Judging by my news feed on Facebook, it's getting to be that time of year again. Lead-up to wedding time. And for my friends in Ontario, Canada, that means one thing: stag and doe / shag season is upon you. And by "shag", no, I don't mean in the Austin Powers sense (somewhat unfortunately for some of you, I'm sure), although given the situation and amount of alcohol consumed, maybe I do.

If you're one of my friends here in California, I'll bet you're asking yourself, "What is a stag and doe or a shag, what does it have to do with weddings, and is there a nature hike or hunting trip involved?" How do I know you're asking this? Recent experience of shutting down an entire conversation about karaoke, with my off-handed reference to the Skÿy/"Baby One More Time," / grad school friends' "Do They Know Its Christmas" (in July) incident at my friend Kevin's stag and doe a year and a half ago in Ottawa.

Me: "Blah blah blah blah blah blah stag and doe blah blah blah blah blah... oh wait, are they called a 'stag and doe' here? Because where I grew up they call them a 'shag' and--"

Friends #1, 2 and 3: Baffled silence.

Friend #1: "What's a stag and doe?"

Me: "Blah blah blah explanation blah blah blah." Replace the "blah blah blahs' with something about a kind of party the bride and groom have to help raise money for their wedding.

Friends #2 and 3: "Is this another Canada thing?" Turns out there's a lot of Canada things, and that my stories can run akin to "So this one time, at band camp in Canada..." Who knew?

Friend #1: "They have this to raise money for their wedding?"

Me: "Yeah..."

Friend #1: "Seriously? Why don't they just charge admission to the wedding?"

As you may have guessed, the stag and doe / shag trend doesn't seem to have caught on this far south. I decided it was time to turn to the ultimate source of truth. That's right, Wikipedia. It gave me the following:

A stag and doe party, also known as a hen and stag party, is the equivalent of a combined bachelor and bachelorette party.

In Canada, a stag and doe, or buck and doe, is a wedding tradition popular in rural Southern Ontario. The event is held by a bride and groom before they are married, similar to a combined bachelor party and bachelorette party, but acting as a fundraiser for the wedding. Guests purchase entrance tickets and are entertained.

I've bolded "Southern Ontario" for a reason. Clearly, this means responsibility for the whole darn thing rests with the GTA (Greater Toronto Area for those new to Canadian geographical acronyms). Rural, yes, but close enough. When it comes right down to it, this means we can somehow, some way, blame Toronto. That's right, my friends -- it's a bonafide Canadian Heritage Minute.

Not that I personally have anything against Toronto. Except for that part where I wouldn't want to live there. Let's put it this way: I grew up in Thunder Bay, which, being separated from southern Ontario by a good many kilometers and most of a Great Lakes system, has at times given to lamenting for the region to become its own province. Simply put, for all intents and purposes, Toronto usually seems to think anything west of the Great Lakes IS its own province and therefore, politically, matters less than Stephane Dion. (And for my American friends who will have no idea who that is, don't worry. Most of Canada doesn't either.)

After hockey and -- from what I learned growing up -- lacrosse, blaming Toronto could probably be considered the national sport. Canada is not a melting pot, it is a cultural mosaic, and playing the geographical game of "Whose fault is it, anyway?" is the Canadian way of exercising this right to a unique identity. In sharing this discovery, I'm really just fulfilling my former Northwestern Ontarian / one-time Eastern-Ontario-transplant duty. Not that Toronto is the sole target here. Running in a close second is blaming Ottawa (federal politics), which at times is neck-in-neck with blaming Quebec (the favorite pastime for parts of Western Canada and anglophone government workers about to go for language training or testing) or blaming the West (see: the Maritimes). Like all the functional dysfunction of your typical family reunion, it's how we get along.

I don't personally have anything against stag and doe parties. The ones I've been to have been a blast. But don't you feel much more educated now? And, better still, next time five of your friends are getting married in the same summer -- multiplying to 12 or 14 couples in your extended "stag and doe invite" network -- and you're recovering from the blinding hangover of a month-long pre-wedding-parties bender as you fend off 7 more invites on Facebook, just remember, you can blame Toronto. And for some parts of Canada, that's the best over-the-counter hangover remedy there is.