Okay, so the next time someone asks me a question when I've only had 3 hours of sleep, I'm going to think long and hard about the answer.

Originally three of my friends and I were going to go to Canada for the day. But then two of them didn't have childcare, so it was Henri Leibowitz* and me. It actually came as a surprise that he was still willing to go, but that's neither here nor there.

We decided it would be easier if he stayed over at my house the night before, so we arranged a pickup time and set everything up. Then he calls me right before I'm going to go pick him up and asked for more time before I got him, which was fine. So we're talking about what to bring, and he mentions that he's not sure whether to bring his sword. As he explained later, a knight is never without his sword, and a knight is a role I can see Henri Leibowitz in. This is a man who, the first time I met him, hung his coat in my coat closet. This is only shocking if you understand that I'm used to years of people doing anything with their coats except hanging them in the coat closet. Clearly, he is not a chip off the normal run of my friends.

Anyway, back to the sword. I say "Bring it along, what the heck." So he tells me if he brings his, I have to bring mine, which is cool with me. This is the decision made on three hours sleep.

I pick him up, we go to our various banks, get gas, etcetera. The plan is that we want to leave at 5 AM, which means get up at 4. I got to bed at 10:30ish, so I'm still gonna be short on sleep, but we're going on a Sunday and I work on Monday - I don't want to fuck up my schedule too much.

So the next morning I am miraculously up and moving by 4:15. We get all set to go, pack the car (including two swords, his in an art tube and mine under my cloak in the backseat), and take off at 5:30.

Now, the car I was driving was a rental, a Chevy Malibu that I hated every inch of (it had a lot of inches, too), and I had gone to the rental agency and gotten permission to take it to Canada. This turned out to be the best decision possible. When we got to the border at about 7:00 (about 120 miles; I was going slowly) the Canadian Border Guard gave us all kinds of shit. Normally they ask you the purpose of your visit, how long you plan to stay, and your nationality. This time was something...special.

Let's just say that I have never considered Canada an actively hostile country before.

The guy wanted to know all the usual, plus the registration of the car, the form giving permission for it to leave the country, how we knew each other, where we worked, and when we had last been to Canada. I had been in December; Henri Leibowitz had never gone before.

When the guard heard that, he instructed us to go inside and go through Immigration. So we go inside, and I'm about ready to pee my pants, because the guy had asked if we had any weapons of any kind, to which I had blithely said no. I am convinced that we are about to get caught and fined or worse.

What we were carrying was Henri Leibowitz' sword, a sweet blade. It's Arabic, the real deal. I didn't draw it all the way when I looked at it, but it almost looked like a katana - a very narrow blade, sharpened on one edge only. Mine is a much longer one - if you have the Museum Replicas, it's Hellstorm, although I didn't buy it from them. It's curved like a saber, with a back edge that you could sharpen with a lot of patience. We also have a switchblade and a Spyderco lockblade that is, according to Henri Leibowitz, actually legal in Washington.

They take our ids and run them for warrants and wants, and they come up clean. They ask us where we were born and I say Washington and Henri Leibowitz says Germany. I figured then that we were in trouble, as the woman processing us looks at him like only terrorists were born in Germany. They don't search the car, miraculously.

The adrenaline shock of this is so great - bear in mind, I'm ignorant of Washington law but I know the switchblade is illegal, it is illegal to import weapons into Canada without declaring them, and since both the swords are concealed, that's illegal too - that we are laughing our heads off. We got away with it cold, and that surprised me at least. We spent the rest of the day - or at least I did - periodically spazzing out about what was going to happen when we went back into the US, but I didn't really worry about it. Or rather, I did - I know I did, but in light of the rest of the day and what did happen when we crossed, it feels now like I didn't worry at all. I really did believe that the worst was behind us.

So we went on in to Vancouver to do our thing. We crossed the Lion's Gate bridge as it was still early and had coffee in North Vancouver. That was entertaining - I've never had a "bowl" of coffee before. It was the cafe style mugs, the big ones. Rather intimidating, actually.

Then we went to Chinatown. We bought some stuff at one of those places where they follow you all the time because they thing you might try to steal a teapot, then we walked around on Pender and Hastings. I showed Henri Leibowitz the live geoducks (we both went to Evergreen, though we didn't know each other there, but that's another story, and Evergreen's mascot is the geoduck.), then we saw a fruit stand that had durian.

I've never seen durian in the US, but I've heard about it, especially from my ex, who used to talk about it like it was the worst possible substance conceived of by a vengeful god. So I decided to buy the durian, even though it is illegal to import fruit and veg across the border, because, as I told Henri Leibowitz, "In for a penny, in for a pound."

Then we went out to Metrotown mall. This is the second largest mall in the world. It is big, it is commercialism at its worst. It is Oh Mighty Dollar. We bought some CD's (Oh Brother Where Art Thou, All That You Can't Leave Behind, Issues) and presents for Jen and Dave. We then went into Playdium, an arcade there, because Henri Leibowitz had mentioned maybe going to one. It was very much too overstimulating for me. Also, I had difficulty believing that people would pay money for the dubious privilege of riding an Exercycle and pretending that it was a real bike. We wound up not playing anything, which was just fine with me - my head would've exploded if I'd had to stay longer.

So we decided that Metrotown was evil personified and left to go to a park and recharge. We went to the Bloedel Conservatory and did the tour - which went great until we were about to leave and I came to a group of people who were saying things like "That's a big tree." "You're right - that is a big tree." Then we walked in the park and sat in a tree and bullshitted and talked about gaming. I feel like I should say at this point - insert valley girl accent here - "Henri Leibowitz tells the funniest stories! Like, ohmygawd!" But that would be stupid. True, but still stupid.

Especially the part about Jerry Garcia as God and Satan as a salesman of "Inferno" brand products.

After we recharged and drained off the reserves of evil, we went to Milestones for a somewhat mediocre meal, which disappointed me, as when I was there with Jen and Tina and Tom, in December, it was really good. They had had a sign then that we liked - "Car thieves work here", like a road sign, but I didn't notice if it was still up this time.

Then we drove through Stanley Park in the dark and back across the Lion's Gate. That was the end of our nice calm trip to Canada, let me tell you. After that, it was as relaxing as a vacation in Kabul.

We were going up the main street there, in search of a patch for his jacket, and I was adjusting my wing mirror. We're cruising along at like 50 mph, and I hear this "Uhhhh, hey!" from the seat next to me. I looked up, and in front of me was like 3 cars stopped at a red light. I slammed on the brakes, swerved into the right lane - there was no car there, not that I checked first - and stopped for the light by a fucking miracle. God was standing there, wearing his Air Jesus shoes, stopping the car.

Henri Leibowitz said later that he had gotten a good look in the car in front of us, and inside was a little guy, wearing a hood, smoking a cigarette, holding a sickle. Death was in the car in front of us, on the phone to his stockbroker, which was the only reason we didn't die - Death was busy. I don't know whether to be insulted or grateful, quite frankly.

We decided that we needed to stop, as I was shaking and hyperventilating, and Henri Leibowitz was freaking, so we pulled into this play field and got out. I could barely walk, I was shaking so hard. I've literally never had the shakes so bad before.

We walked around on the play field and traded war stories until I could stop shaking long enough to consider driving again. Then we took off in pursuit of the elusive patch, but didn't find one.

Since it was 8:00 at that point, and I wanted to be home by 11, we decided to leave. Three hours was plenty of time to get out of Canada and back to Seattle, a drive of like 150 miles.

Mwah hah hah.

We couldn't find the right road. There are two roads out of Canada, the 99A and the 1A. So I got on the 1, thinking that there would have to be an interchange and we could get on the 1A there.

There is no interchange. We wound up getting off the 1, but having to get on the 7, as there was no way to get on the 1 going back the direction we had come. Very useful. By the time we could turn around, we were out to Coquitlam. We pulled off the freeway and I looked at the map and figured out what we needed to do, which was get on the 7, follow it till it turned into East Broadway, turn left onto Granville, and then out of the country.

So we're driving on the 7 and I see the 1 again. I apparently lost my mind, because I was convinced that the 1A still has an interchange with the 1. Just because I didn't see one on the map doesn't mean it doesn't exist, right? So I got on the 1, and wound up in North Vancouver again.

We pull over and stop, and I'm looking at the map again, pissed as hell, when Henri Leibowitz says he knows how we can get out of the country. Of course, it took him a while to get around to the fact that he wasn't talking about which road to take, no. As he explains it, he's only one-eighth Irish, but he's used this before, and he knows it sounds a little weird, but it works, and I have to trust him on that.

So of course I'm eager to find out what this miraculous Irish way of navigation is. Did I stop to consider how many world class navigators were Irish? No. Did I stop to consider that Henri Leibowitz is, at times, just the littlest bit nutty as a fruitcake? No. Instead, I get all happy that he knows how to get out of the country, and I ask him how we leave.

He wants me to turn my shirt inside out. That's his master plan.

This is not presented as something that is up for discussion, either. As he says this to me, he's already flipping his shirt inside out.

He wants me to turn my shirt inside out, because the reason we can't leave is that the Little People are fucking up the landmarks so they can laugh at us for being lost and if we turn our shirts inside out, they'll laugh at us for that and let us go home.

I was in a mood where I would've sacrificed something as long as it meant I could go home, so I turned my shirt inside out.

Now we're the American lunatics, armed to the teeth, who can't recognize a seam.

However, we were allowed to get on the right road. Jen asked later "Did this work?" As Henri Leibowitz put it, "We're home, aren't we?" All I can ask.

Other than a stop for gas that we made where I thought I smashed the rear quarter panel and Henri Leibowitz bought gas with his shirt inside out ("Five on four....Stop looking at my shirt." was apparently how that exchange went.) we made it to the border without event.

Not across the border without event, however.

We got to the border, where it was fairly busy. I firmly believed that if we just looked normal and innocuous they would let us across. To that end, Henri Leibowitz had taken off his patch jacket and I had taken off the multiple necklaces I was wearing (spikes, a political symbol, a macrame choker with a rune on it, some other stuff). He turned his shirt right side out as it had buttons on it and looked real strange inside out. Mine was okay inside out, so I left it alone. At that point, I figured that was the only thing that was keeping me on the right road.

The woman there asks the usual questions, including how we know each other. I wasn't going to go into the details of a mutual friend introducing us, since I thought that would sound like "My drug dealer introduced us," so I said through work. She asked where we worked and I said a retirement community and Henri Leibowitz said a copy center. I think she didn't really buy that, however, as she then got all freaky about it. She wanted to know if we had any narcotics in the car, that we'd only been there for the day, what we'd done, what we'd bought - at this point Henri Leibowitz pulls one of the bags up front and looks inside, and guess what's in it? The durian. So he puts that bag aside and pulled up another one, which had like stickers and crap in it. Then she asked to see inside the trunk - which, fortunately, was empty - and then she comes back up and asks us a few more times if we were sure we'd only been there for the day. Then she asks the ownership of the car, and I tell her it's a rental. She wants to know why it's a rental and I tell her that my car was totaled, which has, judging by her reaction, never happened to anyone before. Then she goes back into her booth and writes us a slip and asks us to park and go in.

So we do. We go in and present our ID to the guy at the Customs desk, who takes it and says he's going to go search the car.

The longest walk I have ever taken in my life was the 20 feet to the bench where we waited. I notice in passing that Henri Leibowitz looks totally calm - not his usual calm, definitely a "We're going to die" look, but still calm. Somehow, that's reassuring.

I think about what my mother will say when I call to tell her that I've been arrested. She'll ask why, and I'll tell her for illegal transportation of weapons, and she'll want to know why and I won't have a reason, and she'll start yelling at me as only she can do. This is so unpleasant, I feel like I'm going to puke. Then I start trying to figure out who I know who can prove that I brought the sword with me and I can't think of anyone that I can get in touch with anymore. Then I wonder if we should rehearse a story. I know we're going to be arrested. At the very least, the swords will be confiscated and we'll be fined. I decide I can live with this, but I don't know how I'll pay the fine and I think Henri Leibowitz won't suffer the loss of his sword lightly. I concentrate on not barfing. We didn't say a word to each other, other than some of the "We're totally fucked!" routine. This was the longest wait of my life. I have no idea how long it was - maybe 10 hours subjectively. In reality it was probably 10 or 15 minutes, but it felt like geological ages.

So just when I think the Mounties have surrounded the building and we're just gonna be executed without trial, the guy comes back in and says "Whose is this?"

The adrenaline is really making me nauseated now. I know I'm white as a sheet.

He holds something up.

It's the durian.

I say "That's mine."

He starts in with "Don't you know you can't bring fruit back over the border?"

I say no. Blatant lie. He gives me a lecture about why did I buy it, I could've eaten it there but I can't take it home, on and on and on. I tell him he can have it. He tells me Agriculture's gonna get it. Frankly, I didn't care if he shipped the damn thing to the Pope. Then he gives us our ID and tells us we can go.

We tried not to walk out the door like we'd just gotten away with bloody murder, but when we got to the car, Henri Leibowitz and I got in, sat down, and started laughing like fucking loons. I'm laughing so bizarrely that I was literally almost screaming. We spent quite a while just doing this sort of thing. I couldn't believe that we were there to sit in the car and freak out.

So finally we get rolling, and Henri Leibowitz asks me which side of the border we were on, and I tell him the American one, so he sticks his head out the window and yells "Top of the morning to ya, Ma!" This of course sets off more laughter.

We freaked out for a while (actually the whole way home) then decided that we needed a drink. So we pulled off in Ferndale to get gas and see about a bar. When we pulled into get gas, this van pulled up at the next pump, and this real hippie guy with a mane of white hair and a big beard gets out. Henri Leibowitz and I continued to laugh about our escape (at one point he was resting his head on the side of the car laughing while I pounded my hand on the trunk and laughed) and Henri Leibowitz said something to the guy about surviving the crossing. We wound up introducing ourselves to the guy, who understood totally what that kind of tension was like, having been searched every time he crossed the border, but he pretty much assumed that we were high and muling drugs, a notion of which we didn't disabuse him for some reason, and continued laughing.

So we tried to find a bar, but there wasn't one, so we went to Bellingham despite the fact that Henri Leibowitz hates Bellingham and I'm not wild about the place either. No bar in Bellingham. At this point it was like 11:30, 11:45. So we decide to go to Seattle and get a drink there.

Henri Leibowitz got the CD player working around Marysville, so we're going down the 5 at about 90-95, listening to Beautiful Day at volumes that contravene local missile defense treaties. At one point four cops passed us going the other way with their lights on, and Henri Leibowitz and I looked at each other and said "But we just got to town!"

We were fucking manic on the way home. We kept laughing, grinning and swearing. It was incredible how long the adrenaline lasted - about 24 hours actually. We are now drinking buddies because of this event. Hell, it's practically blood siblings. Danger, no matter how spurious, creates bonds.

We went screaming down the 5, laughing and telling stories all the way to the Ship Canal Bridge, at which point Henri Leibowitz had to celebrate our homecoming by yelling out the window to all of Seattle, "I love you, baby, it's good to be home!"

Ain't that the truth.

Finally we got to the bar, where Henri Leibowitz ordered shots of Jamesons (I know nothing about actual drinks, as I practice the SCA method, which is buy bottle, consume bottle, repeat. We don't mess with drinks.) we toasted the day, drank our drinks, stole the shot glasses, and left.

I finally got home at 2:45, just in time to get up at 6 for work. The adrenaline rush literally lasted through the next day. It was so very cool. I may never go to Canada again.

*Names have been changed to protect the guilty. Especially if you're Canadian, you hoser. Now pass me another Molson, eh.