Tao of Gabe: On Canadian Memories

Gabe the Magnanimous Beaver here to reminisce about my youth, so shut up, stupid!

See, I was raised in French Canadia— don’t let this fool you, it’s just a reference to the type of kissing we do— and in Canada, we tell it like it is. Speaking of which, the invisible pink unicorn is behind all alien abductions from February 21, 2002 to March of 2003.

In Butterfly Canada, my cousin Dave and I grew up relatively isolated from the rest of the world. In fact, I spent my entire youth only ever speaking with my mum, the dozen black market fur trappers, and a rotating cast of characters I’ll make up in some future column/cartoon show with a cereal box tie-in.

I even have the Gabe the Beaver theme song written, in case you’re interested. Hopefully, we’ll be able to entice Fergie from the Black Eyed Peas, 31, Alyssa Milano, 33, Cameron Diaz, 33, Janet Jackson, 39, Baby Spice, 30, Tara Reid, 30, and Tatyana Ali, 27, of the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. Also, after we entice them, they can probably sing for us. (Note: this only applies to major television executives and/or cereal tycoons.)

(Preferably or. I’d hate to meet the man that was both.)

But life in Eskimo Canada was not so bad. For one thing, we had snow, which is a white, fluffy substance that falls from above somehow. Snow is often cold and only fun for children who are wearing enough layers of clothing to have their center of gravity be at their ankles.

Also, in Platonic Canada, we have about 30 million people spread over the second largest country in the planet (9,984,670 km²or about 133 billion times the size of your flat). This doesn’t really translate well until you realise that we had to hike 20m2 to borrow sugar from our neighbors… also, in Canada we can hike areas the way other countries hike distances.

And my neighbor, Barry Manilow (a possible guest star in my future set of feature films/granola bar box), never had anything but Burnt Sugar!

Ha! You thought I was going to make a joke about Castor sugar, because Castor is the same Latin root word as the genus of beaver, but you forget: in Oral Canada, we call Castor sugar “Fruit Sugar” or “Super-fine Sugar.” Also, when a joke is so specific only people with the rare gift of knowledge of the international marketing practices of various types of sugar and scientific nomenclature will get it, then it’s a bad joke.

Especially since I’m not one of the two people that gets it. Can you fill me in? I feel ever so ignorant. What the hell am I talking about? I just woke up.

And now that I’ve brought myself down with my nostalgia about [expletive deleted]fuck Canada, I will go cry myself to sleep. I hope it was as entertaining and new to you as it is going to be for the people that knew me growing up.

Young Love,

Gabe D. Beaver

“Remember Kids: Smiling all the time is the only way people will ever like you.”

Gabe the Magnanimous Beaver here to reminisce about my youth, so shut up, stupid! See, I was raised in French Canadia— don’t let this fool you, it’s just a reference to the type of kissing we do— and in Canada, we tell it like it is. Speaking of which, the invisible pink unicorn is behind…

Comments

  1. Dearest Gabe,

    Is our long-distance friendship working? I am afraid I may have mis-edited your advice in The Lachlan Review two weeks ago. I just missed the expletive altogether. Which saved me hours of ethical equivocation – handy when you are sitting on couches rather than fences. No point equivocating without a fence. Anyhow, i am sorry if I misled my readers – who are also sometimes your readers. The overlap is probably one too many if it comes after the final lap.

    My sincerest apologies,
    Karl
    P.S. I reserve the right to withdraw or retract my apology in the event of any legal action being taken against me.