I've Heard I Can Pass for Canadian

Can we just come clean here and talk about “Fargo”?
“Fargo” is a movie put out by Minnesota’s favorite son, Joel Coen.
Have you seen this movie? The accent in “Fargo” is meant to be representative of a Minnesotan accent but it is not, my friends, how Minnesotans sound.
I don't, anyway.
No, really.
Oh, ja, ya know, we got dem guys up dere on de Range, huntin’ dem tirty-point bucks, but dose guys, dey’re not troooly representative of de folk down here in de Cities.
Being a Minnesotan comes in handy, though, when traveling, particularly in the 90s, when I passed myself off as Canadian.
Look at ‘em. All friendly and cuddly up there, the little non-gun-toting, law-abiding Canucks. You could just eat them up they’re so cute.
Everybody loves the Canadians.
A number of years ago, I went with my son and my parents to Mexico for what in the U.S. is a long vacation: two weeks.
Two weeks! It’s like being retired.
If you ever get to Puerto Vallarta, which is where we went, one thing you’ll notice is that no one there is overweight; and if you do happen to see someone who is overweight, they’re either Americans or Germans.
I’m sorry, but that’s the way it is.
We were getting into a cab, the four of us, to go to dinner one night when another family of tourists got into the cab next to us.
Our driver called out to the other driver. The other nodded sorrowfully and our driver laughed.
Four years of high school French are of no help when you’re eavesdropping in Spanish; and being the nosy sort, I asked our driver what he said.
He blushed just a bit and then said, “I tell him, ha ha! You get the fat ones!”
By this time, the other taxi had pulled in front of us; and we all watched as the back end sagged perilously close to the tar…
You could tell by the way he looked into the mirror that it had suddenly occurred to him that perhaps we were Americans. We aren’t overweight, but we do have a suspiciously U.S. look to us…
My father, the king of nuance, noticed him notice us.
“No worries, eh,” my dad said. “We’re Canadian.”