in there and starts hovering over poor Karen who is too quiet and sweet to tell him to bugger off. The whole table begins to get nervous about our safety when an argument ensues about who’s hand was better and why. Amy’s husband at one point turns to a cousin and whisper’s “please make sure he doesn’t stab me tonight alright!”
We play a few hands when suddenly Amy comes into the house and tells us that the hostess would like us all out of the house, and that someone “hissed at her” when she came inside and that she wasn’t impressed. The girls, feeling uncomfortable, (although no one “hissed at her”…maybe the homebrew makes you hear voices?) leave and go head for the fire. The remainder of the evening I can sum up as follows: Psycho Guy keeps getting creepier and creepier (although we tried our best to ignore him), Jackson asks the one cop in uniform to see his “gadgets” and he cuffs her and Ginny, Psycho Boy tells the un-duty cop that “ I get into a fight everyday and that one day I’m just going to go kill everyone”, more Schnapps’, us nervous about a wobbly toddler walking around the fire while the parent’s didn’t do anything, me quitting drinking because Ginny just yanked a drink out of a cops hand, Psycho boy telling her that he wants to phone her, and go out with her (though he’s not allowed into our frigging country!!!! ) Him arguing that we are run by a Queen that he has to pay $250 dollars if he wants to come into Canada. …Un-hun sure…and us finally crashing in the car in order for us to make a quick getaway in the morning without Psycho Boy catching us.

So the morning has us quickly getting packed up, changed, and hitting the road. We have no troubles finding our ways back a different way (through Crookston) and eagerly anticipating my American Taco Bell Lunch in Grand Forks. I love American Taco Bell as much as Target, for the simple reason that they still have Mexican Pizza’s in the states. The stupid Canadian Taco Bell’s closed up their independent restaurants and made them all into lame KFC/Taco Bell’s, where all the food tastes like chicken. Gin was not very impressed because their fountain drinks weren’t working but she couldn’t work the menu like I did. I thought it was kick ass.
Then we hit Old Navy for some deals (did I mention I love Old Navy for their Folk Festival appropriate clothes?),hit the road in the long overdue sunshine, and avoid paying duty because the Canadian Border Patrol boy was only twelve. He didn't believe us that we had a friend that was from the states either. Jeesh.

Fabulous Fabulous US of A.

Gotta Love it.