humor

Why Orange Plastic Palm Trees?

/ Diane Henders / 25 Comments

Okay, I just have to say it.  What is it with brightly coloured plastic palm trees?  Up until a few years ago, I’d never seen one.  Then one day I noticed a pair of them in front of a Chinese food restaurant in Cochrane, Alberta.  I tried to be polite.  I averted my eyes from the garish spectacle and pretended I hadn’t seen them.

But, like dog balls, they were lamentably conspicuous.  And that comparison is actually quite apropos, when you take the plastic coconuts into account.  Unlike dog balls, however, one was bright yellow, and the other was bright orange.  And they lit up at night.  The trees, not the testicles.

Ooh.  Now I’m having a really disturbing mental image.  ‘Scuse me while I swill brain bleach through my ears.

Anyway, I thought these misplaced, misguided items were pretty much one of a kind.  Because really, who’d want twenty-foot-high psychedelic illuminated plastic palm trees?  In Alberta?

I got over my antipathy, because the food was (and is) excellent there.  The décor of the whole restaurant is slightly schizophrenic anyway.  The floor is constructed of dark-stained rough-hewn wooden planks that would be appropriate in a western saloon.  The windows stretch from floor to ceiling, twenty feet high, clad in sweeping, formal peach-coloured brocade draperies sashed with heavy burgundy satin tasselled ropes.  The walls are decorated with bright-red Chinese weavings, and there’s a blue-and-white porcelain fountain and a temporary tattoo dispenser in the lobby.  When you think about it, the palm trees fit right in.

But really, one of a kind, right?

Fast forward to yesterday.  I’m heading out to Manitoba again for the next couple of weeks, and I was somewhere between Medicine Hat, Alberta and Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan when my horrified gaze was captured by… you guessed it.

A plastic palm tree.  Mounted on a campground sign beside the TransCanada highway, in the middle of Saskatchewan.

I would have pulled over to snap a picture, but I was doing 110 km/hr, and, frankly, I thought I might be seeing things.  It’s a long drive, after all.  But it was still there when I looked in the rearview mirror, so I’m pretty sure I didn’t hallucinate it.  And I’m pretty sure the green flecks in those brownies were zucchini.

When I searched “orange plastic palm tree” on the internet, I discovered these trees are apparently much more common than I thought.  There were a startling number of photos.  In fact, I ran across one photo of one with a multi-coloured trunk, striped in blue, brown, yellow and white.

Which leads me back to my original question:  WHY?

Yes, it can get pretty depressing living in a country where it’s winter eight months of the year.  Yes, I know what it’s like to be so desperate for the sight of something not-white that you watch the golf channel just for the sake of seeing green grass and water that isn’t frozen.

But if that’s the motivation, then why not buy a fake palm tree that looks like a palm tree?  Green.  With a brown trunk.

I guess it’s just one of the great mysteries of life.  So the only logical answer to “Why?” is “42”.

Cooking With Spam

/ Diane Henders / 15 Comments

I have a sneaking sympathy for the manufacturers of SPAM, that “is-it-really-meat” product my mother usually fried with a crunchy coating of cracker crumbs.  It must be tough on their self-image to be associated with worthless, annoying email.  Maybe that’s why I keep an open mind to the humorous potential of the spam I get on this blog.

Most of it is the garden-variety “buy our product” crap, but every now and then, a true gem lodges in my spam filters to tickle my funny-bone.

For instance:  “Excellently constructed report, if all people offered a similar posts just like you, the net would be a more desirable destination.”  I’ve seen that particular comment umpteen times, but in this case the context made me laugh when it appeared on my post “Gettin’ Down At A Piss-Up”.  Soooo… piss-ups are a desirable destination… yeah, okay, I’ll give you that one.

Or how about this one: “…you still take care of to keep it wise.”  …Except for the fact that my post was titled “Brainless”…

And then there was the warmly complimentary, “Excellent facts many thanks for posting about it.”  I might have let that one slide under other circumstances, but my post was “Barbie, Celebrity Affairs, and Altering Reality” – a post entirely devoted to the rambling fantasies of my deranged mind.

Then there are the ones I suspect are secret communications in a clever code.  Maybe they think since I write spy fiction, I’ll be able to decipher their messages.  For example:  “I’m gonna watch out for brussels.”  Oooookay, then.  Good to know.  I’ll watch out for brussels, too.  Are we talkin’ sprouts, European cities, or what?

This cryptic comment really made me wonder:  “tiger blood?”  That was it.  No other information.  Just the question mark, which was obviously intended to be a clue.  As in, “Do we have a go for our covert op that’s so badass we code-named it ‘tiger blood’?”  Or maybe it’s an honest question:  “Is that tiger blood?  Or just ketchup?”  Or wait a minute, maybe it’s a comment on my savage beauty, my untamed… aah, never mind.  Probably not.

But, hell, maybe there is some irresistible attraction at work here.  I just got this comment:  “I got what you think, thanks for swing up. Woh I am glad to gestate this website”.  Well, if you’re swinging, I think you probably got the clap.  I haven’t heard the euphemism “swing up” before, but it seems to me a swing-up would be better than a swing-down.  I think a swing-down would make it much more difficult to gestate.  Besides, a swing-down just seems so… dejected.  Deflated.  Flaccid.  (Yeah, I used that word).

But, like gonorrhea, my visitor’s enthusiasm is infectious.  “Woh I am glad to gestate this website!”

Hey, I’m easy.  Flattery will get you everywhere.  Gestate away to your heart’s content.  Just wash your hands before you come to the table.

‘Scuse me while I go fry some of these up with cracker crumbs.

Making Up Is Hard To Blue

/ Diane Henders / 17 Comments

Ah, the festive season.  A time when most women look forward to getting dolled up with glamorous makeup and swanky little cocktail dresses.  (I said swanky, not skanky.  Don’t put words in my mouth.)

I, on the other hand, try to attend only events where I can wear jeans and swill beer in my usual bare-faced comfort.

Once upon a time, I wore makeup.  And by “once upon a time”, I don’t mean, literally, “once”.  I mean there was a time in my life, decades ago, when I actually wore it frequently.  There are many good reasons why I stopped wearing it.  Here’s one of them.

Blue eyeshadow was fashionable when I was in junior high school.  I was a geeky kid.  The eyeshadow package had instructions.  What could possibly go wrong?

My younger sister was involved in a school Christmas concert.  Mom had to be there early to help out, and Dad was to bring me along later, in time for the actual performance.

Feeling very grown-up, I decided to wear my new eyeshadow.  The package contained two shades of vivid blue.  I read the instructions carefully.  They said something like, “Apply darker shade on eyelid and blend lighter shade up to brow bone”.

This confused me.  I thought eyeshadow was supposed to go on the eyelids.  My brow bone seemed a helluva long way up there.

I spent a short time puzzling over the exact definition of “brow bone”, but I didn’t think there was a hidden meaning.  I seem to recall actually looking it up in the encyclopedia to make sure I’d gotten it right (I told you I was a geek).  No alternate definitions for “brow bone”.

Little did I know that researching “brow bone” was the wrong approach.  I should have researched the word “blend”.  Or maybe looked in a fashion magazine to see how the real makeup artists did it, though that’s an iffy proposition at best.

Cheerfully oblivious to better judgement, I smeared blue eyeshadow all the way up to my eyebrows.

Dad made no comment, and off we went.

We arrived in the already dimmed auditorium and found seats.  Just before the show began, my mother arrived to join us.  I distinctly remember the look of horror on her face, but I can’t remember exactly what she said.  The gist of her reaction was, “You let her go out looking like that?!?”

To which Dad replied with his usual honesty, “It all looks awful to me.  I couldn’t tell the difference.”

I’d like to say I learned my lesson that night and always applied my makeup tastefully from then on.  Sadly, however, photographic evidence suggests otherwise.  I respectfully submit that I may have been the main reason behind blue eyeshadow’s subsequent decline in popularity.  Don’t say I never did anything for you.

These days, I only wear makeup when I’m having pictures taken, which mercifully only happens once every few years.  I wear the makeup for exactly long enough to have the picture taken, and then I immediately go home and scrub it all off.

Earth tones only.  Never, ever blue eyeshadow.

A Dave By Any Other Name

/ Diane Henders / 19 Comments

I’ve been called a lot of different names in my lifetime, sometimes by people sincerely trying to get my name right; other times not so much.  Like a dog, I focus on the intonation, not the actual words.  “Sweetheart” can sound really hostile, and “Hey, Buttbrain” can warm my heart.

Not that anybody’s ever called me Buttbrain.  This week.

Some people seem to accumulate nicknames more easily than others, but I suspect there are a couple of factors that influence the process.  The truly cool nicknames usually get applied to people who’ve either done something truly cool, or truly dumb.  Besides that (dubious) qualification, it seems to me the quality of one’s nickname says more about the creativity of one’s friends than anything else.

I wasn’t overly popular in school.

Wait, gotta run.  Minions of the Society for the Eradication of Ridiculous Understatement are breaking down my door to drag me away…

Okay, I’m back.  Phew.  Lucky I learned those ninja skills while the cool kids were attending all their cool parties.

I didn’t do anything particularly dumb in school, and I missed “truly cool” by an embarrassingly wide margin.  My nickname in school was “Fender Bender”, which sounds kinda cool now, but in fact had nothing to do with my driving skills and everything to do with the fact that those are the first two words in alphabetical order that rhyme with “Henders”.

Those who knew me in university might consider “Fender Bender” appropriate, but that wasn’t related to my driving, either.  Suffice it to say that you don’t want to narrowly miss running over me in a crosswalk.  I get irate when I’m scared shitless.

Later, I acquired some more predictable nicknames:  “Di”, and, while Charles and Diana were an item, “Lady Di”, which caused considerable amusement to those who knew me well.  Ain’t no ladies here.

Oh, and I was briefly nicknamed “Garbage Gut”, “Mongo”, and “Anklebiter” in university, but those were just passing phases.

My all-time favourite nickname was “Dave”.  Back when I was a geek…  Oh, never mind.

Back when I was being paid to be a geek, the vendors apparently decided a mere woman couldn’t possibly deal with the intricacies of building computers and networks, so they christened me “Dave”.  For the last several years I held that job, most of my outside correspondence arrived addressed to “Dave Henders”.

I didn’t really mind.  I figured Dave was probably a pretty cool guy.  In fact, I developed a fondness for Dave, so I named a character in my fourth book after him.

The rest of my handles were either insults or endearments, none of them particularly interesting or creative.  Though Hubby does call me Gorgeous on occasion, which is just one of the many reasons why I love him.

So, to quote the old chestnut:  Call me anything you like; just don’t call me late for dinner.

Or you can call me Dave.  That works, too.

What are (were) your nicknames?

Barbie, Celebrity Affairs, and Altering Reality

/ Diane Henders / 23 Comments

Every now and then, my mind wanders.  All right, fine, my mind wanders quite a bit.  But sometimes it wanders farther afield than usual, into the realm of the truly ridiculous.

I’ve already mentioned I sometimes wonder whether electronic devices are actually sentient, but here’s another thought that intrigues me:  wouldn’t it be cool if you could alter reality with your mind?  There are lots of experts out there who say reality is subjective, and we create our own reality through our perceptions.  I like that idea.

I usually think of it around the time hail is pummelling my garden.  I send psychic waves up into the sky, imagining tents of steel mesh diverting the hailstones away from my slowly liquefying tomatoes and zucchini.  It never works, but it gives me something to do besides ripping my hair out.

And I can hardly wait until I figure out how to teleport.  Imagine how wonderful vacations would be.  You could go anywhere in the world in the blink of an eye, see whatever you want, and then pop home and sleep in your own bed.  You’d never have to worry about forgetting something.  You could teleport home and water the plants, put the cat out/in, grab your toothbrush, whatever.  I really, really want to be able to teleport.

When I was a kid, I wondered if my teddy bears and Barbie dolls came alive at night when I was sleeping.  I imagined the teddy bears getting up and walking around, doing teddy-bear things, though I wasn’t quite sure what those might be.  Come to think of it, I’m still not sure what those might be.  What would a teddy bear actually do if it was alive?

And I imagined the fights and explanations between Barbie, Ken, and Stacey:

“Ken!  What were you doing lying on top of Stacey?  How dare you?”

“Barbie, I swear, that little kid just crammed us together.  I couldn’t help it!”

“Well, you sure took your time getting off her, didn’t you?  And where are your pants!?!”

“Honey, you know I can’t move while the kid’s looking!  And the pants weren’t my fault…”

While I’m on that topic, I always wondered about poor Ken’s lack of, er, “features”.  Was it a tragic industrial accident?  A vengeful Barbie?  A manufacturing defect?

I also imagined that pictures of people could actually see.  It made getting undressed for bed an interesting, if somewhat self-conscious process, what with all those posters of movie-star men hanging on my wall.  To this day, I don’t keep a picture of my parents in my bedroom. 

Come to think of it, though, that might explain a lot about all the celebrity hook-ups and divorces.  When they spend all that time with their faces and bodies crammed against each other inside the pages of People magazine and the tabloids, you’ve got to expect nature to take its course at least some of the time.

What do you think?

Gettin’ Down At A Piss-Up

/ Diane Henders / 9 Comments

This weekend, we attended the Grape Escape, a showcase of food, wine, and liquor.  As usual, there was a mind-boggling and delicious array of food and booze.  As usual, we poured ourselves into a cab afterward and managed to maintain a semi-vertical orientation while we staggered into our house.

Many of the other attendees didn’t manage to stay even semi-vertical.  By the end of the four-hour event, bodies were propped against the walls, and I was saved from being crushed only because a garbage can intercepted the fall of the very tall man stumbling determinedly in my direction.

Considering that 2,500 shit-faced strangers are confined in one large hall for four hours, it’s a remarkably orderly event, probably due to the pairs of police officers sprinkled strategically throughout the venue.  We go every year, so none of this surprised me.

What did surprise me was the sheer number of seductively-dressed women in attendance.  I obviously failed to realize the hook-up potential of the show.  It was -20 outside.  I saw more exposed flesh there than at a Calgary beach in the middle of summer.  Not to mention 4”+ stiletto heels, which are truly entertaining when their wearer couldn’t walk a straight line if she was barefoot and holding two handrails.

The crowd was cheerful and all-embracing.  Literally.  I wore jeans, a T-shirt, hiking boots, and a wedding ring.  By the end of the event, guys even started coming onto me.  I’m not sure whether they couldn’t see straight enough to realize they weren’t talking to the cute young thing beside/behind me, or whether they just didn’t care that much anymore.  Gotta love beer goggles:  improving middle-aged women’s self-esteem since the invention of beer.

I felt sorry for the long-suffering vendors by the end of the night, though.  I’m pretty sure there were only a handful of us who were still capable of focusing both eyes on the label while they extolled the virtues of their Sauvignon Blanc.

Some of that was their own fault, though.  They were generous with their samples, and there were a couple hundred different kinds of beer, wine, liqueurs, and hard liquor.  Take even a mouthful of each, and you won’t make it around all the displays.  I speak from happy experience here.  Very happy.

I was delighted to discover some new favourite beers and wines, but I guess I missed the main point of the event, which was apparently to get pissed and get down.

I didn’t quite achieve “pissed”, but I was close.  Next year, I’ll try harder.  And maybe I’ll get myself some 4” stilettos, too.  It’s cheap amusement to see a guy’s expression when I peer down at him from a 6’2” height.  Fortunately, Hubby’s secure in his manhood, and at 5’7”, he doesn’t mind being eye-level with a couple of my more outstanding features.

And, hey, when you’re wearing heels that high, getting down at the end of the evening is a sure thing.  Who says four inches can’t be satisfying?

Totally Freakin’ Inadequate

/ Diane Henders / 17 Comments

I’m still on the road this week, and maybe my bad hotel karma has finally run its course, because my hotel in Regina didn’t feature hookers, cattle, or rappelling nudists.

It did, however, make me wonder who makes the purchasing decisions in the hospitality industry.  I stayed in a king suite at a nice hotel (not on my own dime – you know I’m too cheap for that).  But despite the upscale surroundings, I felt… cheated.  Because this hotel, like most I’ve stayed in recently, apparently purchased their supplies from the Totally Freakin’ Inadequate Supply Company.

The low-flow shower head was so pathetic I had to stand under it for five minutes before I at last felt a trickle of water on my scalp.  Granted, I have long, thick hair, and it usually takes a few seconds before anything penetrates.  Some would argue that nothing ever penetrates, but that’s another story.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m actually quite rabid about conserving water.  I grew up on a farm where every drop of potable water was trucked in.  Most people think “bath night” is a tale from the dark ages, but on our farm, it meant two inches of water in the bottom of the bathtub.  The cleanest person went first, the dirtiest last.  I’m not even going to describe what the water looked like by the time five bodies had gone through.

But I digress.  My point is, I fully agree with water conservation, but you have to apply some logic.  It takes X amount of water to wash your hair.  If X is supplied in five minutes, that’s fine.  But if it takes ten minutes to supply X, you’ll be standing there for ten minutes.  You’re not saving water, you’re just wasting time.

The lighting underwhelmed me, too.  There are lots of good options available for compact fluorescent bulbs.  Sadly, the hotel didn’t choose any of them.  When I flipped the switch, nothing happened.  I assumed I’d hit the wrong switch, so I tried the other one.  Still nothing.  At last, the light flickered to life with a series of seizure-inducing flashes.  Not inadequate once it got going, but definitely disturbing.

The toilet paper was totally freakin’ inadequate.  They think they’re saving money by buying cheaper toilet paper?  I could see through the stuff.  Trust me, nobody is ever going to use only three squares of single-ply, micron-thin toilet paper.  Ever.

The towels, too, failed the adequacy test.  At home, I call that size a “hand towel”.  That’s because it fits hands nicely.  Not bodies.  At least, not this body.

But what do I know?  Maybe their target market is bald, constipated midgets with excellent night vision and no tendency toward epilepsy.  It’s all about niche marketing these days.

So here’s my question.  Why spend money on high quality furnishings, and then cheap out on the things that, frankly, guests notice more than the tub and tile?  Half price is nice, but there’s no actual cost saving when you have to use twice as much.  And it annoys the hell out of the folks like me.

But maybe I’m just cranky because my fingers went through the toilet paper.  Again.

Sorry for my tardiness in responding to comments this week.  I’m helping my step-mom after her breast cancer surgery, and I haven’t had much time for blogging or visiting anybody else’s blogs, either.  I hope to be back to my usual routine soon.  Thanks for sticking with me!  🙂

Confessions of an Undercounter Lurker

/ Diane Henders / 18 Comments

I’m an ice cream addict, and my nephew recently offered to let me hide under the Dairy Queen counter so he could feed me any treats he’d made wrong.  Little did he know that lurking under counters is not a new activity for me.  (And I didn’t enlighten him.  There are some things a fifteen-year-old doesn’t need to know.)

If you’d told me twenty years ago that I’d spend a substantial amount of time on my knees under co-workers’ desks, I’d probably have slapped you.  And a few years later, I’d have had to apologize.  Because I ended up doing exactly that.

Wait a minute.  If you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking, not exactly that.  Jeez.

For a lot of years, the joke around the office was, “If you can’t find Diane, look under your desk”.  I was working as a network administrator, and I spent far too much time hunched under desks, connecting and disconnecting various computer-related plugs and cables.

Aside from the carnivorous dust bunnies, I didn’t mind having to crawl around on the floor frequently.  I hate dressing up, and it gave me an excuse to never wear a skirt to work (or any particularly nice clothes, for that matter).

And it was peaceful down there.  Nice and dark and quiet.  Sometimes it was tempting to just hole up for the day and spout incomprehensible technical jargon if challenged.  Kind of like a deranged techno-troglodyte:  “Back!  Back, I say!  Or I’ll ping your IP ‘til your CAT5 sizzles like an electrocuted snake!  I’ll FDISK your drive ‘til it can’t find its FAT with both hands!  RAM!  FAP!  Buwahahaha!”

I can’t understand why my coworkers always seemed… wary.

I’ve actually hidden under a desk to avoid people, too.  I prefer to call it “a clever strategic decision”, not “cowardice”, but you can form your own judgement.

I was hiding from my ex-husband.  Who had just encountered my brand-new boyfriend at the door to my house.  There was a dog and a bag of cherries involved.  Let’s just say it was complicated.

I couldn’t decide whether it would be worse to make an appearance and potentially exacerbate the situation, or to get caught huddling under my desk.  How do you explain hiding like a kid, when you’re thirty-three years old?  “Um, I just dropped something…”  Ten minutes ago, when the doorbell rang for the first time.  Yeah, right.

Anyway, I didn’t get caught, both the dog and the cherries ended up where they belonged, and both males departed unscathed, if not unruffled.  I like to think I made the right decision on that one.

I’m going to skip the Dairy Queen gig, though.  Wouldn’t want this undercounter thing to become a habit.

Any other lurkers out there?

Update:

As Charles points out in the comments, you can’t just leave a situation with an ex-husband, new boyfriend, a dog, and a bag of cherries without explanation.  So go for it.  Use your imagination, and drop your best explanation of “what *might* have been” in the comments below.  I’ll pick a winner next Wednesday and send out a (probably not so) magnificent prize.

I Look Great… Ouch!

/ Diane Henders / 11 Comments

Last week, an acquaintance told me, “You look ten years younger now than when I first met you!”  I basked in the glorious glow of the compliment until I realized that:

  • This meant I looked like shit three years ago; and
  • She didn’t mention how old I actually look now.  Only that I look younger than I did, which is not much comfort if I looked like a desiccated old bat three years ago.  So maybe I look like a dewy, well-hydrated old bat now.

The analytical mind isn’t always a good thing.

Don’t get me wrong, it was a wonderful compliment.  I’m still basking in it.  I prefer to assume she meant it the way I took it:  “You look great!”

However.

When you were in your teens and twenties, did your friends ever say “You look great” when they ran into you by chance?  No, of course not.  Not unless you’d actually put on a dress and makeup for the first time in five years.  But that’s probably just me.  That’s not my point.

My point is, one day I’m schlepping along in my usual jeans and T-shirt.  Hair is what it always is.  No makeup, as usual.  I run into Bobby Jo from high school, and she squeals, “You look great!”

They’re the words of doom.  The beginning of the end.  They don’t mean “You look great”.  They mean “You look great for your age”.

That happened for the first time when I was in my late thirties, and it was a rude shock to realize that I was, in fact, aging whether I wanted to or not.  Although the alternative to getting older is… meh, not so appealing.

A decade or so later, I’ve (almost) accepted the fact that I’m middle-aged, and now I’m delighted to hear “You look great”.  Or any compliment, for that matter.  I write them down in a special file and save them.  I’d like to add “just kidding” so I don’t look too pathetic.  But then I’d be lying.

Just to rage against the dying of the light, I started working out seriously about four years ago.  Finally got back into shape, and popped for some professionally done bikini photos to prove it.  It’s amazing what some artful lighting and a good camera angle will do.  Not to mention sucking in my gut so hard the top of my head just about blew off.  I looked seriously constipated in a lot of the proofs.

But there were some good ones, too.  For a brief few minutes, I looked great, and it’s recorded for posterity.

I don’t like the word “aging”, so I’ve decided to not to use it.  I’m getting… um… experienced.  Seasoned.  Ripened.  Maturing like a bottle of fine wine.  (Why can’t I think of any non-food-related references?  Now I’m hungry.)

But at least I look great.  For my age.

I’m Canadian, I Swear

/ Diane Henders / 30 Comments

*F-BOMB ALERT* – CONTAINS (more) COARSE LANGUAGE (than usual)

Think I’ll get that printed on a T-shirt, along with a maple leaf.

Studies show (and I want to know who got paid for this one) that Canadians swear more than Americans, Brits, or Europeans.  We’re not merely foul-mouthed, we’re world-champion spewers of profanity and obscenity.

Unless we’re around people we don’t know.  Then we wouldn’t say shit if we had a mouthful of it.  ‘Cause, well, we’re polite, eh?  (Unless we’re rioting after hockey games, but that’s different.)

If I had a nickel for every time I said something vulgar, profane, or obscene in front of my friends, I could quit my job and live forever more on the proceeds.  But if I’m with strangers, I don’t swear.  There’s some bizarre internal filter that simply won’t let that language out.  Instead, it all gets saved up for the next time some fucking moron cuts me off in traffic.

I’m not the only one who does this, either.  The same study showed that it’s a Canadian trait to be restrained in public but a potty-mouth when with friends.  Guess they weren’t listening the day our Culture Minister publicly referred to Canadian television as “shit”.

This blog is an exception to the “not in front of strangers” rule.  We’re all friends here, right?  And I wouldn’t want the language in my books to come as a complete shock.  But still, I post the F-bomb alert.  Other bloggers just let ‘er rip, but I’m too… Canadian.

I’m not sure why we collectively possess such a deep well of profanity.  Maybe it’s because we’re trying so hard to be polite to every dipshit we meet that it just has to come out somewhere.

Maybe it’s the beaver jokes.  As you may know, the beaver is our national animal, causing no end of hilarity to those with dirty minds (which would be most of us).  It’s really hard to avoid a little coarse language under the circumstances.

Or maybe it’s our weather.  Let’s face it, when you live in a country where a third of the land mass has continuous permafrost, profanity seems like an unavoidable consequence.  In the southern areas, schools close when the temperature dips to -40 degrees Celsius.  If it’s only -38, well, suck it up, ya pansy-ass kids, and walk to the bus.  The swearing habit starts early here.

For those who aren’t familiar with Canada, I should mention that we do, in fact, have summer.  You can tell it’s summer when the grass turns a funny green colour, and enormous squadrons of mosquitoes attempt to carry you away if you venture outside.  But that only lasts about ten minutes, and then it’s back to fucking winter.

I’m exaggerating.  We actually do have other seasons on the prairies, called “goddamn hail again”, “holy shit, tornadoes”, and “sumbitch heat and humidity”.

Or, if we don’t know you:  “How about that weather, eh?”

Any other potty-mouths out there?  What are the seasons in your neck of the woods?