If you read this entry last week, you’ve (possibly) been looking forward to printculture’s take on Canada, our dear neighbor to the north. This entry will likely disappoint. We spent less than 24 hours there and most of that in the car. We had such a narrow window of time before we had to meet up with the movers and all of our stuff, that my mental and physical energies were directed entirely toward getting in and out of Canada with maximum efficiency. Not, as I’d hoped before the benefit of hindsight, on assessing some important cultural differences and dutifully reporting them.

Here, then, are some scattered impressions.

Our trip led us east from Milwaukee, more or less along the 42nd parallel. At the Canadian border the officer asked only whether we were bringing any firearms along. Casting a weary eye at the dog in the back seat (and deciding not to wade into that sea of paperwork), he waved us through.

Over the border, Canada immediately and graciously met our expectations. Somewhere just beyond Port Huron we saw some kids load hockey sticks into a mini-van and one of the Canadians we spoke to actually finished her sentences with “eh,” though she might have been putting on a show for the tourists. Niagara Falls retained enough of its 1950’s glamour to fit my mental picture – formed as that was by hazy memory and a kitschy souvenir serving tray minted sometime mid-century. Even more impressive, the city managed to do so in spite of the Disneyesque movie-tie-in thrill rides and the Wolfgang Puck chain restaurant.

On re-entry to the U.S. we somehow selected the slowest lane and the most thorough border guard. As cars in neighboring lanes sped through, ours idled. Normally this wouldn’t have presented anything more than boredom, but this time we were smuggling a much-admired house plant for which no “live plant import certificate” had been secured, and we were starting to get nervous. I imagined the questioning going badly, separate cells, a lone rosemary waiting on the tarmac, the bomb squad moving in, and...

But the American border guard – maybe sensing our tension and guilt – questioned us only, though at length, about … our relationship. Yes, our relationship. The discomfort this line of questioning prompts when family asks when we’ll get married, or why we’re not married, is nothing compared to that initiated by an officer of the U.S. government, at the U.S. border, an officer with the power to deny re-entry. “Seven years and you still haven’t married? What’s wrong with her?”

So maybe that’s it: the important cultural difference between us and the Canadians. They’re afraid of Americans bringing guns into Canada, Americans are afraid of unwed couples, and no one is concerned about the very real threat of international culinary herb smuggling.