This is something I enjoy about public transit: I pick up a lot of raw material there for this blog. For example, these two American hoser wannabes on the Canada Line elevator. We were using the elevator at the Yaletown Roundhouse Canada Line, or for those readers who know little about Vancouver, our subway. Yes, we have a subway. A real one and not a toy one. Just like a World Class City. Wee!
One of the escalators there has been out of service for more than a month. Yeah, yeah, I know, long time, eh? Like, maybe in Mexico or the Philippines, but come on you guys we're in Canada, one of the most developed nations on earth, and it takes them longer than a month to fix a goddamn escalator in the public transit system? Those of us who had no desire of dragging our tired hienies up the stairs opted for the tiny and slow as molasses in January elevator. This is when the two young Americans started in, loudly trying to add the uniquely Canadian conversation tic, eh? to every single sentence. I wonder if they had done something so bad in their hometown of Seattle that they must have been tied to chairs and forced to watch McKenzie Brothers reruns for three days and nights in a row.
Like good Canadians the rest of us quietly tolerated them. Then one of them said, "But what do Canadians say besides eh? I replied "I don't know but if you're a doofus we're sure to apologize to you for it." Everyone burst out laughing and when off the elevator one of the visiting Americans told me "You know my name." I replied, "Huh?" He said, "Yeah, my name is Doofus. Well, aren't you going to apologize?"
"Sorry", I said, and I got on the bus. Now I did not indicate the various subtle meanings of that magic and almost uniquely Canadian "sorry." The sorry I said means something like, "Dude, I am so so very sorry that you are a doofus. I am also sorry that I didn't tell you what you really are, which is at the very least a dumbass and at the worst, a complete hose bag. It also means that I am very sorry you didn't stay in Seattle today and just pee on a Starbuck's washroom floor there instead of doing the equivalent all over Vancouver, or at least in the part I happen to be occupying. It could also mean that I'm sorry that I cannot get over myself and laugh with you because many of us Canadians really do take a secret and shameful delight in the warm friendly openness of our American neighbours.
So, I'm a passive-aggressive Canadian skank. Sorry.
In other news today, a young Asian woman actually gave up her seat for me on the crowded bus. Then another young Asian woman gave her seat to a woman of a certain age. Then another young Asian woman offered her seat to an elderly man. Then a young Asian man gave his seat to woman with walking difficulties.
Could this be the bus to the New Jerusalem?
No? Sorry.
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