Are you married?
How’s that working out for you?
I was married once — for four months — and this is the story of why you should never marry a Canadian.
Twenty trillion years ago, my fiance and I had broken up, and I rebound-dated a guy from Canada, who was in Houston working for a Canadian oil company.
In fact, there were a whole slough of them (Canadians) that all worked for this particular Canadian oil company.
They’d all come into the bar where I worked, at least 3-4 times a week, which was right down the road from their shop.
Let me just tell you that the “myth” that Canadians are big drinkers is not even close to being a myth.
It’s a stone cold fact, Jack!
I couldn’t remember the name of that oil company right now, even if I was being electrocuted, but I do equate being electrocuted with being married to a Canadian.
Pretty much the same result: You walk away dazed, with your hair feeling like it’s on fire, and it stings like a mothertrucker!
Yeah, I know what you’re going to say…
It’s unfair to lump ALL Canadians into one big heap of ABSOLUTE NO-GOs.
It’s also unfair to say that all cookies are delicious, and yet I’ve never met a cookie I didn’t like.
Anyway…
I suppose I should come up with some sort of pseudonym for this Canadian ex-hubs of mine, huh?
How about we just call him “SumBitch,” eh?
As the folks in Quebec would say, “Oui, Oui!”
So I met SumBitch in the bar where I worked, and there were sparks.
We dated a little, and then dated a lot, and eventually were, pretty much, together every dang day.
(I just threw up a little bit just admitting that poor decision.)
About eight months into the relationship, SumBitch’s Canadian company tells him that they’re closing down their operations in Houston.
They were shipping my SumBitch back to Canada faster than you can say, “Labatts Blue Ribbon.”
Can you see where this is going, and why you should never marry a Canadian?
Not yet?
Hang tight.
The hockey puck will be in the goal in a minute or two.
SumBitch tells me he’s going back to Canada and asks me if I want to go with him.
“Just give it a shot,” SumBitch says. “Canada is just like the States,” that SumBitch insists.
Not thinking my next move through was far worse than any Nickleback song ever sung.
Rebounding and feeling like my time in Houston was up, I agreed to go.
Not just to go visit and check it out…
Oh, hell no. That would be too logical and rational.
Instead, I let that SumBitch pay for the movers to come and pack up everything I owned and move it to Canada.
Suffice it to say that that wasn’t my best life choice.
On top of that, that little SumBitch was less than forthright when describing his hometown — the place I was being moved to.
The moose outnumbered the people 50 to 1.
So I moved from a city of five million, to a town of less than 150.
You can bet your last maple leaf that it was quite the culture shock.
Sure, the people there were polite(ish), but SumBitch neglected to mention a few facts before I arrived in northern Alberta, other than the size of his map-dot town.
First, SumBitch wasn’t going to be around.
As in, his job in Canada was working way out in the “bush,” and he was going to be gone for 30-45 days at a time, leaving me alone in a strange COUNTRY.
Second, SumBitch was adamant that I’d easily get a job at the local bar tending bar, and it wouldn’t matter that I wasn’t a Canadian citizen.
As far as getting a job in Canada went, I took his word for it.
I mean, why in the Toronto tutus would I do my own due diligence and ensure that I could work, before illegally moving to another country?
That would just be plain silly!
So there I am, sitting in Canada by myself, not able to work, thinking I may have (possibly) made a mistake.
Taking matters into my own hands, I decide to give the Canadian government a jingle and ask them what they thought I should do.
The Canadian goose on the other end of the line gave it to me straight.
“Well,” she honked, “You’re in the country of Canada illegally, so you can’t work. You have two choices. Either you renounce your U.S. Citizenship and apply for Canadian citizenship, which will take up to three years to process, or your can marry a Canadian.”
Renounce my American citizenship?
Was that obliging Ottawan mad???
Obviously, it was time to move onto Plan B and marry SumBitch, right?
I mean, that was the only logical option.
And that’s exactly what happened.
He showed back up about a month later, and we were married in a living room by the Canadian equivalent of a Justice of the Peace.
Complete with a fake, cubic zirconia “wedding ring.”
Full disclosure:
I was drunker than 20 Canadians on Boxing Day when I got married.
Saying that I barely remember my “wedding” would be the understatement of this Canadian calamity.
SumBitch took off the very next day to head back to work in “the bush,” and my first order of business was to call up Oh, Canada again and tell them I was officially married to a Canadian, and I wanted to go to work.
I was willing to keep calling until their King or Queen or Supreme Leader — or however the hell was in charge of this Niagara Falls nightmare of a nation — got on the horn and gave me the green light to get a job…legally.
No dice.
The response that I received was that I was going to have to file all of the correct documentation. Then those docs would have to be processed, and it would take up to one year for me to be considered “legal.”
Manitoba Madness!!!
Meanwhile, SumBitch kept calling me and telling me that he had to stay “in the bush” to finish the job he was working on.
I truly didn’t give a Canadian crap by that point.
SumBitch showed back up three months after we got married and announced that he’d knocked up one of the housekeeping girls that worked at the bush mancamp.
Now we all know why he called it working in “the bush,” don’t we?
Sheepishly, SumBitch informed me that we were going to have to get a divorce, so he could marry his Calgary C. U. Next Tuesday.
All of the British Columbia bling in the world couldn’t have kept me there, by that point — not that SumBitch was asking me stay.
I bid SumBitch adieu and left Oh, Canada, four months after I got married.
My ego wouldn’t let me return to Houston a complete Canadian failure, so I went to my home state of Michigan.
So there you have it!
Never marry a Canadian!
If you do marry a Canadian SumBitch, he’ll lie to you, cheat on you, knock up a Canadian See You Next Tuesday and then ask for a divorce — all within four months!
Now that I think about it, that probably could happen to you here, there or anywhere.
But why chance it?
Because, let’s face it, men love to go to work in the bush, don’t they?
I can tell you one thing, I’ll certainly never marry a Canadian again.
You can take those loonies and toonies to the bank!
More tomorrow,
-A