Yesterday, I happened to be privy to a conversation which indicated that Ottawa was the capital of Canada. This caught me by surprise, because I had sort of assumed that the capital of Canada was Quebec or Montreal or someplace like that (i.e. that I had heard of.) Upon returning home, I looked it up and confirmed this to be true. I then faced the realization that I am, in fact, a dumber American than I had realized.
You know, for some reason I was never required to learn the state capitals in elementary school, although that deficiency has never actually come up except perhaps in game show type situations. But, world capitals? Isn’t that at least kind of important? Especially, um, our direct neighbor? Ok buddy, can you name the capital of any country other than the USA:
Uhhhh… Paris? Moscow! Berlin, Johannesburg/Durban/Pretoria*, London. Mexico… City?
Ok, whatever. (TheHagueBeijingLima…) Yeah, great. But how can I not have heard of Ottawa? I don’t know. Maybe they have a sports team or something? Like the Senators. What? That can’t be… oh, it turns out that that is correct. Now how did I possibly know that? And yes, Senators, Capital. I get it now.
*This is not correct, by the way.