I was planning just to chill out a little today but then Rachel asked me what I was doing. And so, a few minutes later, I was on my way to the bank. But a bank with a difference, to whit, a bank in the USA. Darren is of course quite often on his travels to tractor-pulling events in the USA and so needs USA cash for expenses, but then his prize money (because he almost always wins something) is paid in cheques likewise. Consequently, it makes sense to have a USA bank account.
I was once again nailed at the border by a very unfriendly USA border guard and I’m beginning to hate that country with an undisguised passion. I’m absolutely convinced that they must comb the ranks of the USA civil service for the most unpleasant and arrogant officers that they can find and then dress them up in border guard uniforms and stand them at the frontier. As you know, it’s long been my contention that the USA doesn’t have any enemies at all except those that it has created for itself, and this is where the border guards have contributed enormously.
And don’t forget that I’m white and English-speaking too. Whatever must it be like to be a brown-skinned foreigner?
And this reminds me. In all of the years that I have been crossing the border in and out of the USA at all kinds of different border posts I haven’t seen any USA border control person other than a white-skinned one.
So abandoning yet another good rant for the time being, off I went to the bank at Mars Hill to pay in a couple of cheques.
Over the road from the bank at Mars Hill is an IGA supermarket and Rachel had given me shopping list of things that she needed; so I duly obliged.
And that’s not the best of it either. If you remember from a few weeks ago I found an IGA supermarket in Quebec that sold some ice cream made with almond milk.
Here in this one, there was ice cream made with coconut milk. Four different types too, and who could resist the chocolate version, even though the temperature was a mere 7°C? And delicious it was too. I thoroughly enjoyed that.
Make no mistake – I’ll be back there again.
Having done the chores, I then went off on my own little adventures around the shops. The most exciting find was in Presque Ile where in the Graves supermarket next to Mardens, I discovered not only a pile of vegetarian and vegan food products but about 6 different types of hummus. Yes, despite all of the USA-bashing that goes on all over the place … "as if…" – ed … it’s specialist-diet ranges are light years ahead of whatever mainland Europe can offer and it’s the place to be for products such as this. France, take note.
There’s a new chain of shops opened up in the area too, called The Tractor Supply Company or something like that. It’s mainly for farmers (as indeed you might expect with a name like that) and Darren recommended that I go for a nosey around in there.
He was right too.
As you know, I’ve been buying a few odds and ends of sockets and that sort of thing while I’ve been over here, and in here they had a , well, agricultural-quality reversible ratchet that had a half-inch socket end on one side and a three-eights socket end on the other. And all for $9:99 too. Being designed for farmers, it’s huge and well-nigh indestructible, just the thing for me. It’ll go nicely with my 25-inch power bar.
So that was everything that I did today (apart from the obligatory refuelling of course) and then it was time to confront the border guards again.
Just for a change, there was a human being at the border control on the Canadian side and after what can be best described as “a brief exchange of pleasantries”, I was on my way.
If only every border crossing person could be as friendly as this, it would be a very agreeable way of spending the time, going back and too across the border, instead of having to quite literally run the gauntlet of the nasty and aggressive people whom one usually finds in places like this. They must really have some unfortunate control issues with their spouses at home that they have to vent their spleen and demonstrate their authority to the poor and wretched passers-by who have come to invest a little money to prop up their crumbling economy.
