Travels With Miranda

No sooner did I have the front door open this morning (the weather has been lovely enough to just use the screen door all day) and the truck started that there was a knock. Thankfully, I was dressed! I turned off the kettle as it was whistling and turned my attention to my visitor, a French Canadian gentleman with the very, very French Canadian name of Jean-Guy.

He asked me if it was my wifi signal that he had picked up the night before on his booster. I explained that I use Verizon and he noted the info, impressed by the fact that I can use the voice plan in Canada. The cost would be a bit much for someone looking just for email, but it sounds like he uses a lot of bandwidth as he actually understands the concept of bandwidth usage.

I gently told him that I consider using those wifi boosters to seek and use open wifi signals is theft (I put it much more politely than that). I said the same thing to the other French-Canadian couple parked near me. I have no problem with the idea of using one of those to get access to a McDonald’s connection from a parking lot since their wifi is free (no purchase necessary) and it’s too slow to be able to steal any bandwidth worth mentioning. But using one to find a random signal from a house in the wilderness is wrong, as evidenced by the fact that the signal was locked down while he was using it.

He’s essentially traveling the same route as me, but backwards, and is headed for New Orleans, having stopped here to avoid the Super Bowl crowds.

Finally, he asked me an amusing question, do I pass myself off as québécoise or French Canadian? I replied the latter. He nodded in agreement, saying, “Me too! Franco-Ontarians and Franco-Manitobans hate our guts! Here’s a tip: don’t wave a Quebec flag around unless you want to alienate the neighbours!” I suddenly had this vision of him and his wife getting run out of a campground by a bunch of angry non-separatist French Canadians waving dirty sewer hoses!