Ceci N’est Pas Une “Ass Clown“

After spending a few nights in my new apartment – which manages to trap a remarkable amount of heat for a cube constructed entirely out of concrete and glass – tracking down the one grocery store in my postal code that’s open past 9PM and familiarizing myself with the “laissez faire” local traffic laws, I can honestly say I’m settling into life in Montreal. One big help is the fact that the language barrier between English and French is virtually non-existent, with locals effortlessly switching between the two like the proud products of the federal government’s bilingual initiative that they are. I, on the other hand, am what one former principal referred to as a “spectacular failure” of this very same initiative, consuming countless man hours and marshmallow Bonne Hommes alike before finally being pawned off onto the school’s Spanish program. While I was always told this was an opportunity and that it was for my own good, even to my young self it seemed like a desperate bid to save the French class’ grade curve so that the school could retain provincial funding – kind of like a “Child Left Behind” program. But I digress.

This afternoon, I discovered that – in spite of the frighteningly multilingual gifts of the city’s denizens – a few things still manage to get lost in translation. At least, I hope that’s the case. See, it all started when small group of us were eating lunch at a picnic table, enjoying Montreal’s sunshine and gale force winds. Our production secretary was there, and she wanted to introduce me to a friend of hers. “This is Ryan,” she said with a French accent I wouldn’t dare try to approximate on the page, “and he’s so funny! He’s a…how do you say….like a clown. Yes! Yes, that’s it. He’s an ass clown.”

Now, if she hadn’t been so entirely sincere about the whole thing, I’m honestly not sure how I would have reacted. I mean, the only time I’ve ever heard the term “ass clown” was in the movie BAD SANTA, and it wasn’t used in an entirely complimentary fashion. But here I was, face to face with someone who sincerely believed that I am an ass clown, and that that is a perfectly wonderful thing to be. While she figured out pretty quickly that her translation may not have been right on the money – most likely because of the slightly horrified look on both my face and her friend’s – I never did find out what word she was actually looking for. If any. At any rate, at least I’ve found someone who was similarly let down by Canada’s bilingual initiative, even if only slightly less spectacularly.