The GREAT NOUN ADVENTURE RETURNS!
A year ago we did a big, weird noun-voting experience over on Patreon with my $5+ patrons and this year it came back with much fanfare! And now you get to see the bizarre results! It’s a pile of weird nouns just thrown into a blender. What will result? Well…
VOTE TO EXPOUND WITH A GREAT DEAL OF NOUNS!!!
As for this comic…
We’re back in the nerd café, and everything Scooby-related comes to a close. The next bunch of comics will not really form a real arc; they’ll just be some in-between stuff that will sort of form a mini-chapter before we start the following major arc. So get ready for some shorter nonsense featuring minor characters.
Speaking of minor characters, I noticed that both Cy and Emily the Cat Girl have not yet been added to the character list. I’ll have to get on that, I guess.
Yeah.. that’s definitely a win. That does remind me, I do need to go through the rest of the collection.
The rest of the collection waits for you whenever you are ready!
Is Emily always at the cafe?
Thus far, yes.
Detroit border guards also don’t appreciate attempts to import Havana Club rum, trust me.
They also don’t like it if you have your grandmother’s passport instead of your own and don’t realize it before you hand it to the guy in the booth.
Between the years I lived in Windsor and the years I lived in Toledo these aren’t even my only border stories. They were the longest waits, but not the only stories.
You speak from experience. US border guards also treat you very differently depending on your appearance and vibe. If you’re a suburban family with three kids in the back of your SUV, they seldom stop you. But if you’re a young guy trying to enter the country on your own, they may choose to rip your vehicle (and everything you own) apart.
Much experience. We moved from Ohio to Niagara Falls, ON when I was under two years old and then to Fort Erie, then University of Windsor, and now I live in Ohio, but my parents and siblings are all in Ontario.
There were a few years in the late 80s or early 90s when they never pulled us over but every time entering the US they asked my parents, “Are all these children yours?” We assume it was watching for human trafficking but my parents really wanted to answer: “nahh, we enjoy borrowing extra pre-teens to take on a three hour drive.” Except that doesn’t make the trip happen any faster, answers like that would likely make the crossing take a lot longer.
My favourites are:
1. While driving all three of my siblings into Buffalo so my sister could sing in the Buffalo Philharmonic chorus and the rest of us could hear the performance, the US guard was trying to figure out how we were related and eventually asked the exact question, “How can you be American and they’re Canadian?” I couldn’t believe I had to actually say the words, “I was born in the US and then we moved to Canada and then they were born.” I worked really hard to not be sarcastic but I thought for sure we were going to secondary inspection, he didn’t pull us over though. Maybe he was from away from the border and had never thought of the possibility that a family could do that.
and
2. “Have you registered your bicycle?” Asked by the Canadian guard entering at the Ambassador bridge with my bicycle visible in the back of my station wagon. Eventually I figured out that he was asking if I had completed a US customs form that exists so a traveller can pre-register expensive items (laptop, camera) so when they re-enter the US they have that proof and the guards won’t try to make the traveller pay duty again, thinking they bought the goods on their trip. I have no idea why the Canadian agent was concerned about this.
You are a grizzled veteran in the field of combat known as border-crossing. I salute your experience.
I think collecting border crossing stories might be a hobby for everyone who lives in border towns.
Congratulations to your sister!
Weel, belated
“I have no idea why the Canadian agent was concerned about this.”
Just a nice Canadian person giving you some advice so you don’t get screwed by your own government.
As a Canadian talking to Americans, I sometimes feel like T’Challa when he appeared on SNL’s ‘Black Jeopardy’. When asked what to do when a cop comes to your door asking about a crime, he said, “Not only do I tell this man what I know, but I also assist him in tracking down the offender. After all, our ministers of law are only here to protect us.”
That’s a pretty Canadian thing to say.
Sure maybe, but by the time I was at the booth on the Canadian side it was far too late to fill out the US form.
It was actually one of the few times I’ve crossed where the Canadian agent seemed accusatory. He also asked, “Well, how do I know you’re not bringing it into the country to sell it?” And all I could think to answer was, “‘Cause then I wouldn’t have a bicycle?”
Maybe there was some equivalent Canadian form to pre-register items, but I didn’t find any information about one when I tried to look later, and he never really detailed what he meant by registering it. I found out the US form existed later when I tried to figure out what he could have meant.
The registration thing would have been extra interesting because I had actually bought that bike from a local shop in Windsor when I lived there, and then taken it with me when I moved to Ohio.
#2: Maybe he’d heard the story about the bicycle smuggler. (If you don’t know the one I mean, Google it. I tried posting a link, but the internet ate my comment.)
I first saw that story about a person smuggling cars in a five minute mysteries book – fun 🙂
At one point he actually did ask, “Well, how do I know you’re not bringing it into the country to sell it?” And all I could think to answer was, “‘Cause then I wouldn’t have a bicycle?”
I first heard the story in an Eric Frank Russell SF anthology involving smuggling spaceships, and in another Golden Age SF short involving wheelbarrows. If might be fun to trace it all the way back to Seneca or Aesop or somebody.
Also, yay Emily, again 🙂
She pops up every now and then, just to remind us of her existence.
I could never forget my favourite cat girl; and right now we’ve got her in the votey and the main comic, happy days.
I’m happy to take the time to cheer Yay Emily every time she returns.
In my headcanon, Emily and Phoebe cohost a podcast on sewing.
That might be real canon. It’s good.
She is happy for the cheers.
She has some dark and terrible purpose that we don’t yet know about.
Oh no, dude. It’s way worse. The artist spent two years worth of that event con-blocking the audience and even himself! It’s frustrating as all hell when you realize the truth, but pretty funny (well after the fact).
I guess it was less frustrating on my end because I never intended for them to get to the convention. But I apologize for the intense frustration it caused.
your not con blocked, your stipated…. con-stipated.
That is empirically better.
Ours even funnier considering all of the border line gummy above, and it’s barely scatalogical. Our should we say that it doesn’t cross that border.
I hate auto correct. I thought that I put in “it’s”. I guess that’s what you get for using the wifi at Taco Bell.
Well, gotta run for the border, right?
Nice shield-table that Emily’s occupying.
Does Cy have a Dejarik table too?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dejarik
One of the other tables is indeed a Dejarik board.
In 1980-something I was with 3 friends driving from Lansing to Toronto in a $50 car to an SCA (medievalist recreation) event. We had a padded weapon which interested the border people very much; they asked the car owner and he stammered an explanation that TBF did not sound plausible. They tore into the padding with high expectations but found nothing. We were sent on our way with stern warnings to turn around and come back when we’d used up half our cash, so we would not be stranded in Canada.
As we drove off, I remarked “I was not worried because none of us would be stupid enough to carry weed across a border.”
The driver said, “Um ….”
—
He went on to a distinguished career making lives better as a respiratory therapist (“People seem so happy when I bring them the oxygen they need to live”) and intubating a *lot* of COVID victims, but this future could have been lost at a border crossing.
So, yeah, don’t do anything funny at or near a border. Those jet boots will not let you escape.
They will target you if there’s anything even slightly non-standard about you. Cosplay or ren fair gear included. And ironically, now the stuff your friend was smuggling into Canada is totally legal here.
Man, these Canadian border crossings have become fraught with terrible peril all of a sudden. When the hell did that happen? (Says the lower 48 dweller who hasn’t touched Canadian soil since 1998 when he and his wife journeyed to Niagara-on-the-Lake.
Once upon a time, in my childhood, the US/Canada border was a happy, friendly place. The thought was, “Our two countries are friendly with each other. Why worry?” Heck, you didn’t even need a passport. After 9/11, though, things changed. The US got really frightened, and angry, and started to believe that Canada was “soft on terrorism”, and things got really unfriendly really fast.
So to answer your question, that all happened about three years after your last border experience.
When I was in my teens, my family and I went from my Aunt’s in Newport Vt over to Quebec for a few days. On the way over, we took a wrong turn in Stanstead (I think) and missed the border crossing altogether. We were several miles into Canada before my Aunt realized.
I miss those days.
EG, That was also due to the American politicians (and the cable news channel that are their parrots) that flat-out stated that all the hijackers entered the States through Canada. I was travelling to Florida a few months after it, and seeing armed soldiers in the airports was a bit jarring.
I have only had one (CAN-USA – see what I did there?) incident, and it wasn’t even me. My wife got flagged in US Customs at the Ft. Lauderdale airport. Apparently she had a similar name as a wanted lady, but her passport and ankle tattoo saved us. Apparently the baggage-claim people were about to call security by the time we finished, because ours were the last pieces unclaimed luggage… lol
Ask me about my adventures flying home from Syria during a UN deployment…
“Adventures” makes it sound like so much fun. I’m sure it wasn’t.
Still love those planters outside the store.
People seem to like those.
[separated by a common language and a shared border, indeed]
“Master chief armor”, eh?
The only master chiefs I know (with one exception[0]) have one thing in common with the few US Army CPOs with whom I served: a largely-evident Gardol™[1] shield around the abdomen, AKA pot belly.
[0] Bill was fit and trim, but this was several years after he’d retired
[1] Colgate-Palmolive trademark from ancient days
Master Chief is also a character in Halo.
The only Master Chief a nerd knows of is of the Halo variety. If there’s another type, I’m unaware of it.
If I’m not wrong, it’s also the rank of the top NCO on American Naval ships such as carriers. If I remember correctly, the equivilent position on Canadian Naval ships is a coxswain.
But this is from research I did five or ten years ago. I may misremember all of it.
I did. COMMAND Master Chief of Chief of Boat (if it’s a submarine) is the senior NCO on American Naval ships.
A Master Chief Petty Officer is an American E-9 (NATO OR-9). The Canadian equivalent is Senior Appointed Chief Petty Officer 1st Class. Kind of. It can be complicated.
Yay! Natty!
I can see why it was difficult. He might have been wearing it. Rookie mistake. All the Halo players wanted a picture and all the non-Halo players wanted a detailed explanation.
Yeah, but if it’s a full set of armor, carrying it in a duffel bag is rather hard.
Which would be why people make the mistake.
I was just trying to sound cool. I have to live up to the Natty crowd somehow.
My CDL trainer told me tales of growing up in Port Huron in the 60’s and 70’s.
He had friends who lived on the Canadian side of the river and they would all buy bottle rockets and fire them across the water at each other – in full view of border patrol.
Ah, simpler times.
Better times, it sounds like. In that regard, at least.
E M I L Y !
purrrrrr……
She has to reappear every once in a while.
I miss the days when no passport was needed to cross the US-Canada border. 🙁
As do I.