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Canada and Minnesota Need to Knock it Off With These Wildfires
By Matt Schultz
Published:
The sky’s all hazy, the sun’s a weird color, my eyes sting, my throat’s kind of scratchy, and the news says I can’t go outside. This, sadly, is not anything new. We all know what it means – Canada is doing its wildfire bullshit again:
As fires ripple across the great north and send hazardous smoke over vast swaths of the eastern U.S. – most crucially, the Philadelphia area – no one’s even shocked. Canada just does this now. Every summer, Canada apparently explodes (???) and fires spread everywhere and all their smoke comes down here and sits in the sky and suffocates us. What’s this, the third year straight we’re dealing with this? This never happened before! I’ve lived here forever and I have no memory of anything like this as a kid! But now here we are, with a new tradition: Canada fucks up our shit for a week every summer. The hell.
Smoke-air-enjoyer Ben Davis would surely disagree, but I find this unacceptable. Canada shouldn’t affect us this much. Philadelphia should not have to suffer the consequences of Canada stuff. Does Philly ever negatively affect Canada? Has anything in Philly ever made Canadians stay indoors? Has Philly ever put Canadian health at risk? Has Philly ever messed up a perfectly nice July day for Canada? Only half the year is nice here. We don’t get that much good weather – and the same goes for Canada. Has Philly ever robbed Canada of the chance to enjoy its rare, ever-fleeting summer weather?
The answer is no. Because we’re good neighbors. We don’t do anything annoying. We mind our own business. We keep our music down. We don’t leave stuff out in the yard. We keep the lawn a nice length. We’re not an eyesore. We’re just doing our thing, trying to get by.
Canada, on the other hand, is being a dogshit neighbor. Their grass is yellow and shin-high. They have floodlights that are too bright and shine into our windows. Their backyard is all burned-out-looking junk cars and wood scraps under blue tarps. They have carpenter bees nesting on their side of the fence that fly over into our yard. They’re doing loud shit at quiet hours. Playing horseshoes. Woodworking. Letting their dumbass kid play a drum set he fucking sucks at. Canada has a bunch of weird gnomes on their porch. They still have their Christmas decorations up in April. Their dipshit, barefoot, permanently blue-mouthed children taunt our dog through the gate and make her go nuts. Their white trash guests are always over. Their Punisher sticker-adorned cars take up all the street parking. Nightmare neighbors.
I’ll throw Minnesota in there too. They’re not exempt. They got fires going too, and their smoke is also fucking us up. Of course it is. No surprise there. When’s the last time anything good came out of Minnesota? Any positive, uplifting news? Any life-changing products? Any interesting culture? Prince? Was it Prince? Prince was born in 1958. Since then Minnesota hasn’t done shit for us. And now they’re sending us wildfire smoke. Unreal.
But I’m done dwelling in the past. It’s time to move forward. Two things need to happen in order to make this right.
1) Canada and Minnesota have to cut it out with the fires. Get that shit under control. I don’t know how. I don’t have any suggestions. I’m not a scientist. I am a blogger. I don’t know how wildfires work and I’m not that interested in learning. That’s on them. It’s their problem. Solve it.
2) Canada and Minnesota should pay us money. We are entitled to compensation. If you do something fucked up, you gotta make up for it. That’s justice. We deserve justice, and money is the only thing I can think of that would help here. Everyone in the Philly area should get like $4,000 for having to deal with this. That’s a good start. It’s a step in the right direction. We can begin with me. I volunteer. I will be the bigger man. I will move us all toward peace and understanding. As soon as I get the Venmo from Canada/Minnesota, I’ll write a new blog backtracking on all this.
Matt Schultz is a comedy and sports writer from Philadelphia. He’s written extensively for ClickHole, The Onion, and Conan O’Brien’s Team Coco. His work has been featured in Vulture, Deadspin, The A.V. Club, Paste Magazine, and other publications. Much of his sports journalism can be found on college basketball websites that don’t exist anymore (PhilaHoops Heads rise up…) email: M.Schultz@sportradar.com