I say that with all the sarcasm I can possibly muster. After a glorious week of relaxed Canadian holiday in the adorable village of Niagara-on-the-lake, drinking absolutely sublime wine, eating lovely food, and having great scenery (Niagara Falls view from room), I wasn't terribly excited about returning, but Denver is next week, and Christmas in Hilton Head is close on it's heels. I was pretty sure that those details alone could buoy my spirits nicely throughout work and school for December.
That was until the border crossing. These people either need seriously scripts of Xanax or holiday time. They seized my car, pulling everything out of it, tore up stuff, and accused us of not being cooperative because we asked 1) what they were doing and 2) why they were being aggressive when they literally started screaming at us. After threatening Eric physically, our emotion was mostly shame of being a citizen of a country that greets anybody in this manner. They had no apology for being the worst assholes I have ever experienced, but did give me appreciation for the TSA having enough news spotlighted on them that they are somewhat normal. Trust me, the worst TSA nightmare I experienced was not topping the Border Control. The whole thing started because he asked my name three times, and I raised my voice each time for him to hear. He finally heard the third time, and he claimed I yelled at him. They accused Eric for having an issue when he simply asked what was going on in a seriously nice tone. Our takeaway is that you cannot ask anything and just about everything you answer will be twisted to be taken somehow offencively.
I was too scared to sleep because every time I closed my eyes I saw those five guys surrounding Eric ready to hit him, or envisioned their rage in the way that dreams do so unfortunately well in the few snatches of sleep I was getting. The fact that I had to get up at 5am the next morning for a 3.5 hour drive to attend four dreadfully tiring meetings at the university was not helpful to my already heightened state of exhaustion and tension. To make matters worse, it was pouring rain the entire time and every time I would even get close to the speed limit, I would start hydroplaning, resulting in being 10 minutes late to the first meeting.
Apparently the meeting was going poorly, so when I slipped in, my boss came up to me and told me to leave. I was a complete mix of emotions, from shocked to hurt to stunned to anger to frustration. Granted my previous 24 hours had left me in a particular state of feeling apprehensive towards anybody and everything, but I have never been told to leave a meeting I was requested to attend, especially one for which I traveled nearly 4 hours in really crappy weather to attend. This left me feeling pretty worthless and unneessary, but in a struggle with my emotions, I could see everybody around me was incredibly tense. It would seem that the day is not going well here. At least the one meeting so far resulted well, so just two more and then I can work very hard to pretend Sunday and Monday never happened. It's just a black hole, and those two days are heading not quickly enough into the vast emptiness of lost memories.
Much orc slaying will commence later.
