Perhaps you’ve never been to Canada. Or perhaps you’re reading this from Canada, maybe even from a Canadian jail (handy escape tip: walk out the front door).

Regardless, your amount of Canadian experience hardly matters now, because I was in Canada a few weeks ago and I “experienced” enough to last a lifetime, or at least until next weekend.

And where could I have been except the wonderfully beautiful, awe-inspiring city of Windsor? Haha, just kidding! Windsor, despite its many fascinating “cultural establishments” like “art museums” and “libraries” and “sidewalks with drunk people all over them,” is not so much a city as it is a bunch of dirty bars.

So if we rule out every northwest Ohio college student’s favorite international hangout, what’s left? None other than that famous natural wonder to top all other natural wonders (at least in the “Overworks your bladder” category), Niagara Falls.

I’ll spare you the nitty gritty history, but suffice it to say that the Falls were invented in 1847 by Napoleon Bonaparte’s son as a way for both countries to make a ton of money off unsuspecting tourists. Still today, many people naively believe the huge waterfall is real and not man-made.

You will also find these people believing the earth is not flat and that “gravity” exists. I rest my case.

Today the city of Niagara has grown so large it has not one, but two miniature golf courses in close proximity to each other, as well as other intellectually stimulating distractions like “Ripley’s Believe It or Not, We Keep Your Money Either Way,” various haunted houses, and, of course, several hot dance clubs.

I emphasize the hotness for one reason only: after 30 minutes of following the DJ’s instructions to “shake what my mother gave me,” my clothes were so drenched with sweat I was forced to retreat to the patio area to wring myself out.

Unfortunately “patio area” in French roughly translates to “smoke seven cigarettes at a time,” and when a hundred people are trying to fit into a space more or less the size of a closet, there is a LOT of smoke.

So after several seconds, I had no choice but to make my way back to the dance floor, past countless tables filled with old men sitting motionless, beers in their hands, staring at (presumably) girls dancing.

And to be clear, when I say old, I mean really old, like 30 or 35. And they weren’t just watching people dance, like, “Oh, how fun, dancing!” It was more of a creepy “stalker-guy has nothing better to do but stare at the same girl for three hours” kind of thing.

Now, imagine an entire room filled with these guys. Oh yeah, and they’re Canadian, which means they’re using the Metric system. This is obviously infinitely worse than anything you’ll find in America, because you girls have no response to “Hey baby, wanna check out my hockey stick? It’s ten centimeters long.”

Ladies, do not be fooled! All regulation hockey sticks are at least twenty-two centimeters long and made of genuine mahogany. If some Canadian guy wants you to check out his “hockey stick” he is probably not referring to an actual hockey stick, but rather something else, like his canoe.

If there’s anything Canadians like more than canoeing around, it’s singing their national anthem, which goes something like this:

O Canada!

Our home, our snow-filled land

With beer numbing our senses

To the cold and lonely land.

And hockey high and low

Amuses us to and fro;

Until the cold winds doth blow

And our groins shrink, not grow.

O Canada,

How we love thee so!

Doesn’t that bring a tear to your eye? I know it does for me.

On second thought, maybe that’s just the Canadian bacon.

Hit on Jim at [email protected].