"Take off, you hoser." Bob McKenzie Strange Brew

 

It’s just like those evil Canadians to sneak into our space station. Bet the Canadarm is on the north part. Eh.

This week I’m sorry I missed the Wednesday update. I’m sure that hundreds of millions of Americans were awaiting the latest update. So, to all of you that were rending your garments, well, I was up in Canadia Canada.

Oh, sure you say, “You’re John Wilder, the only force in society that has exposed Canada for the brooding, omnipotent, implacable, brooding (oops, used that twice) evil that it is, how in the heck did they let you in?”

A passport. Which is, really, part of the story.

My flight left Houston really early in the morning, and my boarding pass said to show up at least three hours earlier. So, that pretty much rules out drinking the night before, but, strangely Vicoden™ can still be on the menu. Anyhow, regardless, I made the calculation that if I went to sleep my opportunity to get to Canada would be roughly zero, since my alarm clock and a squadron of Soviet MiG fighters would be inadequate to get me out of bed at 4:00 AM (AM is Latin for “Ante Meridian” which translates to the English “ants cover your bellybutton and eat the lint there”).

Anyhow, my ticket said, “For INTERNATIONAL departures, arrive at least THREE hours prior to departure.” I got there then. Because the ticket said so. I walked up to the Air Canada ticket counter, and . . . was greeted by a sign that said, “Eh, we hada lotta Moosehead last night. Ticket counter opens at 5:25 AM. Eh.”

Those hosers. I was an hour early. They must be eating some back bacon and crullers. Dadgum Canadians.

I hit the couches in front of the ticket counter, and decided to take a nap. Amazingly, my brain woke me up at exactly 5:25 AM. Eh. I looked and saw that a whole bunch of people were incredibly upset that the flight to Toronto was cancelled, but mine was still on. Good to be me.

When you’ve done a lot of business travel in your life you learn what I term the Zen of Travel. The Zen of Travel has several components, the first of which is, “Never check a thing, even if it’s the body of Aunt Gertrude. She can fit in the overhead compartment.”

The second koan in the Wilder Zen of Travel is, “You’ll get there sometime. Getting mad won’t get you there sooner, but it will give the travel agents an amusing story to tell later at the bar if you get mad enough to turn red and talk about how you’re the third cousin of a congressman and you won’t be treated like that.”

Me, I got in line, got my ticket, and got the dreaded question. “Can I see your passport, eh?”

Horrors. I was scared. It was here I might get booted off the plane without ever having to get to visit the great white north, eh.

Here’s the story: The Canadian’s won’t let you get into Canada if you ever made a mistake on filling out one of those subscription cards in a magazine. Me? When I was a younger, wilder Wilder I had been arrested once, for an itsy-bitsy (and, this isn’t an Internet itsy-bitsy, but a real-life itsy-bitsy thing, that (honestly) I was innocent of) thing. Not to mention that I’d done tons, eh, of things that Canada might officially disapprove of, but I had gotten caught this one time, for this tiny thing. Eh.

They scanned my passport, looked up at me, and said, “Gate 8A.”

I responded, “Gate 8A?”

“No, eh, Gate 8. Eh.”

Those darn Canadians. Evil, I tell you.

Next: Canada, Eddy Haskell, and Beyond. Eh.