Okay, so I know I said I’m taking a short blogging vacation but I have to pop in briefly to share a story.
If you’re following me on Facebook — and you should be — you know that we here in Jenworld are actually not in Jenworld right now. We’re in Canada. Again. Because we really do love Canada that much. This year, we’re visiting our friend Alison and her girls in the Ottawa area.
Today, we went with our friends into downtown Ottawa to visit Parliament Hill, which is — as should be obvious by the name — where Canada’s government is housed. (Capitol Hill for you Americans; Houses of Parliament for you Brits.)
We got tickets for a tour of the Parliament Building and walked around a bit. We met up with a Mountie:
As it turns out, however, Graceful was not the member of Jenworld who almost caused an international incident.
I am.
I, Jen on the Edge, tried to take a weapon into Canada’s Parliament Building and, for that, I apologize to all the fair citizens of this wonderful country.
My weapon of not-mass-destruction was a wee Swiss army pocket knife that I carry around in my purse. I forgot all about it as we went through security for the Parliament Building, but an eagle-eyed Mountie spotted the knife when my purse went through screening.
I surrendered my weapon and was given a receipt to pick it up later. And I went off on the tour feeling rather sheepish about my faux pas. I do know better. Hell, I’ve visited the White House, where one is not only not allowed to take weapons in, but pens and lip balm are also forbidden.**
But… This is Canada. Canada has 34.5 million resident Canadians who, even though they might beat the shit out of each other over hockey rivalries, are generally a peace-loving people. This is, after all, the country that invented the NATO peacekeeping force.
Anyway, we went on our tour and I more or less forgot about nearly causing an international incident. After our tour, as we were headed out, we passed the desk where I could pick up my weapon. So I stopped there to do so, feeling rather embarrassed about the whole thing.
And then I focused on my immediate surroundings and noticed who was in front of me. A nun. A teeny tiny little elderly nun from Naples, Italy. Retrieving her vicious looking silver scissors. (What? You thought her rosary doubled as garrotte?) That’s right folks, a bride of Christ attempted to bring a weapon into Canada’s Parliament Building. So I am no longer alone in my bad behavior/behaviour.
This is a photo of the actual nun, earlier on the tour.
Okay, that’s all. I just wanted to duck in for a quickie and now I’m ducking out in order to enjoy the rest of our time in Canada, which ends tomorrow, when we’re heading southward again. (Sniff, sniff.) I’ll be back here on the 22nd, with plenty of tales to tell.
Updated to add: Here’s Alison’s version of the tale.
* This post’s title and the text on the photo were inspired by this blog post.
** It’s true, no pens or lip balm in the White House — nothing that can deface that glorious building.
Those rabble rousing nuns.
I will never be able to look at a nun without thinking “That nun’s got a shiv!” Never. Thanks so much for coming up to the great white north for a visit. It’s been great, eh y’all.
I am laughing so hard as a friend’s daughter says “I will cut you!” Couldn’t forward this to her fast enough.,
I got stopped at airport security for trying (accidentally) to take a nail file through in my hand luggage. (It was accidental because I don’t file my nails – if you could see my hands, you would know this. It was a borrowed bag). Maybe we should pool our terrifying resources and take over the world?
I borrowed a softsided cooler once from my parents, to take as a carry-on and forgot to check the pockets. The cork screw in the side pocket showed up nicely on the scanner. Oops. Needless to say I had TSA toss it and bought my parents a new one when we got home.
My FIL’s doorknob-of-a-second-wife once made it past the scanners at the J.Edgar Hoover Building in DC with a Swiss army knife. You know…the FBI headquarters? And while we were waiting in the lobby for our tour, she took it out and showed it to my then-11-year-old-daughter, who walked across the lobby to show it to me. There are just no words to express how much I wanted to strangle Mrs. Doorknob at that moment.
You can tell by her posture that she could totally kick your ass.
ahhhahaha, this made me smile! Have a wonderful trip!
Ha! Love the look on the mounties face.
You have reminded me of a story of my own. I was going with my sister once to the courthouse and they discovered she had a knife in her bag during the security screaming. A butcher knife wrapped in a kitchen towel!
Hahaha! Awesome!
I traveled via air at least 4 times (round trip) before a security person finally noticed my itty bitty leatherman (with scissors) hiding in the bottom of a small compartment of my carry on. I was pissed – because I thought I’d lost it long ago and now I really had. (Thy don’t make them with scissors like that any more. This was back in my cross-stitching days.)
What the security people and you and your hosts failed to realise was that little Franciscan Sister did not need her ‘shiv’ to take down the Canadian seat of government. She is fully trained in all aspects of the martial arts that is right – she is a ‘Nunja’!!!!!!