Blame Canada

I love summer. I love summer partly because I don't have to try to convince 8 and 9-year-olds that it really is in their best interest to learn to understand what they read, and the importance of being able to multiply. It's partly because I get to spend it with my children, and partly because I loathe cold weather. I LOVE sunshiny days spent in the pool. The sunnier the better. For a week now, I have not seen the sun. The weather channel, and the weather app on my phone tells me it is sunny, but I can't see it. Why? The Canadian haze. There are wild fires in Canada and the smoke is drifting south to my backyard, more accurately, the tri-state area. It's like a really thick fog that doesn't go away, smells like a campfire, and burns your eyes and throat. It's so bad that our area has been the winner of  the Worst Air Quality in America for the past week. One of my facebook friends posted a photo of her parents lake view. It is a rectangular image that is light grey with a shadow that resembles a tree off to the side. She had the caption, "Canadian smoke effect on the view of my parents' lake place".  I said, "When will the Canadian wild fire burn out, or at least keep the smoke to its self?" Am I blaming Canadians? No. I don't blame them because they don't have Smoky the Bear telling them only they can prevent a forest fire. Them and God since the fire started during a lightning storm. One of her friends responded, (please note I have corrected the misspellings and grammar) "Just for the record the smoke is coming from Northern Saskatchewan where they are having trouble containing fires that have been started by lightning. There are thousands of people out of their homes and will not be going back to. As a Canadian I find it rather upsetting that you Americans think we are trying to smoke you out."  Huh. As an American I find it upsetting you don't have a sense of humor. I understand that the fires are upsetting, but now that you mention it, I do feel like I'm being smoked out. I did not mean to offend anyone, I simply want mother nature to rain or change wind directions. I even Googled, "why don't Canadians have a sense of humor?" and MANY, MANY articles turned up. It's not that they don't have a sense of humor. They think Jim Carey is hilarious... So, that means their sense of humor includes a lot of reference to the words "poop" and "under ware". Their sense of humor is equal to a room full of second-grade boys. To be fair, I've also Googled, "why are so many Americans ignorant?" The first reason is because we believe in the Bible.  Not very valid. But the Canadian one probably is. I've met probably five Canadians. One was in Hawaii while we were on a snorkeling tour. When they found out we were from Fargo, they felt the need to one-up us because it's actually colder there. Really? That's like trying to argue with someone that your farts smell worse. Who would want to be the winner in either category? Another time I met Canadians was when I worked at the local grocery store in college. Being close to Canada, we used to have the Canadians come down to shop in the '90s. I sold a lady a pound of deli ham that cost (we'll say) $3.00.  She said, "I'll give you $2.25". Ummm. NO! This is not a flea market. It is the SUPER market. She told me to keep my *&^% ham. I worked with a Canadian once. She thought all Americans were beneath her, and we are raising generation after generation of idiots (this was before we started to). She also said "again" really weird, and I couldn't stop giggling every time she said it. I used to ask her questions which I knew the response would include "a-gane'. I always wondered how she could think Canadians were so superior. Canadians didn't land on the moon, invent Microsoft, or had a vice president who invented the Internet. So I will sit here in my backyard with my eyes and throat burning, believing in the Bible, and thinking up a whole bunch of ironic things about Canada and their fires so I can take that show on the road. Preferably in Minnesota, where the USA has that square shaped bump that goes into Canada.