So I’m in Toronto.

I’m in a meeting room at our Toronto office. There are 12 guys, some from Atlanta, USA, some from Toronto, Canada, some from Reynosa, Mexico. Very NAFTA. We’re training each other on the various aspects of the product we’ll be releasing over the next few months.

For the first time, I had trouble going through customs. I used to carry my passport in my back pocket, but one time last year I left it in my jeans when I got home and it went through the wash. It wasn’t too bad, to my mind. The cover was gone and the pages were a bit wrinkled, but nothing was smudged. The picture is as bad as ever.

So when I showed it at the ticket counter, the agent held it up between two pinched fingers like it was a dead fish and said “was this… a passport at one time?” I said, yup, it’s been washed. He shook his head and gave me my ticket.

When I showed it to the person who checks your ID before the metal screeners, she held it up between two fingers like it was a dead fish and said “this is your ID?” I said, yup, it’s been washed. She shook her head and let me through.

When I got to Toronto, the customs agent held it up between two fingers like it was a dead fish and said “is this a passport?” I said yup, it’s been washed. He shook his head and directed me to immigrations.

Going to immigrations is the worst punishment they can dole out. Because it takes a long time. I was in line about a half an hour. And when I got to the agent, she held the passport up between two fingers like it was a dead fish and said “this… is not a passport.” I said, “Yup, it is. It’s been washed.” She looked me in the eye and said “This is an insult to the government that issued it. This is unacceptable.”

What I didn’t say was “my government is an insult to me, so we’re even.”

What I also didn’t say was “hey, at least it’s clean.”

The third thing I didn’t say is “bite me.”

Apparently, it WAS acceptable, because she let me into the country, after handing me a “tell us how we’re doing!” comment card.

I’m going to send the card in saying “Your agents let me in even though I was using a dead fish as ID.”