The thing is, no one writes a story about the time that they exchanged twenty words with the border agent, and then went on their way. Why would they? It's not

The thing is, no one writes a story about the time that they exchanged twenty words with the border agent, and then went on their way. Why would they? It's not interesting and it's not news. The only stories that tend to get written are the extraordinary ones. Unfortunately, it's unlikely that a border official is going to have the opportunity to do something "extraordinary" for someone unless he saves a life with the Heimlich or something like that. So the "I HAD A HORRIBLE TIME AT THE BORDER!" are the ones that tend to get written up and passed around. No one writes up the hundreds of millions of routine, boring border crossings.