The neighborhood horses taking a dip at South Beach in Point Roberts. Lily Point is the white cliff.  

Grandma's Pig at Pt. Bob 

Small Border Complex

This blog was suppose to be about life in Point Roberts, but I kind of strayed to my own life. Oh well. I live here so I guess it still works. I do want to write about what happened at the border when we brought Nathnaniel home since it does pertain to life on the point.

As most of you know, I gave birth in Vancouver since I was worried about traveling an hour and a half through two international borders to get to Bellingham Hospital. One border is enough when you are in labor.

It was a trick paying for the delivery a head of time, since we don't have BC Medical. We arranged it with the hospital. Paid up front and then sent the bills to our insurance in the states. It all worked out great. We even got the hospital to give us his paperwork early so we could expedite his documentation and passport info.

Well, at the border we get stopped by Mr. Drill Sargeant border cop. We know all the border patrol officers at Point Roberts. We see them all the time. All of them are pretty nice, but this guy is always a dick. He takes his job at the most pathetic international border in the world way too seriously. Small dick, um.. I mean small border complex.

Anyway, Ben proudly explains that we just had a baby, and asked about Nexus and if we were allowed to take Nathaniel through the Nexus lane since he is a newborn. Instead of congratulating us, Mr. Dick says smugly, "Everyone in the car must have Nexus."
Ben was taken back and said, "Even a day-old infant?" and the border cop says again in his sargeant voice "Everyone in the car must have nexus." Then, he asked for our identification. We hand it over and he looks at all the ids and makes a stink because Nathaniel didn't have an official birth certificate. He only had the hospital's certificate of birth which you use to apply for an official state birth certificate.

I was so pissed. Come on! They don't pop out of the uterus with a passport and an offical birth certificate. The border jerk went on saying that we caused really big problems for ourselves by giving birth in Canada. He acted like we made a bad choice. He acted like we gave birth in Canada just so the baby could be Canadian. No, we gave birth in Canada because that's the nearest god damn hospital. My labor was a hour in a half once it got started. Active pushing labor lasted six minutes. I'm not giving birth at Peace Arch park for crying out loud.

Even if we had given birth in Bellingham, the baby would not have an official state birth certificate, so I don't know what the frickin' deal was, but I was all about to go mother bear on this prick. The nice thing to do would be to congratulate us on our new baby and let us on our way. I mean really, we live on the Point. There is no way on or off the point without going through the border. It's five square miles completely contained by the ocean and the Canadian border. Is a one-month old a national security crisis? Is he a little terrorist? Does he have a bomb or some blow in his diaper. Jesus Christ.

The majority of the time, the border isn't a big deal at all. As I said, the border cops know everyone. Usually, they just glance up at the screen and wave you through. They are often really sweet and cordial. I can count on my hands in the year in a half that I've lived here how many times we got an asshole for a border cop. This guy ranks up there. What a dick.