Maple Leaf Rag

Late to the keyboard today after an extended shopping trip.

I’m cooking felafel tonight (the boys call them Chick-pea McNuggets) and I was out shopping for ingredients when I got into a long conversation with one of the local store owners.

She’s a very nice lady and it was a pleasant conversation but something she said made me smile: “Oh you’re an American are you? I’ve met a lot of Canadians but I’ve never met an American.”

What amused me was, chances are, some of those “Canadians” she’d met were Americans travelling incognito.

I don’t know whether this is common knowledge outside the States (so maybe I shouldn’t be sharing it) but pretending to be Canadian is the traditional method of avoiding anti-American sentiment when travelling overseas.

I’m not knocking it, just saying it happens. And it can be very effective, particularly when combined with a maple leaf t-shirt and an odd lilt.