Imagine driving from the U.S. to Mexico across the border in California. If you were stopped while trying to get back and told to pull over and park to the side, what would you do if you waited a long, long time without anyone coming to check on you?

In this story, one family is in this exact situation, and to make it worse, they were also told not to leave their car.

Keep reading to see how the story plays out.

I guess I shouldn’t have parked here…

A very long time ago, I’d say more than 30 years ago, my family (mom, dad, brother and me) went to visit a friend in Chula Vista, California.

For those of you who don’t have a US map handy, this is barely on US side of the US Mexican border.

Drive for 30 minutes, and you’re at the border, and crossing back then was a breeze… you just need some form of US ID… so we’re told (you can probably guess where this is heading).

They drove to Mexico.

So my dad, being the curious type, decided to drag the entire family along, with his friend as the tour guide, and we drove to the border, and crossed over into Tijuana, Mexico.

So we were a couple chinitos gawking at Tijuana like a couple turistas but after a while it’s time to head home.

I was a tween at the time, probably 12-14. So I was just curious, but no attitude. My brother was even younger, but he’s just bored. We’re whining a little, but not too much.

So the station wagon drove up to the border checkpoint coming back. From what I remember, everyone produced IDs, then the border patrol ordered us to park “over there” and wait for an inspection.

They waited a long time.

So my dad drove there and parked, and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Thirty minutes passed. NOBODY came to check on us, but we’re not supposed to leave our vehicles.

There must have been a mixup.

Then finally a border patrol officer came up to my dad and asked why is he parked there.

My dad replied truthfully: the gate guy told him to park over here and wait for inspection.

The BP officer sighed and asked again, are you sure that’s all he said?

My dad, thoroughly confused and a little cowed at this time, replied “yessir”.

The BP officer said he’ll figure it out and be right back.

At least it worked out okay.

The guy came back within a few minutes and told us to move to a different spot.

Apparently the spot we parked at was supposed to be for suspicious vehicles stopped and seized by DEA and BP and will be searched and stripped by DEA and checked by drug sniffing dogs. BP officer figured cars parked there should have nobody inside.

After we moved, we waited a little longer, then a BP officer came out, took all our IDs and information, and made us sign a card swearing we are all legal US citizen or resident, then went to check the computer, and returned our IDs, and we went back to Chula Vista, having learned it’s dumb to leave the US without our passports.

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Or at least my dad learned… I hope.

Yes, always have your passport with you!

If you enjoyed this post, check out this story about a neighbor who had to take a direct approach to get the neighborhood parents to actually watch their kids.

Let’s see how Reddit responded to this story.

Here’s a story about crossing the border from Canada into the US.

Another person comments about the Canadian border.

Here’s a story about crossing the Mexican border.

At least they made it back.