How to get your Imaginary Friend Across the Border

First, don’t panic. It is perfectly legal for you to take your imaginary friend across the border.

Second, if you do get caught. Your imaginary friend will go to prison, not you.

Those assurances aside nothing is quite so unsettling as this: you seem to have successfully answered all the questions posed by the border guard and then the officer asks: “And who is your imaginary friend?”

You might be surprised to know that the status of imaginary friends has not changed markedly since 9/11. Indeed, through much of the 1970s and 1980s I never tried to cross the US-Canadian border with my imaginary friend since his name was Raoul. There have always been certain imaginary people who arouse suspicions, but times change. The pariah of yesterday may be cheerfully accepted today. Now Raoul is often sitting beside me in my car at the border, though I take the precaution of calling him Ralph. Avoid calling your imaginary friend Harvey.

Of course, crossing into Canada with an imaginary friend is probably easier than anywhere else in the world. You will rarely hear the border guard ask: “Do you have any weapons, firearms, pepper spray, mace or an imaginary friend?“ Because of their long winter, Canadians have more imaginary friends than any nationality. Listen to recordings of the famous Canadian pianist Glenn Gould and you can hear his imaginary friend singing along with the music. And then there is Anne of Green Gables and her imaginary friends.

The US border authorities are not necessarily unsympathetic to imaginary friends. I was once denied entry to Canada. Not because of Ralph. My son’s papers were out of order and, of course, we were momentarily treated like criminals by both the Canadian and American authorities. I nudged Ralph when I saw a huge MIA-POW flag hanging on the wall of the American holding tank where the border patrol vets people with shady skin or shady credentials.

However, 9/11 has made some differences. While many people have been rendered imaginary by the War on Terror, there is little evidence that bona fide imaginary friends of Americans in good standing have been tortured. If your imaginary friend is a woman, you should make sure she doesn’t wear a burqa. Your male imaginary friends should be clean shaven and not have more than one wife.

It is true that you have few rights when you try to cross a border. Questioning a border officer, let alone contradicting him or her is always a mistake. While we may love our imaginary friends for their quicksilver changes in character, at the border it is best to make them seem as steady as the Rock of Gibraltar. Once the border officer notices him, lean over and nudge your imaginary friend, perhaps explaining that he is so quiet when he is sleeping that you forget that he is there. Use a loud voice when asking your imaginary friend if he has his passport. A bit of by play always helps: “No Ralph, not your Veteran of Foreign Wars membership card, your Passport from the Land of Make Believe.”

Do not make the mistake of substituting a mirror for the photo in your imaginary friend‘s passport, and keep abreast of the latest Supreme Court decisions on the rights of imaginary people.