Nothing

While I've been traveling through Immigration, Customs, and Security at the border a lot in the last year. But since this is always at the airport, I've mentally placed these experiences as airport security, rather than border security. Silly, I know, but since we can't take toothpaste on the plane, I'm not really thinking about whether I could take anything exotic across the border!
This weekend, we drove through Canada to get to a wedding in New York. This meant 4 border crossings in 2 days. And that's when the reality hit me.
I was sitting in the back; Dave & Chris (a friend of ours) were in the front.

After the first few questions to determine our nationality & place of residence, the agent next wanted to know how we were related.
"We're friends from college and she's his wife" with a cursory glace & hand wave towards the backseat.
Agent looks at me suspiciously.
"what do you do?" "we're engineers, and she..."Chris trails off, not sure how to classify or what to say. My husband jumps in: "she does nothing"

oh.

nothing.

I do nothing. My entire job is to... what, exactly? teach students? teach teachers? teach principals? teach board members? plan curriculum? order textbooks? renovate a library? design a summer reading program? learn spanish?

In all fairness, I've been telling border agents the same thing for a year now. It's illegal for me to earn a paycheck, so on paper I don't have a job.
I do nothing.