Oh, Canada

I spent a significant amount of this last October being Canadian, for employment purposes.

Well, technically being a reanimated Undead Canadian Spirit of Vengeance, but it amounts to the same thing.

It started off fairly innocuously, as these things do.  I got an offer of some part time work from an old friend helping host guided tours of cemeteries and spooky places and since I love both A: Halloween and B: Being able to afford to eat, I jumped at the chance.

It's a bus tour kind of set-up, with two tour guides on each trip taking turns explaining the spooky sites that the tour visits and telling (hopefully) entertainingly scary tales during the drive between sites.  Because part of the job is to be (amusingly)scary each guide needed to have a costume and 'spooky'-character of some kind.

Now, at this point I should say that while I love Halloween, I don't think I actually do it correctly, since the first costumes I had immediately on hand were Raccoon, Harp Seal, Squirrel and Cow.  And as terrifying as Knocked over garbage cans, clubbing, nuts and lactose intolerance are, none of those seemed to fit the bill.

Further investigation into the basement came up with the addition of 'Wizard' and 'Canadian Mountie'.

Well, Canada didn't seem particularly threatening, and so I kind of noncommittally resigned myself to being some kind of sinister wizard.  But then on the morning of the audition I awoke with a revelation...

No.  No Wizard, would I be. 

I saw instead a glorious future.

I would be...

Deadly Do-Right.

Undead spirit of Canadian Vengeance*

*The most courteous form of vengeance currently known to man.

Night Falls, and He Rises, Eh?

 Betrayed by his partner for the cost of a Tim Hortons donut, he roams the earth delivering incredibly polite vengeance.

After the first week I began to get so into being Deadly Do-Right that I completely forgot that I wasn't actually Canadian.  I'd find myself boasting about strong beer, The Kids in the Hall, and clean, state-run government childcare facilities on nights I wasn't even working.  The merest whiff of anti-Canadian sentiment got my hackles up and left me with no choice but to sing Tim Hicks songs quietly to myself until the anger died down.  I began to insist on spelling 'colour' with a 'u'.

And then October ended and November began, and I had to take my lanyard off one last time.

My Canadian-ness packed away again.

On quiet nights you can still here me out there in the distance, a picture of a moose clutched in one hand and a LaBatts in the other, mournfully humming the theme to Strange Brew.

Savor than, I beg you, your Canadianosity - you magnificent frostbit bastards. I, for my part, can only wait and hope that next October... somehow... Deadly Do-Right might rise, ride, and revenge again.  Politely.