Canada sounds like a foreign country.

And it sounds so bleak.

Lying in bed this morning, I turned on the radio and got Canadian NPR instead of the regular kind.  Here is what’s in the news up North.

Today is National Truth and Reconciliation Day in Canada.  What a dour and mopey holiday.  It doesn’t sound fun at all.  Mexico is supposed to be our crappy neighbor, but they are killing it with Cinco de Mayo.  Go  farther south, and countries are making giant paper mâché puppet heads for a parade.  Who wants a holiday featuring self-flagellation and acts of contrition?

‘Struggle meals’ and Hamburger Helper are trending because food is so expensive.   Being poor almost sounds heroic, like fighting the patriarchy.  Let’s do proletariat laundry.  Anyone buying hamburger isn’t that poor.  Learn to cook and get a job.

Canadians barred from buying tickets for potential Blue Jays games at Yankee Stadium.  Blame the Yankees for this mean-spirited decision.  It isn’t just Canadians who can’t buy American League Division Series tickets.  Only people living in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Pennsylvania can buy tickets.

I’m not saying that Canada is shit, those are the stories I heard on CBC radio.  I don’t know why the CBC was on instead of NPR.  Maybe they wanted to demonstrate how much worse public radio can get. Canada used to be different, but with regular people, like Wisconsin.  I assume Canada still has Molson beer, the Calgary Stampede, poutine and lumberjacks.