March 9, 2020

Shuffle Off to Buffalo

I have a friend who once almost ran me over in a ski boat. I was in the water. He was driving the ski boat. Truth is, it wasn’t really all that close. But it was a good story especially with a liberal sprinkling of embellishment. I told it often. For his 50^th birthday, my present to him was a vow never to tell the story again. He said it was his best present.

Just to be clear, I am technically not telling it now. I am telling a completely different story. It is the story about the time my friend Joel Weinstein drove me to Buffalo.

For his 50^th birthday, I bought him a sweater.

This was at a time I was working as a salesman for my uncle’s paint company. My job was to sell and service customers all over Ontario. I did a lot of driving.

One day, I found myself with a suspended driver’s license. The story, believe me, is not interesting. As you have no doubt already surmised, I really have no problem writing about things not so interesting. So you can only imagine how uninteresting it is. You can also guess it likely has to do with being both lazy and irresponsible.

I was now without a license for 30 days and would soon be appearing before a judge who would determine if that would stretch to a six-month suspension. Okay, maybe it is a little bit interesting.

But that was later.

Now I had to deal with 30 days of no driving which could hamper my ability of being a, wait for it, traveling salesman.

I had two-weeks vacation coming to me so really only had to figure out how to skate by for two weeks. And especially how to get to a meeting with a big potential customer in Fort Erie the next day.

Dixon Brothers made snow blowers and I had been cultivating them for years. They had finally agreed to a meeting and there was no way I was going to cancel.

I called my buddy Joel.

Joel’s default answer is always no. But I had leverage: he had borrowed my car to go on a blind date the month before. It hadn’t gone well but that wasn’t on me.

Joel wasn’t happy.

“Fort Erie? Where is that?”

“Right next to Niagara Falls.”

“Zee. That’s two hours!”

“I need a favor here Joel. I’ll tell you what. After the meeting we can go shopping in Buffalo. We can get some OP shirts.”

Ocean Pacific shirts were all the rage at the time and they were expensive and in short supply in Toronto. Joel did not like many things in the world. But he loved OP shirts. We were on the road the following morning.

My meeting went as well as had Joel’s blind date but I was still feeling pretty good because my ruse was working well and I had even come up with a plan to mitigate the longer suspended driver’s license problem hanging over me like Damocles sword.

Spoiler alert: the plan didn’t work.

But that was later.

What I’m saying is that the usually dour Joel and I crossed into America in particularly high spirits. We found an outlet mall just across the border and loaded up on both OP shirts and the famed Buffalo hot wings. Joel had a dozen of each.

And so with our bellies full of wings and trunk full of soon-to-be out-of-style leisure wear, we headed back to the land of the maple leaf.

This was when Joel began to sweat.

And not because of the hot wings.

“Tell me again what I tell the border guard?” We had gone over it already a few times in the restaurant. We hadn't been out of the country long enough to merit duty-free status. And the shirts would no longer be much cheaper if we had to pay tax on them.

“Joel. It’s easy. Don’t worry about it. He’s going to ask you what you bought. You say just a couple of t-shirts. Believe me. It will be a breeze.”

Joel nodded his head but I could see he was nervous.

He was repeating the line like it was a mantra.

Just a couple of t-shirts.

The border was not busy at all. Joel drove right up. He pulled up to the window and turned off the Doobies.

“How long have you been in the United States?” asked the officer.

“Just a couple of t-shirts,” replied Joel without missing a beat.

They pulled us over and we had to pay some tax. They were very nice about it.

I call Joel and tell him I am writing the Buffalo story. He laughs. “Just a couple of t-shirts,” he says. I should tell you he is one of the funniest people I know. And his default answer is still always no. Anyway, I have been telling this story which he has been the butt of for many years now. I tell him he has a birthday coming up. If he wants I can retire it. I’ll remove it from the collection. My present to him. He says, “No, Zee, keep telling it. It’s a good story. My present to you. But would it kill you to say we picked up a couple of chicks on the way back?”

He’s right.

It would be a better story.

The end.