Returning home from the belly of the beast, we got a bit careless. After all, we’re Canadians at a Canada border crossing. And we were tired, very tired, from fighting our way through a snowy landscape.

“Do you have anything to declare?”
“No.”
“Do you have any fresh fruit or vegetables?”
“No.”
“Did you buy or receive anything?”
“No.”
And so on. The litany of questions was so predictable, my “no … no … no … no” came perhaps a bit too quickly.
The agent told us to pull into the parking area at the side, turn off our car, leave the key in it, and go sit in the building beyond.
Going through our car, the agents took their time, it seemed. But then they had a lot to go through. We had been visiting family for a good two weeks.

Used books cost what these days? It’s hard to even give them away.
My siblings sluff off as many books as they can into my hands. I wondered idly if I should have mentioned the complete set of Louise Penny’s Gamache series that my brother had thrust upon me as we were leaving his house.

Knowing he had read one of Penny’s books, his best beloved had given the set to him shortly before she died. Alas, he could not stomach reading them.

The agents came to see us inside the building.
“Did you go to a Louise Penny event while you were in the U.S.?”
“No. They’re my brother’s books. He lent them to me. They’re used.”

We had not behaved well, they said. A loan versus a gift is an arguable point; we should have declared the books. Why, half of them were even in their original plastic package, unopened!
I was too tired to argue. I didn’t even think to protest that Louise Penny is from the Eastern Townships, ergo Canada. The books are Canadian content, after all. And Louise had famously foregone touring in the U.S. for her latest book. How could they charge duty on books that had originated in Canada?
Maybe being old and tired saved the day, because they let us go. They did not even search my handbag, wherein a forbidden apple lay forgotten.

Is that how it works, using a war to distract attention from a secret evil?