Tim Hortons Obsession

This picture (click on it for a better look) - which was labelled "Canadian Tourists Spoil Antartica" - reminded me of a funny Tim Hortons story:

My sister, Val, and I drove across the country to southern Ontario in June of 2004 to visit relatives and see some of the places our ancestors came from. We took the route north of the Great Lakes going so we decided to come back through the Northern United States. Crossing into the United States the first time was no problem. Then we made a fatal mistake. We had been hitting Tim Hortons for coffee regularly throughout our trip and, knowing that they are scarce in the United States, we decided to cross the border at Fort Francis just long enough to get our Timmy's fix, stop at a bank machine and pick up some packaged pastrami for lunch. When we tried to cross back into the United States at the same border crossing and tried to explain that we had only gone back into Canada for about 15 minutes even though we were coming from a trip to Ontario and going back to Alberta, the crossing guard became suspicious. He couldn't seem to wrap his mind around the concept that we would leave their country just to get a coffee and then come back. We were told to get out of the car and go into the crossing office, our driver's licences were taken away and our car was searched. Our lunch was confiscated because at the time Canadian beef could not be imported into the United States because of the Mad Cow scare. (Who would think that processed meat slices would bear any resemblance to beef - we hadn't even thought about it. And we weren't really importing, it was our lunch.). In all we were detained nearly 30 minutes all because an American border guard did not understand the Canadian obsession with Tim Horton's coffee! By the way, my sister and I look as little like terrorists as you can get. We are both in our 50's, plump, greying grandmothers. To get from the United States to Canada at that point we had to cross a toll bridge that cost us $15.00 and the lost pastrami cost us about $5.00. In all it turned out to be an expensive cup of coffee. If any Americans are reading this we still love you anyway.