The Slacker's Guide to U.S. History: The Bare Minimum on Discovering America, the Boston Tea Party, the California Gold Rush, and Lots of Other Stuff Dead White Guys Did (14 page)

4. Canadians measure their outside temperature in degrees of Celsius not Fahrenheit. What is the equivalent U.S. measurement for 22 degrees Celsius?

a. 57

b. 67

c. 77

d. 87

5. Canadians are known for their love of beer; what is the most popular Canadian-owned brewing company in Canada?

a. Labatt's Brewing Company Ltd.

b. Molson Coors Brewing Company

c. Sleeman's Breweries Ltd.

d. Moosehead Breweries Limited

6. Which of the following porn stars was born in Canada?

a. Tiffany Towers

b. Sunrise Adams

c. Amanda Lexx

d. Sunny Lane

7. By government decree, what is Canada's national sport?

a. Badminton

b. Lacrosse

c. Hockey

d. Volleyball

8. True or False: Canadians have more annual sex than their American counterparts.

9. If you step on a Canadian's foot while waiting in line, should you:

a. Apologize immediately

b. Ignore it and pretend like nothing happened

c. Pretend you rolled your ankle to gain the sympathy of your Canadian victim

d. Wait for them to say they're “soorry”

10. True or False: Famed American talk show host Larry King has married Canadian before.

11. If the United States had become part of Canada, 99 percent of Americans (regardless of gender) would be playing hockey right now. True or False: Hockey skates are sized the same as shoes.

12. True or False: Canadian teenage girls are less likely to become pregnant than American teenage girls.

13. The country most similar to Canada in terms of population is:

a. Afghanistan

b. United Kingdom

c. Cambodia

d. Pakistan

Answers 1.

B.
Michael J. Fox, the popular star of the hit situational comedies Family Ties and Spin City, measures in at a less than average 5' 4½″.

2.
C.
Currently, the Archers of Woodstock, Ontario, is the only black family living in Canada.

3.
B.
Although scores of American woman marry older influential men, Canadian-born Grammy award-winning artist Céline Dion proved that even Canadians are willing to sell their marital pride for their own economic benefit when she wed her manager, who happens to be twenty-six years her senior.

4.
C.
Only in America would meteorologists say the outside temperature will be a high of 77 degrees today.

5.
D.
It is a real hit to the Canadian ego but their most identifiable beers are now owned by foreign companies. Labatt's Brewing Company, Ltd. is now owned by the Belgian brewer Interbrew. Molson Coors Brewing Company is now less Canadian and more American. Sleeman's Breweries, Ltd. is now owned by Japanese beer makers Sapporo Breweries. This leaves Moosehead Breweries Limited as Canada's largest Canadian-owned brewery.

6.
A.
Tiffany Towers was born in Toronto, Ontario, in 1971, making her surgically enhanced 70FFF breasts ancient by the porn industry's standards.

7.
B.
Unofficially it might be hockey, however, in an effort to keep peace with the Indian population the government agreed to keep lacrosse as the official sport of Canada, recognizing its Native Canadian heritage.

8.
False.
The statistics don't lie. Americans have more sex. On average, Americans have sex 138 times a year, compared to the 105 times Canadians get busy annually. It is believed that the real reason for the disparity is the promiscuous nature of American high schoolers.

9.
D.
No doubt about it. Almost instinctively, a Canadian will apologize for getting in your way.

10.
False.
King is afraid that once he went Canadian he would never go back, and as he enjoys getting married often, he does not want to limited his applicant pool.

11.
False.
Depending upon the manufacture of the skate, most hockey skates run at least a size to a size and a half smaller than your shoe size.

12.
True.
On average, the Canadian teen pregnancy rate is significantly less than that of Americans.

13.
A.
Canada's human population is 33,487,208 and Afghanistan's is 33,600,937. If you marked “b” you are wrong, as the population of the United Kingdom is 61,113,937. If you marked “c” you are about equally wrong, as the Cambodian population is 14,494,293. And for those who marked “d,” you are real wrong, as the population of Pakistan is a staggering 176,242,949.

After you have graded your test please proceed to the chart on the following page to determine your readiness to be Canadian.

0–3 correct answers:
Yikes! You are not ready to eat gravy with your fries. However, you will now recognize July 1 as your new Independence Day.

4–8 correct answers:
Nice effort. You can order Canadian bacon at a restaurant and your Thanksgiving is now celebrated in October and has nothing to do with the pilgrims.

9–13 correct answers:
Outstanding. It is time to work on your Canadian accent to ease your assimilation into the Canadian culture. Hockey Night in Canada is now mandatory television viewing during hockey season. You understand that “God” can mean either God from heaven God, or Wayne Gretzky. Christmas is now a two-day holiday, as you will begin enjoying Boxing Day.

Regardless of your score, you must now end most sentences with the word “eh.” It might seem awkward at first, but with enough practice it will become more natural. For those who struggle, it is suggested you practice in front of a mirror.

Before guys like Francis Ford Coppola and James Earl Jones discovered that women love a man who is cool enough to use his whole name, there was a thirty-five-year-old hotshot named Francis Scott Key who had figured it all out.

Key was a successful lawyer who had made several arguments in front of the right-leaning advocacy group known as the United States Supreme Court. He was a perfect wingman at a bar and just the kind of guy you look for when one of your buddies gets picked up as a civilian by the British military and consequently made a prisoner of war. Dr. William Beanes was that buddy who was inconveniently taken into British custody after General Ross of Britain finished burning down nearly every political building in Washington including former President Bill Clinton's and Jenny Craig spokeswoman Monica Lewinsky's favorite White House venue, the oral office.

As Ross and his men were heading toward Baltimore harbor to catch a Ravens game and inflict additional casualties on the U.S. armed forces, Beanes's friends had
FREE BEANES T
-shirts designed and printed and then pooled some cash together to hire Key to seek his release with the help of Colonel John Skinner, the U.S. prisoner of war exchange agent. Shortly after Beanes's friends' retainer check cleared, Key found himself on a truce ship with Skinner, attempting to secure Beanes's release. After the successful negotiation, the three American amigos were detained on the ship, anchored eight miles from land, until the British attack was over. It was on this ship that Key the attorney became Key the poet, as he was inspired to write the words for what is now our national anthem.

Four hundred five dollars and ninety cents went a long way in inspiring Key to write our sports pregame anthem. In the summer of 1813, major George Armistead, commander of Fort McHenry, wanted a flag so large that not only could a well-fed Kirstie Alley wrap herself in it but also any British naval ship could not miss his position. Mary Pickersgill, seamstress for hire, was contracted to make a 30′ × 42′ flag. For her efforts, she was paid the tidy sum of $405.90.

In addition to making the huge garrison flag, Pickersgill also made a smaller yet still plus-sized 17′ × 25′ storm flag for $168.54 to be flown during inclement weather. Key was able to draw much of his inspiration for the writing of our national anthem from the construction of the massive flag.

With Key and the other two non-Mexican amigos sitting on the truce ship outside the harbor, the British began bombing Fort McHenry at 6:30 a.m. on September 13, 1814. Over the next twenty-five hours, the British pounded Fort McHenry like Jenna Jameson with heavy artillery and Congrove rockets. Key referenced the Congrove rockets' red glare in the sky with the line “and the rockets' red glare.” Armistead had been flying the smaller flag throughout the rainy night of September 13, 1814. But on the morning of September 14, 1814, after Armistead and his men had taken the best the British had to offer, he ordered the larger garrison flag raised in an act symbolic of pointing an American middle finger at the British. It was on that morning after the brutal assault by the British on Fort McHenry that the $405.90 garrison flag inspired Key to write a poem about what he had witnessed over the preceding twenty-five hours.

Witnessing that the flag was still there after the British version of shock and awe tapered off, Key was so orgasmically excited that Fort McHenry did not fall into the hands of the British he began to write a poem with the dry and unpoetic title of “The Defense of Fort McHenry” on the back of a letter he was carrying.
THE POEM WAS FOUR STANZAS LONG; HOWEVER, IT IS ONLY THE FIRST STANZA THAT WAS WORTH THE SCRAP PAPER IT WAS WRITTEN ON, AND IT HAS COME TO BE RECOGNIZED AS OUR NATIONAL ANTHEM.

Since peace with the black man was even further removed than peace with the British, Key's request to lay an urban beat underneath his poem was emphatically denied by the hip-hop community of 1814. Instead, his words were later placed to the tune of a British bar song titled “To Anacreon in Heaven.” It quickly gained Obamamania-like popularity, and the name was changed to “The Star-Spangled Banner.” This catchy tune officially became our national anthem in 1931,when President Herbert Hoover signed a bill into law making “The Star-Spangled Banner” our official Olympic gold medal podium song of choice.