My good friend Philbin Dobby (who used to work here in town with my sometimes-buddy Keiler) up and got married to a Canadian girlie a few years ago, and the two of them migrated north, never to be seen again.<\/p>\n
OK, well, I’ve seen them once since, but I don’t think that’s\u00a0quite as dramatic a statement.<\/p>\n
Anyway, he\u00a0toiled in the oil fields of NoCanDu (that’s Northern Canada, for all you non-French-speaking-yuppie types) for a time before finally getting back into his chosen field: create-ery. First, he and his wife, Petra, worked independently for a while, putting\u00a0out some really neat stuff. Then, fairly recently, he took a wicked gnarly job with a subsidiary of Bill Gates’ Corbis Corp. in Canada, doing UI create-ery.<\/p>\n
I know how much he makes, but I’m not supposed to say because it would make Keiler vomit.<\/p>\n
The perks are nice – great salary, discretionary cash for personal fitness and office purchases (like, an allowance for whatever he wants), high-end computational machines for both work and home, some of this, a bit of that, a little of the other AND free beer on Fridays. And some things I forgot, too. But what mostly makes me sick is the free beer on Fridays. And I don’t know why. But the twerp started IMing me last week as he was guzzling down a Guinness. Not always my drink of choice, maybe, but it’s good and refreshing and expensive enough to merit a gold on free drink day.<\/p>\n
Anyway, so he’s been teasing me about moving to Canada for years now. Something about all Canadians sucking, and how my being there would turn his life around, etc., and something else about my presence causing the sun to shine, and how I was just the best and perfect, or something along those lines. I can’t remember all the arguments now. Then last Friday he cranked up the knobs on me, but still under the guise of jokery. I’d say he kicked it up a notch, but kind of in an Emeril-on-a-drunk sort of way.\u00a0I think it was the Guinness. All fun, all fun, but the whole time he was encouraging me to watch for open slots at his company, the top 11 reasons\u00a0why I couldn’t\u00a0move to\u00a0God’s deep freeze\u00a0kept running through my mind (OK, so I didn’t actually think of any of them until later, and as I write this sentence I know of only 3 reasons. But they’ll come, and there will be 11 of them. Big Carter says top 10 lists are fantastic… so 11 should be even fantasticker):<\/p>\n
11. I’d have to turn my cats out into the street. <\/strong> 10. French folks make me nauseous.<\/strong> 9. I’d probably just get deported anyway. 8. European travel would lose its zing.<\/strong> 7. I’d have to learn to drive on the right side of the street.<\/strong> 6. I’d have to sell all my shootin’ irons. 5. They don’t know how to play hockey up there.<\/strong> 4. It would be a heck of a drive to come see my kinfolk.<\/strong> 3. I’m not ready for socialized medicine yet. 2. It would be a salary cut for me. 1. I would have to go by myself.<\/strong> My good friend Philbin Dobby (who used to work here in town with my sometimes-buddy Keiler) up and got married to a Canadian girlie a few years ago, and the two of them migrated north, never to be seen again. OK, well, I’ve seen them once since, but I don’t think that’s\u00a0quite as dramatic a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7,10,12],"tags":[45,46,47],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.thetucker.com\/mwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.thetucker.com\/mwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.thetucker.com\/mwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.thetucker.com\/mwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.thetucker.com\/mwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=347"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.thetucker.com\/mwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.thetucker.com\/mwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.thetucker.com\/mwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.thetucker.com\/mwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nThe huge fat one would have a heart attack if we tried to move him that far. He nearly expired during the 10 minute car ride from Mom’s when we first got him, and would most assuredly do so in the future if he had to climb into another box or see another outside or meet another human being. And the smaller ones (just big fat, not huge fat) would be pissy for months.<\/p>\n
\nThey\u00a0just do. And I get a bad taste in my ears. But I’m full of American-style excuses for that particular bit of causal upchuckery. Until recently I believed that my father’s family came from Germany or thereabouts, and anti-French sentiment was always abundant in the day-to-day of my early life.\u00a0My recent discoveries tell me that my not-German family were probably French after all, though, and the whole denial thing about that makes me want to keep all the separate more\u00a0from the fictitious\u00a0monsters of my troubled past.<\/p>\n
\n<\/strong>Canadians don’t like me for some reason. Petra tolerates me some because I’m nice to Philby, but\u00a0not many do. Deep\u00a0down they know I’m just one of them pesky right-thinking conservative types, and that’s far worse than an unbathed Frenchman.<\/p>\n
\nThe hate always stops pretty quick if the ‘Trashers think you’re not an American. And to me, really,\u00a0the\u00a0hate and narrow-mindedness of our loving and open-minded cousins\u00a0across the many waters\u00a0is\u00a0the best part of traveling through Europa. I mean, a visit to the local pub just isn’t quite right if you don’t get a little German, French and\/or Italian spittle on you. But that happens even when they’re pleased with you.<\/p>\n
\nI hear them Mounties wouldn’t take too kindly to my alternative driving style.<\/p>\n
\n<\/strong>Barack Obama says that when white folks get frustrated, they buy guns. Well, I guess I’ve been frustrated about 6 times now, and I’ve finally got a fairly decent little collection of keepsakes and home defense implements put aside. But of course our friends up-North-a-ways don’t\u00a0cast too many kindwise glances\u00a0upon that particular freedom I so enjoy. I wouldn’t want to have to get all moved up yonder just to discover I need to learn to swing the nunchaku. Oh, but wait… those are illegal in Canada as well. Hmm… I guess I’d just have to train myself an attack moose.<\/p>\n
\n\ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n
\nI’d be completely cut off from everybody. It’s not like\u00a0I could\u00a0just jump in the car and drive for 36 hours to see them anytime I wanted to. Plus, with the price of gas, that would be one expensive trip.<\/p>\n
\n<\/strong>It’s true. But Obama’s zombies might get him into office this coming November, though (where he would continue to be completely unqualified, but\u00a0make his peeps feel oh, so warm and fuzzy inside), so\u00a0this list may become a proper ten-pointer someday soon. One thing’s for sure, though: I might actually consider moving up to Philby’s neighborhood if that ever happens. I’d much rather deal with Canada’s broken healthcare system (which is at least somewhat stable by now) than to go through the birthing pains of the ugly bastard of a social system that would replace our current medical machine.<\/p>\n
\n<\/strong>Philbin tells me that a house equivalent to the one I own now would cost more than 3x what mine is valued. the $15k bump I’d get in salary wouldn’t cover that. Plus I’d have to deal with selling this one into a crappy market. Of course, if reason #6 weren’t on the table, I could shoot and\u00a0prepare my own\u00a0moose, thus saving big at the grocery store.<\/p>\n
\nSeriously. Lynn just about freaked when I suggested moving to a different part of town once. An out-of-city move would be\u00a0out of the question for her, not to mention an out-of-country one. And let’s face it:\u00a0“No”\u00a0wins every time.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"