I'm really not sure these people are my parents at ALL.

[camwyn]

The scene: I have just come home from work and am happily describing potential plans to visit mountainspeak in Canada. The details are still up in the air.

DAD: inexplicably starts singing O, Canada. . .
ME: I'll give you $5 if you get the next line of that song right!
DAD: *mumble mumble mumble* but at least it's mumbling that scans

(Some conversation with MOM ensues, mostly on the topic of where mountainspeak and I are going to visit.)

DAD: What's the next line, anyway?
ME: 'Our home and native land.'
DAD: What about 'We stand on guard for thee'?
ME: That's later in the song.
DAD: You know, for an almost-second-rate country, they have a pretty good national song. . . thing. . . anthem.
MOM: And they have really impressive military uniforms.
DAD: starts laughing
ME: looks at Mom oddly, as the last Canadian uniforms I saw- RCAF- looked pretty boring
MOM: The Mounties. . .
ME: (without choking or laughing TOO hard) Mom, they're police, not soldiers.
MOM: Oh. Kind of like the carabinieri in Italy?
ME: Yeah, except that the Mounties are competent.
DAD: (laughing) What do they have to do up there?

... I won't go into further detail, except that Mom went on to say that she thought any country that had more fame for its cops and its respect for law than it did for its military might was pretty cool.

I seriously wonder about my genome sometimes.

Comments

RCMP...competent

[whobunkyboo.livejournal.com]

Before you get TOO attached to that idea, please remember that they did allow the former PM to get hit in the face with a cream pie, and not once but TWICE they allowed intruders to get into the BEDROOM OF THE PRIME MINISTER'S OFFICIAL RESIDENCE. Oh, and then there was the APEC summit protestor that the PM tried to strangle with his bare hands...(it would be humourous if I weren't making it up!)

And before anyone visualizes Sergeant Preston types on modified super dog sleds pulling us over for routine traffic stops; red serge is only worn as ceremonial dress! The daily uni is pretty boring; not only that, it combines khahki shirts and navy blue pants with a WIDE yellow stripe down the side. Talk about colours that clash!

Re: RCMP...competent

[camwyn]

Competent by comparison with the carabinieri, honey. The Italian national police force is also the Italian national joke. Seriously- they're like something out of an ethnic joke, except that they carry submachine guns and only sometimes shoot themselves in the foot.

Re: RCMP...competent

[whobunkyboo.livejournal.com]

Has their PM ever had to whack an intruder in the head with an Innu soapstone carving of a bird to subdue him (the intruder) until his security arrived?

Has their First Lady ever had to lock an intruder in the ensuite of her bedroom until her security arrived?

And once again....a dozen or so highly trained skilled RCMP officers let someone get close enough to Jean Chretien to whomp him in the face with a pie! Good thing this is Canada and no one here has handguns, eh wot?

[silly-dan.livejournal.com]

an almost-second-rate country

Er, does this mean "lower end of the first rate countries" or "high end of the third rate countries?" 8)

Re: RCMP...competent

[camwyn]

I'll check. This is Italy. There've been something like fifty governments since World War 2. There is a very good chance that events equal to those you have described have, in fact, taken place.

Re: RCMP...competent

[whobunkyboo.livejournal.com]

Yes...and they have something like 300 political parties, don't they?

Re: RCMP...competent

[camwyn]

And have had porno queens in parliament, yes. (I can't remember her real name. I think her screen name was Cicciolina. During Gulf War I she offered to have sex with Saddam Hussein if he'd just pull out of Kuwait. He didn't take the offer.)

[zou.livejournal.com]

Personally, I thought it was really cool that our Prime Minister knocked a guy out with a cultural statue. WHUMP! Way better than choking on peanuts or whatever.

[charliesmum.livejournal.com]

"I'm a ten year old boy in Canada, I should be the happist kid on earth" Bart Simpson (may just be paraphrased)

Terry Pratchett wrote that all national anthems have 'nur hrr nur hrr hrr hrr' as a second verse.

I'd be hard pressed to get ours right, actually, and have been annoyed at it ever since I found out the tune was from an old drinking song that was supposed to be difficult. Huh.

[camwyn]

Well, as I said in the Guide to Passing For Canadian, under no circumstances should someone who's trying to pass for a given nationality ever learn more than half the words to the national anthem. Natives generally don't bother learning more than that unless they're at an awful lot of sporting events where it gets sung.

(I memorised three of the four verses to ours when I was little, but that's because it was in the hymnal at St. Francis of Assisi, and it was more appealing than reading the rest of the missal while waiting for Mass to start.)

[camwyn]

Didn't ask, but I think - for once- he meant the first.

[derien.livejournal.com]

Y'wanna hear sick? When I found out that our national anthem was based on an old drinking song that was intended to make people go flat and squeaky, I learned the whole thing. Of course I've since forgotten it.

[sundre.livejournal.com]

"i wanna enforce the law / i wanna wear normal clothes / i don't wanna have to smile for diplomats' home videos / i'm good at working real hard / i should have joined the coast guard / oh no the rcmp is not the life for me."

chorus to "the mountie song" by the arrogant worms. the words to which i remember better than the national anthem, of which i only know one verse but i keep switching to french for the second half of it. not on purpose.

[camwyn]

"A- all right you two! Stay back, I've got a gun!"
"Hah, he's got one gun..."
"Why, how many guns have you got?"
"Oh, I've got ten, and Bill here's got fourteen. That's- what, twenty-one?"
"Where do you keep that many guns?"
"In our tank."
"You have a tank?"
"We didn't just walk here, y'know."
"Where did you get a tank?"
"Wal-mart."
"Oh."

Inter-verse banter from the same song- believe me, I got introduced to that one long ago.

[goldjadeocean.livejournal.com]

My home county's oh-so-proud that we're the 5th largest drug-trafficking area in North America. We have a detachment of Mounties to deal with it (no police force; just mounties). Poor saps. We can speed anywhere outside of the town proper because the Mounties never patrol, because they're too busy with other things. Ahurhurhur.

I know two of the verses, the French version and God Save The Queen- but I was in a choir, so I have an excuse.

[withherhands]

Very, very, very late response to this, but was trolling through & had to respond.

MOM: And they have really impressive military uniforms.
DAD: starts laughing
ME: looks at Mom oddly, as the last Canadian uniforms I saw- RCAF- looked pretty boring
MOM: The Mounties. . .
ME: (without choking or laughing TOO hard) Mom, they're police, not soldiers.

Actually, they are a small part of the military--only in times of great need, though. There were RCMP units in both World Wars, IIRC. So your Mom's kind of right. :-)