Our country’s birthday always gets Canadians particularly agitated. My friend from the wilds of Nova Scotia sent me an e-card this week, as she often does, wishing me a happy July 4th. The card seemed heartfelt, as it always does, but this year it included a not-so-subtle dig. The poor-neighbor-resentment has surfaced big time, and all of a sudden it’s my fault that as massive as they are, those Canadians just can’t extract themselves from our shadow. Maybe they need to look inward, start by choosing one language.
But everyone needs a scapegoat, and Canadians love to beat their fists against our powerful chest in an effort to suggest that widely held perceptions of Canadian inferiority (felt most acutely by Canadians themselves because we folks down here are really way too self-involved to give a shit) are unjustified. I, for one, usually ignore it. But this year’s card gave me pause.
The card, a colorful and animated short cartoon set to the cheerful accompaniment of Yankee Doodle, hinted at a challenge up front: Please do not forget to do the puzzle at the end. Yay. I love puzzles. My Canadian friend knows I fancy myself a great intellectual, and she also knows how important it is to those of us who have reached a certain age to keep the brain cells oxygenated. Experts tell us puzzles are the way to go, no matter what your nationality. Even Canadians do their best to stave off further mental decline with an occasional brain teaser. (So what if they can’t finish; it’s the effort that counts.) I was so excited I have to admit I fast forwarded through the adorable card.
Well, she got me. There, before me on the screen, was an empty outline of the United States, and my task was to pin the various little shapes into the right spots. The shapes weren’t even labeled, no state names to give me the slightest hint. They weren’t even color coded in blue and red to at least give me a heads up as to where the Jews are. I spotted Texas, California, Montana, and Utah. I’m sure I would have recognized Florida, but it was buried somewhere in the stack. Anyway, after mastering the few obvious ones, I was pretty much toast. Touché, Canada, touché.
My other Canadian friend is a bit more belligerent about his inferiority complex. And he's from Toronto, practically a real city. He often sends me articles about gang violence in the United States, particularly in Chicago. And when the reports of guns in every American holster don’t get a rise out of me, he falls back on some favorite United States citizens, like Jesse Jackson. Or Kim Kardashian, whom he believes we who are fortunate enough to live south of the border tend to idolize. Sure, we love her, but that’s because everyone loves to have something or somebody ridiculous to mock. It makes us feel better about ourselves. Would he prefer we mock Canada, an entire nation full of folks who wear black dress socks with gym shoes and can’t figure out whether to speak English or French? Like shooting fish in a barrel, sweetheart. Touché, indeed.
The geography card certainly knocked me off my pedestal, though, gave me a newfound respect for our neighbors to the north, who at least seem to have a good sense of where the provinces are. (Of course I’d like to see how smart they’d be if they had fifty of them.) Frankly, I am reassessing my opinion of the whole lot of them, particularly after hearing that Lululemon, the Vancouver based yoga-inspired clothing company, is searching for a new CEO. Those folks get it. They would not have made me revamp my resume to minimize the importance of my yoga training or pretend my blog doesn’t exist. Word has it they’re not looking for a Harvard MBA or a corporate hot shot who has devoted her entire life and soul to clawing her way up the ladder. Word has it they are simply looking for someone with a bit of business experience who can stand on her head for at least ten minutes.
Hello, Lululemon! I’ve logged thousands of hours doing business on both sides of a cash register. Not that it matters, but I know the product well. I have purchased more than my share of overpriced yoga clothing from you, rationalizing it away with my tiny little instructor discount. And ten minutes in a headstand? Child’s play. My whole world tends to look upside down these days, and last time I checked the earth isn’t doing a headstand so it must be me!
Oh, Canada, I salute you. I will no longer be fooled by the black socks with gym shoes or the linguistic confusion. I am sending you my resume.
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