My Poor Wife's Road Trip to Toronto

[bowflex 0]

This story originally had me laughing but after my wife got home I felt soooo bad. This is a long story so feel free to escape now Here we go LOL:

Her sister (lives in Windsor) has been having a rough time lately with finally realizing she's restarting her entire life in Canada after spending most of her life in the US (loooooong story). Anyway, she just broke up with this guy and has been having a hard time so she called my wife and their cousin and asked if they'd like to go shopping with her. With these two girls being very good people, they agreed, even after finding out that the shopping trip was for Toronto and was going to be done all in one day. Now my wife and I live about 30-40 minutes outside of Detroit and their cousin a bit further, so that's a minimum of an hour and a half-ish to get to Windsor, then the 4 hour trip to Toronto. The plan was to have my wife's cousin pick her up at 7am at my house, go and pick up the Windsor sister, then get to Toronto. They wanted to spend a few hours at the Eaton Center and then come home, hopefully completing the trip and being back at my house by midnight latest.

Well here's where the fun started LOL. My wife's sister only got directions to downtown Toronto and not to the actual Eaton Center. My wife and I have been to Toronto about 10 times or so for vacations and immigration stuff so luckily she semi-knew the area, but I couldn't believe that someone wouldn't realize Toronto's just a LITTLE big and it might be a good idea to get directions to the location haha. Anyway after getting slightly lost for 15 minutes or so they found the place so all was well. After shopping most of the day away it was found that her sister actually didn't have any money and she was actually planning on meeting some guy she met from one of those eHarmony-type sites at the mall. My wife and cousin really didn't feel good about this but since it was in such a public place they just rolled with it cause the sister tends to go a little Predator-style CRAZY when you call her out on her dumbheadedness LOL.

Well the guy never showed up so her sister was already angry at being blown off after driving so far to meet him so her attitude went straight to "Who feels like dying today, just talk to me." Luckily it was time to pile into the car though so they began the trek back around 7pm. Now I even know that while driving on the highway to Toronto (believe it's the 401) there's absolutely NOTHING around most of the time. Instead of filling up the ol' gas tank she just went on her merry way and unfortunately she wasn't aware that her gas-warner machine (her exact words hehe) was broken. Now one might have noticed this when they travel 4 hours and never see the ol' marker move even a millimeter off of the full symbol but hey, who am I to judge?

Well unfortunately about 35-45 minutes away from Windsor (Chatham-Kent area) the car shut down and there they were, on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere at around 10 - 10:30pm. Three girls, no one around, and of course no gas tank or anything in the trunk. My wife calls me and lets me know and I offer to headout right away and if I speed a bit I could probably make it in an hour and a half or less but she informs me that her sister was going to call her ex-boyfriend who lives in Windsor. With everyone using common sense they agreed to call him since he'd be there in no time and everything will work out. Well her sister actually broke up with this guy and he desperately wants her back so of course before going to save them he's got to shower, pick up some flowers, and even get some food from her favorite restaurant so she'll see how great of a guy he is. Long story short he didn't show up for 2 1/2 hours hahaha.

He shows up, blah blah, they're back on the road and my wife shows up at home at about 4am after customs decided to tell her that "it's people like her that get more immigration laws passed because people managed to sneak into the country by marrying citizens." I won't get into what level of hell I expect this border guard to experience one day but I'm pretty sure she's already there as my wife gave me this mental picture of her: "Imagine Danny DeVito as a woman but with less hair and a bigger mustache"

I just thought it'd be fun to share some good times from the ol' life hehe.

[Danu 19]

wow. I would have killed my sister if she did that to me. I don't mind going to something like that but you better be honest with me. And that guard...ooooooo I hope she gets what she deserves.

[bowflex 0]

wow. I would have killed my sister if she did that to me. I don't mind going to something like that but you better be honest with me. And that guard...ooooooo I hope she gets what she deserves.

Lol I just told my wife it's better that the guy didn't show cause my wife is smokin' and her cousin hangs out with us constantly with her boyfriend and she's really good looking too. I think it'd really hurt to be ignored and blown off for family members after going so far LOL

[Inky 1,110]

I wonder if that guy did one of thos things where he shows up but then freaks out when he sees her so he left? lol Either way wow that totally sucks, shopping gone bad, trip gone bad and a meanie boarder patrol to boot!!

[Danu 19]

wow. I would have killed my sister if she did that to me. I don't mind going to something like that but you better be honest with me. And that guard...ooooooo I hope she gets what she deserves.

Lol I just told my wife it's better that the guy didn't show cause my wife is smokin' and her cousin hangs out with us constantly with her boyfriend and she's really good looking too. I think it'd really hurt to be ignored and blown off for family members after going so far LOL

then her sister would have been in even more of a mood, so you are probably right. If she had just broke up with someone though too it probably wasn't a great time for her to go looking so this could be a blessing in disguise.

[Kathryn41 3,205]

Oh my God! Yes, it is one of those things to laugh at after but certainly not during. Actually, only getting lost for 15 minutes while trying to find the Eaton Centre is really good!

I know that stretch of highway where they ran out of gas well. I did the same thing coming back to Chatham one night from a wedding in Toronto. I misgauged the strength of the head-wind and thought I should have enough gas to make it home. I miscalculated and about 15 minutes from Chatham at 2:30 am, I ran out of gas. I was really fortunate though - a couple on their way to Chatham stopped, gave me a ride home from where I phoned CAA (no cell phone then). The guy came and picked me up, we went to a gas station, I got some gas, then he drove me back to my car where I put in the gas and drove home. I got to bed at 5 am.

Your wife and her cousin sound like they went above and beyond the call of both family and duty!

[bowflex 0]

Oh my God! Yes, it is one of those things to laugh at after but certainly not during. Actually, only getting lost for 15 minutes while trying to find the Eaton Centre is really good!

I know that stretch of highway where they ran out of gas well. I did the same thing coming back to Chatham one night from a wedding in Toronto. I misgauged the strength of the head-wind and thought I should have enough gas to make it home. I miscalculated and about 15 minutes from Chatham at 2:30 am, I ran out of gas. I was really fortunate though - a couple on their way to Chatham stopped, gave me a ride home from where I phoned CAA (no cell phone then). The guy came and picked me up, we went to a gas station, I got some gas, then he drove me back to my car where I put in the gas and drove home. I got to bed at 5 am.

Your wife and her cousin sound like they went above and beyond the call of both family and duty!

Haha yep I wish they would've had someone to call up there. My wife said quite a few guys showed up but none had gas and only one offered to drive to a gas station, but he only had room in his car for one of them or something so that was quickly shot down LOL.

wow. I would have killed my sister if she did that to me. I don't mind going to something like that but you better be honest with me. And that guard...ooooooo I hope she gets what she deserves.

Lol I just told my wife it's better that the guy didn't show cause my wife is smokin' and her cousin hangs out with us constantly with her boyfriend and she's really good looking too. I think it'd really hurt to be ignored and blown off for family members after going so far LOL

then her sister would have been in even more of a mood, so you are probably right. If she had just broke up with someone though too it probably wasn't a great time for her to go looking so this could be a blessing in disguise.

Lol It's looking like she's going to be dating this guy again after breaking up about 50 times already. I guess the best part about my wife always having problems with the border is I won't be expected to go and hang out with them anytime soon after this

[ashenflowers 5]

hahaha oh man, I know that stretch of 401 extremely well too... I've driven it easily 100 times (grew up in the Chatham Kent area). It would NOT be a fun place to get stuck, as you are basically middle of nowhere for about 2 hours of the drive. lol

I'm glad they made it back at least!! Scary border stories always make me nervous!

[CDAgirlMI 51]

What an ordeal.

There's a bunch of gas stations along the 401, but I know a lot of them are closed for construction. But yeah, it might've been a good idea to top up the tank before the trek back, haha.

I can't believe your wife's bad luck of getting jerk border officers! I hope to never meet that he-she thing your wife dealt with.

BUT...she made it safe...later than expected, but safe.

I really hope she bought something nice while shopping!!

[bowflex 0]

What an ordeal.

There's a bunch of gas stations along the 401, but I know a lot of them are closed for construction. But yeah, it might've been a good idea to top up the tank before the trek back, haha.

I can't believe your wife's bad luck of getting jerk border officers! I hope to never meet that he-she thing your wife dealt with.

BUT...she made it safe...later than expected, but safe.

I really hope she bought something nice while shopping!!

Lol Yep she bought two really nice shirts and a pair of pants that are rather striking if I do say so myself

[moni_calla 0]

This story originally had me laughing but after my wife got home I felt soooo bad. This is a long story so feel free to escape now Here we go LOL:

Her sister (lives in Windsor) has been having a rough time lately with finally realizing she's restarting her entire life in Canada after spending most of her life in the US (loooooong story). Anyway, she just broke up with this guy and has been having a hard time so she called my wife and their cousin and asked if they'd like to go shopping with her. With these two girls being very good people, they agreed, even after finding out that the shopping trip was for Toronto and was going to be done all in one day. Now my wife and I live about 30-40 minutes outside of Detroit and their cousin a bit further, so that's a minimum of an hour and a half-ish to get to Windsor, then the 4 hour trip to Toronto. The plan was to have my wife's cousin pick her up at 7am at my house, go and pick up the Windsor sister, then get to Toronto. They wanted to spend a few hours at the Eaton Center and then come home, hopefully completing the trip and being back at my house by midnight latest.

Well here's where the fun started LOL. My wife's sister only got directions to downtown Toronto and not to the actual Eaton Center. My wife and I have been to Toronto about 10 times or so for vacations and immigration stuff so luckily she semi-knew the area, but I couldn't believe that someone wouldn't realize Toronto's just a LITTLE big and it might be a good idea to get directions to the location haha. Anyway after getting slightly lost for 15 minutes or so they found the place so all was well. After shopping most of the day away it was found that her sister actually didn't have any money and she was actually planning on meeting some guy she met from one of those eHarmony-type sites at the mall. My wife and cousin really didn't feel good about this but since it was in such a public place they just rolled with it cause the sister tends to go a little Predator-style CRAZY when you call her out on her dumbheadedness LOL.

Well the guy never showed up so her sister was already angry at being blown off after driving so far to meet him so her attitude went straight to "Who feels like dying today, just talk to me." Luckily it was time to pile into the car though so they began the trek back around 7pm. Now I even know that while driving on the highway to Toronto (believe it's the 401) there's absolutely NOTHING around most of the time. Instead of filling up the ol' gas tank she just went on her merry way and unfortunately she wasn't aware that her gas-warner machine (her exact words hehe) was broken. Now one might have noticed this when they travel 4 hours and never see the ol' marker move even a millimeter off of the full symbol but hey, who am I to judge?

Well unfortunately about 35-45 minutes away from Windsor (Chatham-Kent area) the car shut down and there they were, on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere at around 10 - 10:30pm. Three girls, no one around, and of course no gas tank or anything in the trunk. My wife calls me and lets me know and I offer to headout right away and if I speed a bit I could probably make it in an hour and a half or less but she informs me that her sister was going to call her ex-boyfriend who lives in Windsor. With everyone using common sense they agreed to call him since he'd be there in no time and everything will work out. Well her sister actually broke up with this guy and he desperately wants her back so of course before going to save them he's got to shower, pick up some flowers, and even get some food from her favorite restaurant so she'll see how great of a guy he is. Long story short he didn't show up for 2 1/2 hours hahaha.

He shows up, blah blah, they're back on the road and my wife shows up at home at about 4am after customs decided to tell her that "it's people like her that get more immigration laws passed because people managed to sneak into the country by marrying citizens." I won't get into what level of hell I expect this border guard to experience one day but I'm pretty sure she's already there as my wife gave me this mental picture of her: "Imagine Danny DeVito as a woman but with less hair and a bigger mustache"

I just thought it'd be fun to share some good times from the ol' life hehe.

LMAO, I know the exact BG you are referring to at the Detroit/Michigan crossing, she is nasty to everyone!! They usually keep her hidden but then again your wife crossed pretty late!

[bowflex 0]

LMAO, I know the exact BG you are referring to at the Detroit/Michigan crossing, she is nasty to everyone!! They usually keep her hidden but then again your wife crossed pretty late!

Lol It's just so funny sometimes, I crossed the border every single weekend and sometimes during the week for 2 1/2 years, and for a year and a half of that I was saying I was going to visit my wife. I never once got an angry guard or anything on my own, but once they bring up her complicated file it's like some of them are too dumb to understand the entire process and just get an attitude. We once had a guard who was completely fine and just sent us to secondary as we expected, but then she came inside with us and she tried to work on the case on her computer. Within a few minutes she called us up and got insanely snotty and started mumbling to herself about how the system isn't working and blah blah blah. I politely let her know that we went through this for years and if she just reads the entire file we've been told that it's near the bottom where everything is cleared up. She let us know that we shouldn't let her know how to do her job and that she's been doing it long enough. I now never say a word, if they're nice or if they're mean, and just wait for their slow minds to eventually come to the conclusion that people MUCH higher up made the decision to let my wife live here so they should just shut up, not steal anything from my car when searching it, and let me return home in a reasonable manner haha.

I've already had some pretzels stolen from my car while waiting, my wife just had money taken from her purse on this trip, and even saw the people who stole our pretzels eating them while walking around the office while we were waiting. I'm beginning to "feel" so much apathy while I'm there that I'm practically a robot now haha.

[thetreble 19]

They have stolen stuff from your cars?

That is ... ridiculous.

Edited August 6, 2009 by thetreble

[bowflex 0]

They have stolen stuff from your cars?

That is ... ridiculous.

Yeah that just started recently, I've NEVER heard of that happening before. I didn't want to believe it when I saw the guys walking around eating those long pencil-style pretzels that we had in the car, but sure enough when we got back into the car the plastic container was open and removed from a bag and there were even a few pretzels sitting next to it.

Just this past time my wife's mom gave her some money to pick up some stuff when she came back home and sure enough there was about $60 missing. It really sucks that we're noticing this lately since there's really nothing we can do as it can't be proven, and really I didn't mind when it was only lil snacks or something. When it happened to my wife when she was without me, though, now that's another subject. I have absolutely no proof but I did call and file a complaint without my wife knowing as I didn't want it to come up and make her think about it again, but they pretty much let me know that they'll look into it but I'm not expecting anything.

I'm just going to continue to try to ignore it though as I don't want it affecting my wife's desire to visit her immediate family right there in Windsor. I'll just take it when I'm going in or coming home and then have a nice stiff drink to take the edge off LOL.