Roxanne the artiste left a comment regarding her own experiences with the Pontiac Parisienne, leading me to do a little search on the infobahn. Lo and behold, that particular car model turns out to have been marketed only in Canada. So the seeds of my befuddlement appear to have been deliberately sown by General Motors and fertilized by collusion with our northern neighbors.

I will not be surprised to next encounter a Cadillac Canadienne, driven by some snowbird who ran out of money too soon after passing the Friendship Arch at the border crossing and now spends his time cruising up and down our boulevards, breathing our rainy air and confusing us with his eerily familiar and yet frighteningly foreign auto.