If you lose the ability to tell who is crazy, does that make you the crazy one?

Lots has happened since I have moved to Hamilton and am trying to adjust to small city living.  My Mother, who has lived in Niagara most of her life, has been giving me lots of good tips, things like: smile at strangers, when someone says hi to you don't immediately hold your purse closer and back away from them, actually respond by saying hello, no seriously - say hello to strangers, don't buy your giant scary dog a spikey collar to try and make people more afraid of him.  You know, things like that.  Things that do not come naturally to me anymore.  I assume, growing up in Niagara, that at one time I knew how to interact politely with the general public, but I just can't seem to remember.  I am trying to follow these new rules, but feel they have interfered with my ability to discern dangerous strangers from friendly ones.  I have a few examples for you.

Example #1 - At the mall, for my new cool dude mall job, I was sitting on a bench switching shoes because I biked to work but didn't work in my biking shoes.  I feel like I am being watched.  Out of the corner of my eye I see an old lady lurking closer and closer.  Then, suddenly, she is all up in my face, right in front of me.  I panic, I don't know what to do.  My instinct is to grab my belongings and run outside barefoot and figure out a plan from there.  But NO I am following new rules here.  I stay where I am.  Warily I watch her.  She says, "those look like comfortable shoes".  Okay, I can play this game.  I smile and say, "Yes, they are."  She responds, "Where did you get them?"  In my head I think, 'dear sweet baby Jesus, is this conversation still happening?  Do I have to sit here for the entire day?  Do you want my S.I.N too?' but small city, Hamilton living Karen says, "They are Reebok."  She continues blathering away about something, "blah blah I'm old and my feet hurt blah blah".  This is enough.  I have contributed to society in a positive manner.  I leave her there feeling I have helped humanity enough for one day.

Example #2 - Leaving the mall, on my bike.  A guy sees me and yells out, "Nice bike."  I reach for my phone to dial 9-1....  just in case and then go to give him the finger.  But wait, I stop and consider what my Mom would have me do in this situation.  I almost miss the moment, it takes me so long to come up with the answer, but I get it (at least I hope I got it....) and I shout back, "Thank you."  I mean it is a pretty nice bike, worthy of screaming at a stranger?  Probably not.  But it does have flowers on it and that is rather adorable so who even knows?  Then, as I ride off into the distance the guy says, "You're welcome."  Really Sir, was that necessary?  Seriously?  I am confused.  Why don't these people have a natural filter for when a conversation is over?  I guess because when you are willing to talk to random strangers without being paid for it then how can you filter out when to stop?

Now, you see my dilemma.  Unprovoked attacks from random people.  Is this normal?  How am I supposed to react?  Which one of the two people above were crazy?  My vote is both of them!  Except as I was typing out my story I realized quite possibly the crazy one is me.  Like that saying, one out of four people suffer from mental illness, look at your three closest friends, if it isn't one of them.......  Is that a saying?  Do other people ever really say that?  Or do people just say it to me a lot?  I believed for the first 25 years of my life 'handsome as a horse' was a saying commonly used....  apparently not....

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I have another, unrelated story of success and daring, of great acheivement.  That's right folks, I finally squeezed my ass into my jeans!!  Woot Woot!!  I even have a belt on with them to pretend they might fall off, but let me confide in you it is going to take some serious work to get these off.  They are Olivia Newton John sewn into her outfit in Grease tight on me right now.  But I did it and I am proud of myself.

Enough observations on life.  Enjoy the rest of your Thursday.

Punch in the Face #2

This Punch in the Face blog post was alternatively going to be titled: "Why Unemployed Bored People With A Stupid Blog About Being Unemployed And Bored Should Not Be Allowed To Have Cameras On Their Phones"  You'll see why.....  I went with the shorter and less rambling title, but thought the other was so clever I should share it with you anyway.  Now on to the face punching.

This one is for the passive aggressive people in my neighbourhood.  First, let me share a little story with you.  In university I shared a house with five other people.  One was my friend, the other four we didn't really know, even though we lived together for two full years.  We had a fun little blackboard in our kitchen where me and my friend would write fun little countdowns until Reading Week, or cheery good morning messages.  But, frequently, we would wake up to long notes about things we had done wrong, "You can't have a party this weekend", "The dishes weren't done", "The house isn't clean" "You are ruining my life and I hate living with you".  You could go to bed and say good night to everybody in the house and everything would be fine, but in the middle of the night someone would sneak out to the god awful blackboard and write notes of suppressed rage.  I am all for being passive, a harboured grudge for many years I fully support.  I am also supportive of aggression to a certain extent, not wife beating, but fights that clear the air and make you say horrible unforgiveable things and lead to sobbing through the entire next day.  But put the two together and it kills me.

So here is the reason for this sudden outburst at people who I know will not react or write in to tell me I am wrong, but who will instead start their own blog and support group for passive aggressive reactions and how some people just don't understand....

Welcome to Toronto.  Passive aggressive behaviour is in the air every where here, you can catch it faster than stomach flu if you aren't careful.  It is bred into children the way other cities teach maners.  I present to you my real life example - tired of people putting dog crap in your outdoor garbage container or green bin?  However could you solve this problem?  Here's an idea......

Yes, a fake dog with "NO" written on him pooping in your garden.  I am glad the "NO" was added, it is my favourite part.  In case you thought that fancy decoration was in fact an invitation to use their property as an animal toilet.  You know what I would prefer to having to see this in front of my house every morning?  Dog shit in my garden.  Yes.  I would prefer that strangers dogs just did their business in front of my house occasionally rather than ever EVER putting this in front of my house.  Do their friend's ever comment on it?  "O my, what an original display."  "What an innovative way to solve a problem"  I am seriously at a loss, was it piling so high they had no choice but to resort to such desperate measures?

In shocking news, the same person who has the lawn decoration also has this on their garbage can.  The fine print says, "Thank you for respecting our property".  The hilarious part is this sits about one inch away from their fenced in driveway.  Presumably the fence opens and closes, and could in fact open and have a garbage can conveniantly on wheels be wheeled inside, and then the fence could close and keep out people who keep filling this garbage container with dog waste.  Who thought this was the best way to deal with this problem?  I guess the same person who thought they should put a little plastic pooping dog in their garden.

Are you ready for more?  Good, I have so much more......

A lovely walk down a quiet street in the city....  but wait, what is that hanging from the tree support?  Could it possibly be? 

YES!!!!!!  YES IT IS!!!!!!  A bag of dog poo!!!!!!!!  Hanging in front of their house.  This is not even the  shocking part.  The most shocking part is that it has been hanging there for over a week.  This is beyond disgusting to me.  I love seeing this and inventing a story.  A responsible dog owner picks up their dog's business in a little bag, then sees a green bin sitting out on the sidewalk.  Rather than continue to carry excrement they simply drop it it in the green bin, where they assume it will be composted.  But, NO, instead it is dragged out of the green bin, and hung for the world to see.  Do these home owners think someone is coming back to claim it?  Someone will say, "o that is my dog crap, dear me I should not have put that in their green bin" and then they will take it home to their very own green bin (as directed, of course). 

Question - was it deposited in this lovely clear bag or did they transfer it to a clear bag so it was more obviously recognisable? (that is insane, you say, but did you forget these are the same people who have had a bag of poop hanging in their front yard for over seven days!?)  Next question - how do all of these people know people have used their garbages and green bins?  Do they take inventory of their garbage every day?  Is it categorized and itemized so they can immediately recognize a foreign substance? 

I thought that would be my last example and I was on my way home to write this all up for you when I saw this is my parking garage.....

There is so much drama, all the underlining and caps....  I can hardly handle it.  AND the beginning is so Big Brother-esque, it is one of the most intense signs I have ever read.  I am terrified my well behaved puppy will one day lift his leg in the parking garage and the next morning I will wake up with a rat cage on my face.

Here I will finally end this post - but fellow Torontonians, I issue a challenge to you, next time you go to nail a bag of waste to a pole in your front yard, think to yourself, "Is this really the most effective way to deal with this problem?" and if the answer is yes then by all means carry on.  The ball is in your court now, or the shit's on your lawn so to speak.....

The Very First Blog Face Punch

Let me tell you a long and rambling story about my night tonight.  The task was simple, get from Yonge and Eg to Dundas and Spadina on the TTC.  For those of you who are unsure, this should be a simple subway/streetcar combo.  Instead the subway is shut down between Bloor and Eglinton this weekend, so I boarded a bus, but it was obviously the wrong bus.  At Davisville I switched to the right bus.  Unfortunately, although going in the right direction it was a very very wrong bus for me.  The teenage boy beside me promptly got a nosebleed, causing blood to gush all over this very very crowded bus.  Rather than help, his group of friends laughed hysterically (this is not their fault, I'm sure we all would have done the same thing to our friends).  Finally a stranger gave him a kleenex and the situation seemed to be mostly under control (except for the blood that was still gushing, but at least it was rather more contained). 

Then the man next to me casually asked the time.  I had my phone out because I had already started texting to say I was going to be late for dinner, although I had left ample time.  I told him it was 5:15.  End of conversation.  Nope, it was not the end.  It was only the beginning.  He asked me if he could ask something personal, I ignored him, he asked me how long three trillion years was and if I could imagine such a thing (is it odd that I was insulted that he didn't ask me out?  remember when I mentioned my self esteem needing a boost?).  This three trillion year, one sided conversation obviously turned into a still one sided conversation about the enigma of god and how little people understand that the world was not created in 6000 years, and of course Stockwell Day....  This naturally led him to talk about the city of Toronto and how it is the third largest in the entire world after New York and Tokoyo.  I almost corrected him, but then I got a hold of myself and continued to ignore him.

Next stop - the subway.  God forbid the shuttle bus just continue south.  We all got off again and headed to the subway (except for bleeding boy who, last I heard of him, was shouting for the nearest bathroom).  Subway two stops, rather uneventful, I got off a stop early so as not to tempt fate.

I waited for the streetcar and it came quickly and was mostly empty, I took a seat beside a friendly looking man.  This was all going far too smoothly.  Not to worry - next on came the homeless guy with all of his belongings overflowing from a pushcart, which he stopped beside me.  Bring it on TTC, I have smelled far worse on your disgusting streetcars.  I stayed in my spot, even though I got hit several times with a large garbage bag containing indescribable objects.  Homeless man got off soon.  Then it was my stop.  I got up and walked calmly to the back doors.  No problem.  Then, without reason, a man in the back of the streetcar decided it was absolutely crucial for him to exit from the front of the car instead of the back with everybody else.  He started pushing through and elbowed me directly in the head, seemingly without noticing.  To make sure that he did in fact notice I shouted, rather loudly, "OWWW" while rubbing my head to get my point across.  He mumbled a sorry on his dash to the front. 

I did make it to dinner shortly after this, so all was not lost.

But here is why the TTC is getting a punch to the face.  For starters this wasn't an unusual trip, it happens every fricking time I ride the TTC.  But it is more than the ineffective service.  It is a combination of this, and the complete disregard for hygiene and cleanliness, along with the rude and cranky drivers and ticket collectors, the overpriced and underwhelming system, the fact that they have recently put up "we love safety" signs all over the place and yet they let their bus drivers do drugs and kill people, the fact that it is one of the least effective transit systems I have encountered in all the world, that Adam Giambrone couldn't even finish reading his withdrawal from the mayoral race without sobbing like a baby (not sure why this bothers me so much, but it does), the fact that one time I really really needed to spend $10 for 4 tokens and a collector absolutely refused to sell me less than 5 for $12.50 and I was super broke and had no change and instead choose to ride my bike home in the rain.  For all of these reasons I am dedicating my first punch in the face to the TTC.  Well deserved.  I hope it causes a bloody nose at least as explosive as the one I already saw tonight.