CANADIAN HUMOR

How Canada got its name

The elders all gathered around, and they put all the letters of the alphabet into a jar and mixed them up. Then they called them off as they pulled them out…. C eh! N eh! D eh!

***

The Pope did a quick stop, and a town-hall type thing in Kitchener, the last time he toured Canada. He was handing out miracles to the Kitchener kids. Archon just strolled up on stage, and asked him, “Can you help me with my hearing?”

The Pope said, “Yes.” and put his hands on Archon’s ears, and prayed. He removed his hands and said, “How is your hearing now?”

Archon answered, “I don’t know, it’s not until next Wednesday.”

***

Sally Mulligan of Comox, British Columbia decided to take one of the jobs that most Canadians are not willing to do.

The woman applying for a job in an Okanagan lemon grove seemed to be far too qualified for the job.

She had a liberal arts degree from the University of British Columbia and had worked as a social worker and school teacher.

The foreman frowned and said, “I have to ask you, have you had any actual experience in picking lemons?”

“Well, as a matter of fact, I have! I’ve been divorced three times, owned 2 Chryslers and voted for Trudeau.”

***

All I’m saying is, when Canada starts refining its Maple Syrup reserves into weapons-grade Aunt Jemimium, you’re all French toast.

***

I’m a bit of a joker sometimes (most of the time). I was at a bar the other night, and a waitress screamed, “Does anybody know CPR?”

I said, “Hell, I know the entire alphabet.”

Everybody laughed…. except one guy.

***

My girlfriend and I are trying this whole “long distance relationship” thing.

I have to stay 100 yards away from her at all times. Also, the police say I should stop referring to her as my girlfriend.

***

I was asked what I look for in a relationship. Apparently, “A way out” was not the right answer.

***

My wife said I need to grow up. I was speechless.
It’s hard to talk when you have 45 gummy bears in your mouth.

***

French archaeologists found ancient copper cables under Paris…
They came to the conclusion that the French had telecommunications way back in the Copper age.

Infuriated by this, the British published a paper saying they found Bronze cables under London and came to the conclusion that they had telecommunication technology way before the French.

After hearing this, the Americans did some digging and found iron cables and came to the conclusion that they were the first to have telecommunication technology.

Undeterred, the Indians did they own digging under the ancient city of Varanasi but found nothing. They came to conclusion that ancient India had wireless technology way before anyone.

***

Sarah goes to school, and the teacher says, “Today we are going to learn multi-syllable words, class.

Does anybody have an example of a multi-syllable word?”

Sarah waves her hand, “Me, Miss Rogers, me, me!” Miss Rogers says, “All right, Sarah, what is your multi-syllable word?”

Sarah says, “Mas-tur-bate.” Miss Rogers smiles and says, “Wow, Sarah, that’s a mouthful.”

Sarah says, “No, Miss Rogers, you’re thinking of a blowjob.”

***

There was the woman who approached the local pharmacist and asked for cyanide.

“What on earth would you want to do with cyanide?” he asked.

“I want to poison my husband” she said coolly.

Of course the pharmacist was quite upset about this and made it quite clear to her that he was not going to be part of such a plot, and that he had no intention of selling any poison to her for that purpose.

The woman then took a photograph out of her bag. It showed the pharmacist’s wife in bed with the woman’s husband.

“Oh! You didn’t tell me you had a prescription!”

 

Offerings To Propitiate The Gods

 Our genial host, just back from an anger management class

Not that the lovely couple who we went to visit were actual Gods, but they had long since achieved that status with me.  Hell, anyone who doesn’t complain about my presence is nice.  Those who have the occasional kind word for or about me are saints.  And those who invite me into their home for an extended visit, are surely Gods.  Since we had to drive 500 miles of paved highways to meet them, they truly are The Gods Of Asphalt.

A FEW of the son’s collection of skulls

3-D printers have become affordable for the average geek.  A son-in-law of the daughter’s friend acquired one, and started fooling around learning its secrets.  First, my son was given the larger, softball-sized skull.  It’s thermo-optic.  If sufficiently warmed, it changes from grey to white.  Later, the golf ball-sized, darker grey one was added.  They are all low-density plastic, and float like corks.

The son’s two skulls at the back – the two Voodoo, “Impeach Trump” skulls, going to DC, in front

My limited etiquette knowledge only told me that a Hostess gift was good manners – and one for the host might also be a good idea.  Our handsome host instructed me not to spend much money, and assured me that it was our presence that they valued, not presents.  Still…. a few gewgaws to demonstrate Canadian my twisted culture.

One of the pair collects skulls, like my son does.  I obtained another couple of the smaller ones.  I leave it to you to guess which one is the blood-thirsty spouse.

Amethyst is supposed to foster peace and tranquility.  After adding skulls to the home of a skull-collector, and an ex-tank-driver, I felt that we needed all the tranquility we could get.  Since our host is Plus-sized, and his diminutive bride has trouble seeing over a garden hose, I brought a large chunk, and a smaller piece.

The best, darkest, amethyst now comes from Brazil, because most of the good stuff has been removed from mines just north of Lake Superior, in Ontario.  The daughter visited an online friend up there, a couple of winters ago.  She had just returned from a saved-for summer trip before we set out.  It is possible to walk the shores and occasionally find a good piece that a retreating glacier dug up, so these pieces were from both us, and from her.

In return for throwing me a fabulous online birthday party, I once promised our hostess a 55-gallon drum of fresh, pure, Canadian maple syrup.  Of course, like most promises that men make to women, I wasn’t able to delivery anything that big.  Still, since our hosts had been so sweet to us, I felt compelled to bring along 2 liters (half a gallon for the non-metric Americans) of freshly-squeezed, Mennonite Maple Juice for them.  If you hear of an IHOP or Denny’s in the DC area going bankrupt, it’s because they aren’t going out for Sunday brunch till this is gone.

Actually, years of residence in New Hampshire has made her a bit of a syrup snob.  Like Florida has laws that translate, “Don’t f**k with the citrus, especially oranges.” Vermont also has strict rules against messing with the maples.  She would have requested some Maple syrup; but felt that it might be illegal to export.  Nobody asked me about maple syrup at the border, and she was thrilled to get the real stuff, cooking everyone blueberry pancakes the first morning.

I told this little old guy that it was really important to me, and go out and squeeze his Maplest tree for my kind hosts.  He said that he would be happy to….  or maybe it was, ‘crazy English’…. something like that.  Coming up soon, a post about all the great stuff we brought back – aside from treasured memories, and happy hearts.

Since I have re-read them all over the last two years, and because our host is a great classic Sci-Fi fan, I offered him copies of every E.E. (Doc) Smith book that I possess, 24 out of the 25 that he wrote. Always a fan of Robert A. Heinlein’s works, I felt that he might appreciate obtaining copies of the seminal Space-Opera novels written by Heinlein’s mentor.

While I regard them as inexpensive paperbacks, many printed before he was born, he recognised their rarity, difficulty of obtaining, and the fact that they were collector’s items.  I usually don’t mind being kissed, just not by him.  Their value to me is that someone who really appreciates them, now possesses them. He said that he didn’t even know what order to read them in….and then found that I had obsessively boxed them up in chronological order.

Our deepest, sincere thanks to BrainRants and H E Ellis, two of the Titans of the blogosphere.

Invasion USA

Recently Chuck Norris the wife and I executed a quick little raid into American territory for cultural observation and retail therapy.

We were barely outside the city limits, when trouble first arose.  It wasn’t long before there was a knock-down, drag-out, cursing and swearing, screaming and yelling, hair pullin’, eye-gougin’ match going on over in the passenger seat, between the wife, and Ethel, the snotty GPS.

The last little village we went through before getting on the Superhighway, was Roseville, ON. Our destination, north of Detroit, was Roseville, MI.  When the wife tried to enter that, Ethel insisted, “You’re already there.” The wife finally punched Ethel in the button that read ‘Change State or Province.’  Suddenly, Ethel knew all about Roseville….California.  No! No!  No!  I finally suggested adding the Michigan ZIP-code, and the fight ended with no serious injuries.

The Windsor/Detroit crossing is the most heavily-used border point between Canada and the US, and the one we’ve been using for years. Security is strict.  Since we were going well north of Detroit, we chose to cross from Sarnia, to Port Huron, MI, and work our way south.  Between a less-busy crossing, and the passage of 15 years since 9/11, it was quick, easy and almost informal.

Our border guard was a young, white male, who wasn’t suffering from testosterone poisoning from listening to Donald Trump speeches. When the wife volunteered that we were staying three days, he replied, “I don’t care how long you stay, as long as it’s not more than six months.”  When he found that we were going to strew cash into the economy, we got waved through before The Donald could collect enough Mexican pesetas to erect his wall.

Hotels/motels and restaurants cluster around Interstate exits. The better ones are usually right up front, while the Eats Diners huddle a little further back.  Right across from my Red Roof Inn, was a Days Inn, while the Victorian Inn was half a block south.

While searching for a Taco Bell, on the next main road over, and a block north, we drove past the Alibi Inn….because apparently the name Divorce Depot was already taken.  They oughta warn a fellow about things like that.  Trying to drive a car while giggling hysterically, looks a lot like DUI.

We went to a Wal-Mart to get some work jeans for Shimoniac, in his ‘big and tall’ size that Ontario Wal-Marts no longer carry. The first one we tried was down towards Eminem’s Eight Mile, surrounded by ‘houses made of ticky-tack, and they all look just the same,’ occupied mostly by melanin-rich folks.

It wasn’t dirty, but had the feel of dowdy, and unkempt.  In the Men’s Wear section, there were shelves and shelves of jeans.  Regular fit, Boot cut, Relaxed fit, Carpenter style and Flex-waist were all inter-mixed in the same piles, as well as waist sizes from 28 to 48, and inseams from 30 to 48.  After 20 minutes of frustrated searching, we managed to find one pair.

We then drove north and west to another Wal-Mart. Soon the homes were $500,000+, with gated drives and manicured lawns.  The area mall shone like Xanadu.  I’m surprised that we were allowed in, and disappointed that they didn’t have valet parking and shuttles to the shops.

This store gleamed. In the Men’s Wear section, all the styles were carefully kept separate, and sizes ran from smallest at the top, to largest on the bottom.  They have a much-different clientele.  It took only 30 seconds to find another pair of jeans, leaving the wife time to peruse the ladies’ sweaters.

You know you’re having an interesting vacation when you look out your motel window in the morning to see a State Trooper putting his steel battering-ram door opener back into the Police sport-ute.  He didn’t have to use it.  A local woman rented a room for a couple of visitors.  They partied too rowdy.  Instead of calling the front desk, who would have had to call the Police anyway, the outraged neighbors called the cops themselves.

While I was gabbing with a room-clerk, a young man came in to get another keycard. “I didn’t mean to pull the door all the way closed.”  Fortunately, he didn’t do it while dressed only in his Calvin Kleins, ‘cause she wanted ID.

The motel leaves a printed sheet, reminding guests to flip the ‘privacy’ switch on the inside of the door, so that no-one can enter, even with a keycard. While doing my usual wandering around, I found a keycard which someone had dropped just outside their door while entering.  I turned it in at the office.

At the wife’s suggestion, we ate supper the first night at Taco Bell. Michigan stores offer nachos Bel Grande that Ontario outlets don’t have.  We followed that with Cracker Barrel, and then The Outback, finishing off the last morning with brunch at Denny’s.

The Cracker Barrel wasn’t really busy, but in our section, the Negro waitress stood around talking to a Negro friend, while the white waitress took orders, delivered food, and cleaned tables. When she finally rushed over to serve us, she apologised for taking so much time.

The wife assured her that we were in no hurry, “You’re busy.”  We had till closing time, and told her to take her time.  You could just see the stress flow away.  “Not a lot of people are like that.”  We each got two corn-meal biscuits.  I, of course, ate both of mine.  The wife ate one.  When the bill arrived, I asked for a bag to take the biscuit home in.  When she returned, the bag held three more fresh biscuits, “So that you’ll both have two for breakfast, and there’ll be no fight.”  Quid Pro Quo!

Finally, well-fed and happy, we headed our mule-train loaded with beet sugar and new clothes back towards the land of maple syrup, socialized medicine and good manners. I’m sorry if that offends any Americans.  Please accept my apology….and come back soon.   😉

 

What We Want

Groups like entertainers, politicians and retailers are often urged to, “Give the people what they want.”  This often doesn’t happen, because that’s not what they want.  What they want, is the maximum return for the minimum expenditure.

What we want, is often predicated on what we already have.  A teenager in Ruanda might just want some food, while a teenager in Beverly Hills wants a new Smartphone to match her new gown, which already matches her new Lamborghini.

Back when I was a cube drone, one of my more-enlightened slavedrivers bosses sent me to a one-day, How To Be More Efficient instruction module. What he wanted, for the outlay of a couple of hundred dollars, was greater output and efficiency, and for me to think he cared, and stop bitching.

This seminar was given by the same guy who was surprised we didn’t describe ourselves as Honest.  He asked us what else we wanted from our jobs.  This was the first time I became aware of Maslow’s Hierarchy.

He explained that we can do without air for four minutes, without water for four days, and without food for four weeks.  Some of the guys who didn’t have them, wanted business cards, to seem professional.  Some wanted bigger offices – the corner office with the windows.  Some wanted impressive titles, even though the work would remain the same.  I didn’t care much where they put me, or what they called me.  I pulled a Jerry Maguire – Show me the money!

I had been a buyer, the lowest of the bunch.  Then I was a Purchasing Agent, a step up.  I had worked up to being an underpaid Materials Manager.  One pretentious egotist wanted the corner office with his title on the door – Senior Vice-President In Charge of Walking Around With My Nose So Far in the Air That I Can’t See or Smell the Peons – And Coincidentally Acquiring Stuff the Company Needs, As Long As No-one Knows I Actually Work For a Living.  If that didn’t fit, he wanted a bigger door.

Since the hotel they’d been using for a couple of years had a lot of steps, the Free Thinkers have been shopping around for a new venue.  What they want, is a place with a varied menu, with decent food at decent prices, a separate room or area, handicap access, adequate parking, and located on a major transit line, because a couple, like the Mennonite lady, come by bus.

We tried a new-to-us, but old, downtown restaurant in March, and will go back in April, but it does not bode well.  It’s not as upscale as it would like people to think – and that’s what we do.  Almost as many steps as its up-the-street neighbor – what a surprise, no parking – walk a block, no breakfast buffet, and five items on the breakfast menu.

What at least three in the group wanted, were Belgian waffles, just like Momma IHOP or Denny’s makes, with whipped cream and powdered sugar.  What they found was that, those are “dessert waffles”, served in the evening.  What they got, were breakfast waffles, without.

What they wanted was a menu, or server, that would explain that the place didn’t do things the usual way, and that whipped cream&sugar was available for a mere 50 cent surcharge.  What they wanted, was a dispenser of real Canadian Maple Syrup.  What they got, was a rip-it-open-and-spill-it-on-yourself, plastic container of genuine, imitation, looks vaguely like Maple, pancake syrup.

What I wanted – what I specifically, firmly and clearly ordered, was a cup of hot chocolate, with a good dash of coffee in it, almost a mocha.  What I got, was a server who brought me a Chi-Chi “drink”, a breakfast shooter, see illustration below.

What I wanted was a mug of hot chocolate, with coffee.

What I got, was this gay-bar, bud-vase, clear glass cup (?), with four layers, an inch of chocolate syrup on the bottom, with a layer of (ugh) warm! milk above it, a layer of coffee above that, and topped with whipped cream, which I didn’t want, and should have given to the lady beside me with the Belgian waffle.

What I want, is what I want, but, as most of you know, unless you own Belgium, and not just the waffles, very few of us get what we want.

 

 

The Americans Are Coming!

The Americans are coming!

We Canadians are not only letting them, we’re often welcoming them with open arms.  There’s always talk of making Canada the 51^st State.  Come on!  We have more land area than the entire US, including Alaska.  Of course, a lot of it is covered eleven months a year, with do-it-yourself Igloo kits.  There’s 10 provinces and a bunch of territories, several of which are larger than Alaska.  Let’s really give Texas an inferiority complex.  We could be States numbers 51 through 65.  Even better, we could take over the US and see how they like being provinces.

It started innocently enough; Canadians like fast and easy food.  First McDonalds sneaked in under the import duty fence, and then Burger King, followed surreptitiously by Arby’s.  Locally, Krispy Kreme tried to go up against our juggernaut Tim Hortons.  It wasn’t just their doughnuts that were glazed, when they got their ass crullers handed back to them.

Our cheap Scottish souls wanted cheap prices, so we let cheap old Joe Walton, and his cheap Wal-Mart cronies, sell us cheap consumer goods, made by cheap Chinese child labor.  Soon, Wally-World was joined by Lowes, Best Buy and Home Depot.

The impressive, old, Hudson’s Bay Company became the easier to remember and say, HBC, and finally just, The Bay.  Years ago, America’s Kresge’s, and Woolworth’s had done the same and become K-Mart and Woolco.  The upscale Bay spawned a downscale chain called Zellers, and out-cheaped and out-crapped even Woolco.  The K-Mart bluelight special was replaced by a whitelight clearance, based on our proud ice and snow heritage.

Too many people must have thought they’d actually died, and stopped shopping at Zeller’s, and The Bay sold off their 300 stores to Target.  Not only have more Americans invaded through the Target hole in the fence, but The Bay has now partnered with Saks, (Is it just Saks?  Not Saks Fifth Avenue anymore?) bringing expensive, pretentious American shit north, to people living on the tundra.

Some years ago, the New England company, L.L.Bean attempted to migrate north with the moose.  Trying to project a woodsy, rustic, rural feel, to Canucks who feel a plaid flannel shirt is Sunday-go-to-meeting acceptable, they advertised that their Canadian headquarters was in, “The Village of Islington.”

The Village (?) of Islington had 35,000 residents, and was totally surrounded by the 2.5 million City of Toronto, as part of the 5.5 million Greater Toronto Area, when they agreed to be annexed.  This had happened 17 years before the Tilley-hat-wearing snake-oil salesmen arrived at the little Indian camp.

I sent them a letter, calling them on their deceptive advertising, but never heard back.  I guess I’m not the only Canadian who didn’t want to buy their bison shit.  The only Beans that Canucks want, are served with boiled wieners, and so, they slunk, defeated, back south of the border.

The company of Hammacher-Schlemmer, a New York City-based distributor of STUFF which nobody really wants, but some people just must have, is trying to bring its own can of beans across the border.  To project their homey, Canadian presence, they list a Canadian manager, and a “warehouse” in LaSalle, Ontario.  This is some guy with a two-car garage, in a suburb of Windsor, across the bridge from Detroit.

The telling information is at the back of the catalog, where it says that all merchandise is “shipped duty-free,” actually coming up from The States.  The only real reason for Joe the Manager, is to handle the paperwork necessary, to ship unacceptable junk back to the Big Apple.

H-S brags that they’ve been in business since 12 years before the American Civil War.  Big F**cking deal!  Our Canadian retail mainstay, The Hudson’s Company, was incorporated in 1620, a hundred and fifty six years before America even formed the first Tea Party in Boston harbour, and it sells a much better class of junk.

The big American communications company Verizon, wants to swallow up the little Canadian, Mobilicity, and Wind telecoms, to get a toehold in the Great White Northern market.  Like a virus, they’ll also carry north, the NSA, the No Such Agency, allowing it to sieve our phone calls and emails, looking for mukluk-shod terrorists, building bombs out of Maple-sap-collector pails.  When they hear two Frogs discussing poutine, they’ll think we’ve sold out to that fish-kissing Russian president, Putin.  You got some ‘splainin’ to do, Auguste Robichaud!

I would hope that my fellow Canadians aren’t dumb enough, and greedy enough, to let this American cultural and commercial invasion continue, unchecked, unquestioned!  I had that thought today, on my way home from the Wal-Mart store, where I had some French fries at the in-store McDonalds.

I Get The Picture

About the middle of August, we got two violent windstorms within a week.  Not hurricane   quality like KayJai received, but nasty.  The second, especially, had downdraft winds which snapped branches and trees in LadyRyl’s neighborhood.  These shots are of a 100-year-old willow, beside the creek, in front of her complex.

                                      

A couple of blocks away, this big maple beside the road was snapped off about 8 feet up.  After cutting it up for giveaway firewood, the artistic homeowner turned the remains into an eagle.

When I went to pick up Granma LadyBug, after her nose surgery, I spotted this sign….Pick her up??  Or have a beer and pizza??  I’d like to claim that I did the honorable thing, but the truth is, I’m too broke to be naughty.

 

LadyRyl took a couple of shots of the knapped agate knife she bought at the pow-wow.  Not much difference, but one is the front, and the other, of course, is the back.

At the same pow-wow, the grandson bought a cool smudge fan to be used to move sage-smoke, or incense around – no hemp!  Can’t even spell hemp!

The only Segway owner/rider in the Region, and possibly all of Southern Ontario, apparently lives near enough that he shops at EuroFood, my favorite little deli.  Since he was only going to be inside “for just a couple of minutes”, he left the key in it.  If a Segway key is like the key for the daughter’s power wheelchair, it’s only a stereo-cord plug.  You could ride away with it while listening to music on your headphones.

Didn’t matter!  Apparently two teenage boys just lifted it up and carried it off.  Two words, fool – Bike! Lock!  I was going to scan in the newspaper picture of him in his gay little bicycle helmet, but if you want a photo of a clueless guy looking lost, my gravatar is still available.  He’s 62, and the old-boy genius liked to ride around on his Segway with a clown nose, or Oktoberfest lederhosen, with a bright feather in his helmet.  I don’t want to picture either of those. Ew, ew, ew!

U.S. Senator Ted Cruz, from Texas, is probably more responsible than any other individual for the government shutdown.  He recently stood and spoke about nothing for 22 hours, (Sorry for the redundancy.) trying to prevent the passage of Obama’s Health Care bill.  Sarah Palin says she supports him.  She’s always liked him since he was in the movie Top Gun.

He’s a member of a political party which has been bitching for years, that Barack shouldn’t be president, because he wasn’t born in the U.S., and now he wants to run for president himself, in 2016.  The biggest problem with that, is that he is a poutine-eating, Maple syrup-sucking Canadian!  Sshh, don’t tell him.  While his mother was a US citizen, his father was from Cuba, and he was born in a hospital in Calgary, while his dad worked in the (Canadian) oil industry.

While the US government may consider him a citizen, his birth certificate makes him a Canadian.  He has thundered to the press that he will renounce his Canadian-ness, and claims, “I’m an American by birth.”  So sad, dad!  Tough luck Chuck!  The boundaries of his egotistical imagination do not match up with reality.

At least Barack eventually provided an American birth certificate.  After this little revelation, I can’t picture him even being allowed to run for president.  I would like a picture of his face when he finds out that, for all his ugly-American jingoism, the rules include him out.

Did you like our pictures?  We’re practicing for some upcoming posts with photos in them.  Kittens anyone??    😀

Only In Canada, You Say

 

Only in Canada….can you get a pizza to your house faster than an ambulance.

Only in Canada….are there handicap parking spaces in front of a skating rink.

Only in Canada….do drugstores make the sick walk all the way to the back of the store to get their prescriptions, while healthy people can buy cigarettes at the front.

Only in Canada….do people order double cheeseburgers, large fries…. and a diet cola.

Only in Canada….do banks leave both doors open and then chain the pens to the counters.

Only in Canada….do we leave cars worth thousands of dollars in the driveway and put all our useless junk in the garage.

Only in Canada….do we use answering machines to screen calls, and then have call waiting so we won’t miss a call from somebody we didn’t want to talk to in the first place.

Only in Canada….do we buy hot dogs in packages of twelve and buns in packages of eight.

Only in Canada….do we use the word ”politics” to describe the process so well: “Poli” in Latin meaning “many” and “tics” meaning “bloodsucking creatures”.

Only in Canada….do they have drive-up ATMs with Braille lettering.

Only in Canada….do we buy the kids’ Halloween costumes big enough to fit over a snowsuit.  (American SpellCheck doesn’t recognize “snowsuit”, but offers swimsuit.)

 

Forget Rednecks, here is what Jeff Foxworthy has to say about Canucks:

If your local Dairy Queen is closed from September through May you may live in Canada.
If someone in a Home Depot store offers you assistance and they don’t work there, you may live in Canada.
If you’ve worn shorts and a parka at the same time, you may live in Canada.
If you’ve had a lengthy telephone conversation with someone who dialled a wrong number, you may live in Canada.
If “Vacation” means going anywhere south of Detroit for the weekend you may live in Canada.
If you measure distance in hours, you may live in Canada.
If you know several people who have hit a deer more than once, you may live in Canada.
If you have switched from “heat” to “A/C” in the same day and back again, you may live in Canada.
If you can drive 90 kms/hr through 2 feet of snow during a raging blizzard without flinching, you may live in Canada.
If you install security lights on your house and garage, but leave both unlocked, you may live in Canada.
If you carry jumper cables in your car and your wife knows how to use them, you may live in Canada.
If the speed limit on the highway is 80km — you’re going 90 and everybody is passing you, you may live in Canada.
If driving is better in the winter because the potholes are filled with snow, you may live in Canada.
If you know all 4 seasons: almost winter, winter, still winter and road construction, you may live in Canada.
If you have more miles on your snow blower than your car, you may live in Canada.
If you find 2 degrees C “a little chilly”, you may live in Canada.
If you actually understand these jokes, and forward them to all your Canadian friends & others, you definitely live in Canada!

Only in Canada would we have, not one, but two huge Maple Syrup thefts.  I’m not talking about some guy who got over a fence, sneaked in the back door, and got away with a couple of gallon jars of sweet stuff.  We’re talking about millions of liters, and perhaps as much as thirty million dollars worth of purloined stock.

The province of Quebec produces between 70 and 80 % of the world’s maple syrup, and two-thirds of that is exported to the US.  Inventory losses at a Quebec bulk storage warehouse were traced to a company in New Brunswick.  The stolen syrup was impounded and returned to its legal owners.  An idea of the size of the theft, is that the police-escorted return convoy consisted of fifteen full-sized tanker trucks.

The second theft does not appear to be quite as large.  Police estimate 800 barrels, which is 36,000 gallons, which is 163,500 liters.  That’s a sweet lot of pure profit.  I’m astounded at the size of the first theft.  One truckload is understandable….but fifteen?

Truckload-lot thefts are more common than you might think.  Trucking firms in the area have lost as many as three trailers at once.  A couple of guys cut the chain on the gates, roar in, hook up to already loaded and waiting trailers, and are gone by the time security or police arrive.  Stealing maple syrup involves bringing your own tanker, and waiting till it’s pumped full, in the first robbery, fifteen times.

Young women in Quebec eat a lot of, both maple syrup, and French pea soup.  This may explain why they are round and sweet, all except Celine Dion.

One co-worker’s brother was a truck driver for a local Seagram’s Distillery plant.  About once a week, he was sent to Toronto to bring back a tanker load of rye whiskey, for blending or bottling.  When he pulled into the yard, he would connect the dump valve on the bottom of the tanker to a large flexible hose, and open the valve.  When the tank was empty(?) he would drive to the parking area, where his truck was obscured by other trucks.

He would place a clean plastic pail under the valve and reopen it.  After finishing his paperwork, he would go back out and pick up half to three-quarters of a pail of rye, collected from those last drops on the inside of the tank.  He filled easily obtained empty bottles, and sold them for half price, making an extra hundred dollars a week, and a lot of friends.

A trucker from near the Quebec border, who delivered to my son’s plant, also owned a farm with a woodlot.  He made his own maple syrup, and my son bought some from him for several years.  It was the dark, strongly flavored type, at a good price.  A new job means we now buy it, a gallon at a time, from Mennonites at the farmers market.

Trees used to be tapped and drip into buckets.  There could be contamination.  Nowadays all taps, several to each tree, are connected to plastic tubing, which delivers the raw sap directly to the boiling shed.  If you drive past a sugar-bush in operation, it looks like the trees are caught in a giant spiderweb.

That’s not all I know about maple syrup, but I know that it’s time to call for a rest.  Anyone hungry?  How about some pancakes or waffles?