Snippets from the Road – What do you do with a hard boiled egg?

We are not done telling you about our last trip.  We also have many Sarnia updates about babies and rock snakes, but we are on the road again, so both will have to wait a bit.  This time, we are on our way to fetch Denver daughter and make her into a Michigan daughter.  It will be a month-long process and we will not have too much time on our hands, so we will try to share some shorter snippet with you.

Hopefully they will be fun, or informative, or both.

Border crossing Canada to US

Let’s start with border crossing from Canada to the US.  It’s always fun since we never know what mood the Customs and Border Protection officer will be in, or what he or she may ask us.  There was the one time that we lost a half of a tomato (we never told him that it touched the half onion we had), and yet another where the officer wanted to know where to go camping.

This time it was the egg.

The jolly guy in the booth asked “what are you bringing with you?”

“nothing really” we said.

The questions now came in a very rapid succession:

Guy:  “what about food?”

Us: “just some bread and cheese.”

Guy: “any snacks?”

Us: “oh, we have a few granola bars.”

Guy: “chicken? Eggs?” (notice that in this instance the chicken came before the eggs).

We looked at each other.  We weren’t going to tell him about the egg, but we also didn’t want to lie.

I asked Tony innocently “did you take the egg?” and Tony said turning back to the jolly guy in the booth “yeah, we have one egg.”  “it’s hard boiled.”  I added quickly.

The guy in the booth paused, leaned forward and murmured “cooked is fine.” and waved us through.  He then quickly yelled as we were leaving “but what are you going to do with one egg?”

Well, what do you all think we should do with one egg?  Any ideas?  I know some of you will come up with a brilliant retort we should have given him.  Hopefully one that won’t get us arrested.

36 thoughts on “Snippets from the Road – What do you do with a hard boiled egg?

  1. Linda Hocher says:

    That’s hilarious! The answers are going to be fun I’m sure. I think the first thought would be the same for me-just eat it!

  2. kagould17 says:

    Oh yeah, never lie at a border crossing, especially about food or in NZ, about hiking boots. Sounds great that your daughter will now be closer. Safe travels. Allan

  3. Walter says:

    I grew up in Port Huron, Michigan and enjoyed visiting Sarnia and other cities in Canada (especially Toronto!).

    “It’s always fun since we never know what mood the Customs and Border Protection officer will be in, or what he or she may ask us.”

    That’s definitely true. Back when i was in high school, we noticed that some of our teachers would take summer jobs working at the border and every now and then we’d see them as we came back into the USA. Other times, the officers we didn’t know could be very unfriendly!

  4. petespringerauthor says:

    “Well, what do you all think we should do with one egg?” These are the tough questions we want our border patrol people asking.????

  5. Ab says:

    What a strange fellow and line of questioning. That egg must seem awfully threatening to national security. Better eat it before you get arrested!

    • backroadsandotherstories says:

      He was actually very pleasant and nice, but I guess you develop some strange mannerisms when you have to ask hundreds of people the same questions and try and read their reactions. It was just a funny exchange 🙂

  6. paolsoren says:

    What a great story. When I’ve woken up and had breakfast I’ll sit down and tell you about border crossing in 1974. But I’m going to stay in bed a little longer because it is -2degrees Celsius right now here in Ballarat.

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