The Last Word On Nothing

In shipping my grandfather’s 200-pound desk from my cousin in San Francisco to me in Ottawa, we found, too late, that Ottawa is devoid of bonded warehouses. This matters because customs can only be cleared for large objects like this through a warehouse bonded for such a purpose, and the nearest of these facilities is in another province altogether.

The delivery company started sending me threatening emails and calling every day, warning that storage fees were racking up, and if someone didn’t physically show up at the Montreal airport, they would return the heirloom from whence it came. I, or someone I authorized, would have to schlepp out to the customs desk (Douanes Canada) to get a blue stamp on a form and then drive that stamped piece of paper over to the delivery company, also at the airport, and hand it over.

I had extended, harrowing phone calls across a stubborn language barrier, but eventually it was driven into me that I could not authorize the delivery company to do this themselves. The Montreal-based friend I convinced to do the job shared the photo above of his dispiriting experience in a Dorval hallway, and the desk finally arrived at my house:

Ignoring the strong hints from the powers that be, I headed over to Montreal myself the following week, on holiday, of all things. My AirBnB turned out to be one of those rare remaining apartments that is really someone clearing out of their own place for the weekend to earn some extra cash. The walls were festooned with Che Guevara posters and Soviet propaganda and brochures in support of the Quebec separatist guerrilla group Front de liberation du Québec. There was an unsettling taxidermy piece, of an animal I can’t even identify.

The host boasted to me that they hadn’t locked their back door in ten years.

I guess that only works for communists, because one day later, Montreal stole my car, bought not three months ago. The police were not surprised in the least. Car theft has tracked up with the auto price surge in the city, and they warned it would already be sitting in the Port of Montreal in a shipping container, bound for Nigeria, where it would be sold to wealthy customers for even more than the Canadian market could offer. They would not be retrieving it.

It was a stormy night, and Rammstein was playing a concert on the hill. Their famous pyrotechnics lit up the storm clouds while their roaring German heavy metal thundered along. I gave up on my trip.

Reader, the Quebec police found my car the next day. The thieves had driven it to a small French town down the St. Lawrence River to look around for more cars to steal. Residents called the police about these people “driving suspiciously” – I will let you come to your own conclusions on that—and the vehicle was retrieved.

All that Montreal has taken from me, it has eventually given back, with some bizarre memories into the bargain. I can’t stay mad for long. But I’m staying on my side of the border for now, casting a suspicious eye eastward now and then, on guard for bandits and customs officials in the night.