Canadian Humor

What a country! We've been impressed by how friendly and unassuming most Canadians seem to be. Their natural sense of humor and acceptance of what most US citizens would see as oppresive or intrusive or just plain wrong is quite amazing. I mentioned the cost of insuring a motorcycle here as an example of what in the US would be a deterent to owning a bike ($2000 a year for a cruiser). Gas prices are another issue, $5 seems the norm for regular, even higher in remote places. Food and lodging are not cheap and beer is at least a dollar a can for the cheapest at a liquor control store, not a bar. And, it's not even winter yet!

I've collected some examples of humor that seem to exemplify Canada. First is a rather grim but in some ways humorous warning I found on a discarded cigarette package (it's in a category that does not even exist in the US: governmental humor). WARNING: TOBACCO USE CAN MAKE YOU IMPOTENT. Cigarettes may cause sexual impotence due to decreased blood flow to the penis. This can prevent you from having an erection. Health Canada. The really humorous part of this dire warning is the picture of a very curved (wilted) burning cigarette next to the warning.

At a gas station near Winnipeg we encounted a Smart car, you know the 2 seaters built by Mercedes just now going on sale in the US)... the car had a huge decal on the rear bumper that read "Baby Hummer" and the license plate read "Itti Bitti". The driver invited me to sit in the car and when I started to get in there was something like a foot stool on the floor in front of the driver's pedals. She said, "Oh, I have a prosthetic leg and I take it off to drive and that's where I rest the rest of my leg."

At the same gas station I found and bought a tee shirt that has some many layers of humor I couldn't resist. On the front it asks, "What is a Canadian?". On the back is the answer, "An unarmed American with health insurance." Follow by, "heh, heh, heh...."