Good old-fashioned American retail, and other border-crossing matters

Were you aware of the fact that SmartWool, the makers of most of my socks, also make clothing? I wasn't until I paid a long-awaited visit to the North Conway NH L. L. Bean, where I purchased perhaps the coziest sweater of my clothes-wearing career. I swear I am not paid by SmartWool. Though I would not turn payment down if they were to offer it to me. Tragically it is 100% wool and thus 100% dry-clean only, though dry-clean only labels have not stopped me from wet-cleaning before. I've decided, however, that it's a jacket, not a sweater, and thus can be cleaned as often as I would a jacket. So there.

Hypothesis #1: Quebec Customs only employs attractive, blue-eyed, 26-year-old males as customs agents. Scientific trials: 2. So far, the hypothesis stands. Will report later as evidence is gathered.

Also, can I suggest to the world's customs departments that the length of time you wait in line at the border should be proportional to the length of time it takes the agent to assess that you are not going to go on a mass killing spree or sell drugs in their country? I waited in customs traffic for an hour and a half and spent about thirty seconds at the window. "Where do you live? Where do you go to school? Any alcohol or tobacco in the car? Okay, you can go." Anytime I go through any country's customs, you can see the point where they decide I look too harmless to bother with more questions. It's pretty obvious that my oats mostly lie on the domestic side of the oat continuum, but I still harbor a fear that if I don't sit up straight and look them in the eye with a specially formulated combination of respect and earnestness, I'll be escorted to "the back room" where bad things will happen to me and I'll never be heard from again. If everyone made as concerted an effort as I do to look innocent, I would not have to spend ninety minutes inching along a quarter mile of highway, eyeing my empty coffee cup as a possible player in my mounting urge to pee.