Tin Foil Hat

I have been microchipped by the US government.

Before you make any assumptions about my connection to reality, the whole story is this: my wife and I went north across the border to have a chat with a BC justice of the peace, shortly after Canada made our kind of union legal.  We had been living together for eight years, so it seemed high time to make things official.  But we are considerate people and have no desire to bring down US culture and civilization as we know it so we opted to perform the ceremony in my country of origin, where people are too busy trying not to freeze to death to worry about how their neighbours are keeping each other warm. 

On the way back to Seattle, US customs stopped me and put a microchip in my passport.  "Just to make it easier to track you as you cross the border."  The tone in the officer's voice suggested this was supposed to remove any anxiety I might have about being followed down dark alleys by men in black.  My facial expression must not have seemed sufficiently comforted because he added, "We could only find you with the right detectors and we only have those at the border right now."

Right.

Now.

Ha ha.

Four years later, on Christmas Eve, just as I was preparing to head north again, the mailman brought me my Green Card.  Santa loves me after all, was my first thought.  I opened the unassuming registered letter from Nebraska, and pulled out a plastic-and-hologram card that was, indeed, sufficiently green to be satisfying.

And then, attached to a page, the way credit cards come glued to a single page, was a foil pouch.

"We recommend you use this pouch to protect your new card and prevent wireless communication with it."

Welcome to the US.  Here is your tin foil hat.  Please be sure to remove it at the border crossing so that the guards can scan your brain.