Last year I wanted to have a Canada Day party but I ended up in hospital. This year I wanted to have a Canada Day party but we all ended up in quarantine. Next year? Fingers, toes and eyes crossed!

There’s a Canadian-owned restaurant in Buenos Aires called 416 — when she first told me about it, an English friend wondered how I knew immediately the owner was Canadian! Anyway, they make a delicious tourtière, and I’m having some tonight — a little piece of Canada for my solitary celebration!

Here’s a joke someone sent me months ago, and I put it away carefully so that I would remember to post it here today. I hope you enjoy it — whether you are Canadian or not!

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Heaven

A photographer on vacation was inside a church in Orlando taking photographs, when he noticed a golden telephone mounted on the wall with a sign that read ‘$10,000 per call’.

Intrigued, he asked a priest who was passing by what the telephone was used for. The priest replied that it was a direct line to Heaven and that for $10,000 you could talk to God.

He thanked the priest and went along his way.

Next stop was in Atlanta. There, at a very large cathedral, he saw the same golden telephone with the same sign under it. He wondered if this was the same kind of telephone he saw in Orlando and he asked a nearby nun what its purpose was. She told him that it was a direct line to Heaven and that for $10,000 he could talk to God.

‘O.K., thank you,’ he said.

He then traveled to Indianapolis, Washington DC, Philadelphia, Boston and New York. In every church he saw the same golden telephone with the same ‘$10,000 per call’ sign under it.

Upon leaving Vermont, the man decided to travel up to Canada to see if Canadians had the same phone.

He arrived in Canada, and again, in the first church he entered, there was the same golden telephone, but this time the sign under it read ’40 cents per call.’

The American was surprised, so he asked the priest about the sign. ‘Father, I’ve traveled all over America and I’ve seen this same golden telephone in many churches. I’m told that it is a direct line to Heaven, but in the US the price was$10,000 per call.

Why is it so cheap here?’

The priest smiled and answered, ‘You’re in Canada now, son … it’s a local call.’