Saturday, October 16, 2021

the last book I ever read (Based on a True Story: Not a Memoir by Norm Macdonald, excerpt thirteen)

from Based on a True Story: Not a Memoir by Norm Macdonald:

It was such fun to be back in Canada, my true home strong and free. I was born in the Great White North and I remain to this day a Canadian citizen and I will till the day I die. I’ll tell you why. Canada is the country that shaped me, that taught me right from wrong, that turned me from a boy to a man. Also, that American citizenship test is way, way too hard. Trust me, I’ve tried it quite a few times. But no more. You know the old saying: Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me; fool me thrice, shame on Adam Eget, pretending to be me and failing even worse; fool me four times, shame on the guy behind the desk at the Immigration and Naturalization office, who said he would see what he could do for a hundred clams and then said that he couldn’t do a damn thing but kept the hundred clams anyway; fool me five times, shame on the filthy homeless bum who could rattle off all the presidents in less than a minute but then the moment I gave him twenty dollars to do the test in my stead took off running down the street with a whoop and a holler; fool me six times, shame on me again, for threatening to burn down the federal building in New York City if I wasn’t given citizenship immediately. There would be no seventh time. Nobody ever accused this old country boy of being stupid. But it turned out to be all for the best, anyway. I’ve finally come to my senses. I was born a Canadian and I’ll die a Canadian and I will forever be proud to count myself a citizen of Canada, the fourteenth-greatest country in the world.



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