Your MapleRag just had a delightful vacation in America, which is a nation south of Canada – in fact, they share a border! There were fat people and one-dollar bills and McDonald’s had these obscene grease-piles called Angus Bacon & Cheese Third Pounder Burgers (it was delicious!)

Here are the best things about Chicago, which is a city, in America, where I was:

1. #1: You can get expensive little espresso things on every corner, they’re basically just ridiculous little shotglasses of bitter coffee but they keep you awake as hell, which is good, because it means less time sleeping on a hostel bed and possible getting bed bugs / mugged.

1. #2: They let you play drinking games in bars.

1. #3: I was in a bar that SERVED ALCOHOL UNTIL FOUR AM.

1. #4: Your wallet feels super-thin when it’s not full of loonies and toonies, which makes your outer right thigh happier.

1. #5: They talked all cute! Chi-caaaw-go. Aht’ll be twinny daawlers. I wanted to bring home my own American because they’re so adorable, but customs frowned on that.

1. #6: When Americans hear you’re Canadian, they’ll try to make a joke about it, but their material just isn’t all that fresh. I mean, when it comes to making fun of Canadians, Canadians are pretty much at the top of our game – no one’s gonna make fun of us better than we self-effacingly make fun of ourselves! So even if we may have high standards, “Hurr, uh, you’re Canadian, so… you drive sled dogs… also… igloos?” just won’t cut it. But God bless ‘em for trying, it was great.

Back to the purpose of this blog, which is ostensibly “Canadian politics” I GUESS, I asked an American and an Australian tourist if they could name any Canadian politicians, ever. From the Australian I got a “no”, but not a sheepish, embarassed “no”, the kind of adamant “no, why the hell would you even ask” type of response you’d get if you’d asked “Hey, you ever gotten pubic lice?” From the American, I got “I don’t think so… wait… Baker… Baker-something?” I accepted that answer as perfectly correct. See, Americans aren’t clueless about the world around them! This dude knew him some Diefenbaker. God bless America.