NICKELBACK SAVED MY LIFE

Those of you that have lived or traveled abroad will know that wherever you are in the world the locals will likely use all the information they have about your country of origin to identify with you. For example, a few of the things I’ve heard since I’ve moved to Ireland are:

“You’re Canadian? The Rocky Mountains, hey? They sure are something special aren’t they? You must love them.” It just so happens that before moving to Ireland I lived in Alberta for the past 13 years, so yes, I do indeed love the Rocky Mountains. But not all of us Canadians have the pleasure of enjoying the Rocky Mountains; it’s really only those that live in certain areas of British Columbia and Alberta. That said, all of the other provinces and territories have their own geographically niche landscapes that make those areas particularly beautiful – except Saskatchewan; they have sweet f*ck all. (Hahaha! Sorry, my Saskatchewan friends. It’s been months since I’ve moved abroad and I haven’t made a good ol’ Saskatchewan joke it AGES. I needed to get that one off my chest. FYI, Ireland folks… “Saskatchewan” or “Newfoundland (Newfie)” jokes are your equivalent to a “Kerry” joke (from what I’ve been told anyway). However, if you’re from Kerry and you’re reading this… forget I even mentioned it. *wink*

“Canadian? Your country makes the maple syrup, right? You guys put that stuff on your pancakes and you love it, don’t you?” ‘F*ck yeah, we do’ is the answer to all of the above. I mean, it’s not the ONLY thing we put on pancakes but it’s fairly common and if you haven’t tried it I strongly recommend that you do so because it’s AWESOME. Much better than white sugar and lemon juice they put on their pancakes over here in Ireland (in my opinion – but to each their own).

“You’re from Canada? I hear you guys get a lot of snow there.” I refer you to the answer of my previous point. Sure, we can get a lot of snow during the winter in some parts of Canada; not so much on the West coast generally and also in Southern Alberta this past winter from what I’ve heard (of course… the year I move away. Bastards!) The truthful answer is that it really can change from region to region and from year to year. Some Canadians will get no snow at all over winter and some will get it piling up over the rooftops.

There are many more of these questions that I hear quite regularly and to be honest most of them are generally fairly accurate. It goes both ways too, of course. When we hear or read reports in the news or other media outlets we develop a bit of a social generalization and associate it with the country of its origin. I have sympathy for my American friends with all the Presidential election nonsense going on at the moment. As Canadians, we’re used to the influx of American media and news articles filtering their way across our boarder – the nonsense, of course, but sensible stuff also and we’re usually able to discern the hype from reality. Unfortunately, the majority of American news hitting the streets here abroad is “Trump for President”. Sorry, my Yankee friends… it will all sort itself out this November I’m sure. Or it won’t and you’ll be climbing over that wall into Canada to seek refuge. Ha!

You’re probably wondering by now “What the hell is all this Nickelback shit about?” Don’t worry, Nickelback fans, I’m getting to it.

Recently, my wife, Edel, and I celebrated our first wedding anniversary. You can imagine that the past year has just flown by and amidst packing up our home in Canada, moving abroad to Ireland, settling in to a new country and culture (new for me, that is) we never did have a proper honeymoon. So, we decided to celebrate our first year anniversary with a trip around Europe. We spent two nights in London, two in Amsterdam, two in Florence and the remaining five days driving around the Italian, Tuscan countryside. All of these places were breaking new ground for me and each was lovely in their own right. Italy was gorgeous and it was there of all places that Nickelback saved my life. Okay, okay, I’m exaggerating a bit with that statement; but they certainly did make life a lot easier for us when we truly needed a win.

Before I move the story along I feel like I might need to explain to some of my readers about who, what, where is a Nickelback; all very good questions that most Canadians have asked themselves at least once over the past 20 years. Chances are if you’re Canadian you’ve probably heard of Nickelback; and have just as quickly tried your damnedest to forget them. But alas, the majority of Canadian FM radio stations just won’t let you. For my foreign friends (and perhaps a few select Canadians) that have been lucky enough to have never heard of Nickelback I’m providing a link to Wikipedia where you can spend the next few agonizing minutes of your life boning up on the history of the Canadian rock band called “Nickelback”.

You can probably guess from my tone that I’m not particularly fond of the band. Truth be told, they certainly aren’t the worst thing out there (have you heard Rihanna’s “Work”?); but they are notoriously THAT band that as Canadian’s we’ve all heard WAY too much. I assure you that every single Canadian reading this likely knows at least some of the words to at least one Nickelback song (whether you actually realize it or would like to admit it or not). And if you tell me you don’t… you’re full of shit.​​

It wasn’t always this way. I once defended the band to a friend and former colleague arguing that any band who’s lead singer has a song that makes the cut on the Spiderman (2002 film) soundtrack was legit and couldn’t be all that bad. In my defense, this conversation took place amidst the consumption of a plethora of beers. My friend promptly quoted me on Twitter (subsequent to uncontrollable laughter) - that tweet immediately went viral and I was left with no leg to stand on. But I digress.

The first six days of our honeymoon holiday were spent city-hopping. We did all of the touristy things (Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey in London; the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam; the Statue of David in Florence to name just a few) and we walked A LOT logging over 14 kilometers per day on average. By the time we got to the car rental agency in Florence we were exhausted, frustrated and very much looking forward to putting the city in our rear view mirror. The only thing standing in our way was our Italian rental car associate.

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Up to this point our experience with Italian customer service representatives was… well… an experience indeed. I’ll leave it at that for now and perhaps revisit this subject in subsequent blog posts. To say I was a little bit nervous about renting the car was putting it mildly. Not because I wasn’t confident in my driving capabilities (quite the contrary). I just wasn’t looking forward to dealing with another smug… sorry; I’ll stop there. But you get the point.

We arrived at the rental office and I quickly threw the 40 lb backpack I was lugging off my back and took a seat behind three other parties who were trying to organize their rentals before us. I took this time to reread the confirmation email I had received the day before when I booked the rental. I panicked briefly when reviewing the insurance section as I could overhear the family at the service counter ahead of us having an extremely difficult time organizing their insurance details. The rep wasn’t cutting them any slack either. They were on their cell phones with their insurance company, the rep was spouting off costs in the hundreds of Euros and I was sweating profusely. “Shit!” I thought to myself. I was so proud of my five-day, €73.00 car rental deal I’d found on Expedia. Now this thing is going to cost me hundreds! This went on for what seemed like forever and I recall repeating the phrase over and over in my head “Please, don’t let me get this rep when my turn comes around. Please, not him. PLEASE, not him.”

Finally, it was my turn. I put on a big front and with my chest puffed out and confidence in check I advanced to the counter. Just my luck… the same guy that was giving those lovely folks ahead of me such a hard time. Shit. Holding strong I jumped through all of his pre-screening hoops.

“Do you have a reservation, sir?” He spoke very good English but his Italian accent was still quite evident.

I assured him I did have a reservation and guess what, buddy, I even have my reservation number handy right here. “One step ahead of you, smart guy” I thought to myself.

“Excellent, sir. Grazie.”

Hmm… this guy isn’t so bad, I suppose. But I still didn’t let my guard down.

“Can I have your driver’s licence, please?”

Way ahead of you, Signore. I passed him my International Driver’s Licence.

“Canadian?” he said.

Oh great, I’ve heard this one before. As I awaited to be queried on the precise sugar content of maple syrup or the average life span of a beaver…

“Alberta?” he continues.

“Yep, Alberta, Canada. Calgary to be specific.”

Here it comes…

“Alberta” he proudly exclaims. “The home of...” you guessed it people “…Nickelback!!”

Wow. I didn’t see that one coming.

“Yeah” I chuckled to myself. “Nickelback. You bet.”

I could see his eyes light up upon only brief mention of the band. He was a fan. In fact, I suspected he might even be a SUPERFAN. “This goes against everything I stand for” I thought to myself. “And if my f*cking friends back home could only see me now I’d never hear the end of it”. F*ck it. I went for it.

“Yeah, Calgary is actually not too far from where Nickelback grew up” I bragged. Ugh.

“Hanna, Alberta!” Signore Rental Guy shouted. He WAS a superfan.

From that moment forward I racked my brain to unearth all of those Nickelback facts that I worked so hard to suppress not so many years ago and as far as this guy knew, I too was a Nickelback superfan.

Over the next few minutes and amid abundant Nickelback banter we breezed through the rental application including the insurance section, which by the way was no extra cost to me thanks to my new Nickel-bro. He even upgraded our car choice before tossing me the keys without hassle. Banter aside, it was actually the swiftest car rental experience I’ve ever had. Everything was going swimmingly.

“So tell me… what’s your favourite Nickelback song?” Signore Superfan asks.

Shit. He stumped me there. Thinking quickly I blurted out the first thing that came to mind, “Rockstar”. I’m sure I recall that being one of the hits raping the airwaves a few years back. As I previously mentioned, every Canadian (certainly within my demographic) knows the words to even a partial Nickelback song. The wide grin on his face assured me that I nailed it. “I love that one too” he said. Phew, that was a close one!

With my rental contract firmly in hand we tossed our bags in the boot of the car (aka the “trunk” as we call it back home) and we were set to hit the road. As I shook the rental agent’s hand I thanked him again for all of his help and suggested that if he ever made his way over to Canada to look me up and we’d hit up a Nickelback concert. Too much? Ha-ha! Perhaps; but at this stage I was on a roll.

I’m almost certain I’ll never see this lovely, Italian rental agent again though crazier things have happened. I imagine if he ever does track me down I’ll have to put on the Nickelback fan façade once more or if through the mystical powers of social media he stumbles upon my blog well, I suppose the cat will be out of the bag. Don’t worry though, Signore, I’m a man of my word – I’ll still take you to that Nickelback concert.