It’s a hot humid late summer afternoon and I have had a bitch of a day. It’s my first day off in a series of six and to get here without work-guilt I put in a long three days at my desk from Sunday through Tuesday. I was tired last night after a 12-hour day but I also felt clean leaving work – everything is in a state where, if necessary, someone else can pick up a project and know what’s happening. Still it was a long three days and today I have paid the price.

I woke at 4 am and was unable to go back to sleep so I puttered around on the computer, washed dishes, cleaned up the kitchen, did laundry and then at 7 am went to my local 24-hour coffee shop, drank tea and wrote. So, OK, not so bad. Yet there was the edge of tiredness and my joints are stiff so movement feels awkward and just-ever-so-slightly painful.

And then, because I had books waiting for me at my post-box across the border in the US, I drove down to the border crossing. The thing is that I almost never have trouble. I am a middle-aged woman, going grey and eminently forgettable in my public demeanor. All these things work to my advantage with those guards who like to polish their badges just a touch too much. The details of my encounter don’t matter much: many people have had obnoxious border guards. He was threatening me with fines and all manner of moral repercussions (he accused me of lying to him about the state of my US ID), and I finally lost my temper. I stopped, turned, looked straight at his eyes and told him that while he may have come to see the world that way, that didn’t mean he was correct in his assessment of me. I also told him I had another choice he hadn’t outlined, I could never cross here again and therefore never have to deal with him again. He responded by shrugging and saying “I don’t care what you do.” He was looking at the desk top when he said that. I waited until he was looking at me again and finished by saying “that you don’t care has become patently obvious.”

That, for what ever reason, stopped him. He decided not to call his supervisor, gave me my documents, said that I should consider this an official warning and suggested that I take care of my “problem.” I left. But it fucked up my already tenuous day.

I crossed the border and went to get my books. I left the post drop and drove to the ocean where I watched two fishing boats draw in their nets. I didn’t really think about the dude but as I drove back across the Canadian border and had a woman ask me what I was bringing back, without accusing me of lying, and without the ‘tude, I realized that police forces and their attitudes expose the lineaments of a society. You know that saying, that you know a man’s character not by the way he treats his superiors but by the way he treats his inferiors? It’s about power and how societies are accustomed to treat those over whom they have power. These attitudes form the basic sinews that bind the values of the society. It’s not about what people claim as their values, freedom etc., it’s about what they actually do when they are in a position of power. Dude is a bully and that didn’t say much for the American value system as it actually exists.

So, eventually, I came back into Vancouver, my day off balance. I went home and went back to bed for a nap. It helped. I am back to merely tenuous. Now I am in the Safeway parking lot, writing this and eating a Cesar salad.

It will be dark in an hour. I will go home and prepare for the road trip tomorrow and then sleep some more. I am going back to that “other home” for my niece’s wedding. That is if I don’t meet another equally silly border guard.