Oh Canadia

I love New York. I really do. There is always so much going on here and so much to do and see - like the kids who think they can dance so they try to dance on the subways but go flying into the walls. Those are fun. But there is one thing I don't like about New York. That is the stereotype that all NY'ers do not know geography. That is not at all true. I know plenty of geography. I was even on TV because of it. And likewise, there are plenty of people out there from other places outside of NYC who also don't know any geography - like this chick from Canadia.

When I was in college - in NYC, I was very active in the Drama society. When I was president of the club, one of the plays we performed was the female version of "The Odd Couple" by Neil Simon. It was soooo funny. In one of the many scenes in the play where the two main characters are arguing, one was defending her job to the other, trying to say that she does more than just report baseball scores. She was trying to say that she reports real news to the public and she mentioned a major revolution in Baagi - a new country in Africa. Of course Neil Simon made up this country. But for the play, it was real enough.

The shabbat before our play was to open, we had a Shabbaton for our club, but it was opened to the whole school. At lunch, I was sitting with some friends and this chick from Canadia was sitting across from me. Somehow we got into an argument about NY'ers being so egotistical to think that everything centers around NYC and also about NY'ers being ignorant to the rest of the world and specifically the rest of the country. So I took offense to that because, as I said before, I happen to know a lot of geography and I don't think NYC is the center of anything. I think that's how I got dragged into the argument. So this chick, being from Canadia, proceded to repremand me for not knowing Canadian geography. I simply said to her that I am not from Canadia so why should I know Canadian geography - which by the way, I do know some of it - but why should I? Would you expect someone from France to know Russian geography? No! But her argument back to me was that what I said is such a typical NY'er egotistical thing to say, that NY'ers, and also Americans, expect everyone to know about NY and America, but we don't have to know about anywhere else. I said "But I'm not FROM there and I will Never Live there!!! so why should I have to know about Canadia?!?!" Well she went on an on about how we expect her to know American geography - that's because you live in this country, you wacko! - and how NY'ers know nothing about geography. So I interrupted her and said something like, "Hold on. Do you know where Baagi is?" She did not. She even said something like "That's not the point". So I said "It's very much the point. How can you yell at me for not knowing geography, when you also don't?" That shut her up for a few minutes. Meanwhile, my Drama club members were trying not to crack up in her face, because after all, Baagi is a made-up country and anyone who knows geography like she claims to should have known that.