You’re now a permanent resident, congratulations

The mail came today. Amongst the usual collection of bills, post cards promoting ‘baby and you’ (Just got married folks, that ship is most definitely NOT on the horizon! Why do they send me these things? Are they targeting my age group?! Sigh.), there’s a letter from Canada. Wait, there’s a letter FROM Canada. Letter opener, where’s the letter opener?! Shoot, okay the scissors will work. ‘Walk, don’t run with scissors,’ complete with a voice that sounds like my second grade teacher. Yikes.

Uff. Da. It’s open, it’s open! Steady… ‘permanent resident’ in big, bold letters leaps out at me. Ahhhh!!! Commence crazy, happy dance complete with tears and laughter. Stop, look around. Sigh. No one saw that, whew! Pretty sure the status of my sanity would have been questioned at that point. Ha. I should do chores, boy the mail was really late today, but let’s read this first.

‘Welcome to Canada... Ready to move? Please go to our website…’ well, I can skip that paragraph. I’m not moving yet, I just want to get my permanent resident papers signed so I can start thinking of moving. The rest of the letter spoke of what to do and what not to do, this paper is not valid for travel, yada yada yada.

‘Honey! I know you’re out planting but… I got my papers!!!!’ phone call was next on my newly reorganized agenda for the afternoon.Another happy, crazy dance follows.

Anywho. Finally, I get to go back to Canada and visit my hubby. Oh and on the way, I’ll stop at the border and get my permanent resident papers signed. No big deal. It’ll be great and won’t take too long. 

Border crossing happens; I tell my fav officer (whomever I deal with is my fav) that I have my permanent resident papers to sign. Good to go, here’s a ticket that you’ll take inside and tell them you have your papers. (The ticket isn’t really a ticket, well it can be, but it’s more like a hall pass.)

Yeah, I’m doing this! I’m pumped and I walk with a little extra flair to the hip roll as I enter the office. The next available officer gestures me to come up and I tell them I have my papers to sign. “Ma’am you have to wait for the immigration officer to do that,” they tell me. Umm, aren’t you all immigration officers? I’m confused or is it a blonde moment? 

So I wait. And wait. Thank goodness the military taught me well how to ‘hurry up and wait.’ It's one thing for which I can thank them. Finally. The immigration officer is now ready, which is the same exact dude from the booth when I crossed. Well, alrighty then. 

We get into the nitty gritty of expectations and rights of a permanent resident and then the question ‘is your vehicle properly exported?’ Yeah, no. Why would it be? I’m not moving yet, I just want to get my papers signed. I just finished with planting people! I’ve barely had time to do anything much less ‘export my truck.’

The manager is waved over and we start an informal conference of how this permanent residence process works. 

First, I have to ‘properly export my truck.’ A) I could do it now but the U.S. side would find out (those sneaky computers) that I hadn’t properly exported my truck and potentially be charged a fine of up to 10k dollars and who knows what else. B) Also, if I did export my truck at this moment I would now be illegal to drive my own truck in Canada (yay… sarcasm anyone?) because Canada would claim me as a resident the moment my pen left the papers after the final flourish of my pen. Fan-freakin-tastic. After they laughed at me when I got frustrated with that fact they explained: me would now be a Canadian resident, truck still American tagged and licensed. No good. 

Of course, they asked, did you not read the almighty, has-all-the-answers government website referenced in your welcome letter about how to move? 

No, no I did not. I am not moving yet. I want to sign my papers which apparently I can’t do at this point. I didn’t read that bit because I’m just visiting at this point and thought, well, you know what I thought. So I'm just a visitor with permanent resident papers I can't sign till my truck is 'properly exported and imported.'

Uff da.

Uff. Da.

I settled down and apologized for my lack of competence. This garnered me goodwill on their part and nicely answered my questions. My immigration officer dude was nice enough to give me info on phone numbers to call for questions about moving, horses and importing my truck. 

And the paperwork I’d need to export my truck. 

Great, homework.

Hmm, how to export/import my truck?