The Friendliest Place, Ever

Before I moved to the east coast, people told me all about how much I would love it, that it was paradise on earth, that people were so friendly there...much friendlier than southern Ontario and certainly more friendly than out west.

I hate being told that I'm going to love something, as though it's a command more than it's a statement. It's soooo beautiful. It's soooo wonderful.

It wasn't either of those things, it was just another city. Granted, it was on the ocean, but it's also a city where the wastewater treatment consists of a one-inch mesh screen. You flush, it's straight out into the ocean, except for maybe some of the big bits, and if you're flushing something that big I don't need to know anything more than that. After all, that one-inch mesh (2.54cm. Really people, get with the metric program, will you?) should pretty much let through anything from the household, right?

Now wait, this is not the avenue I meant to trod upon, so I'll back up.

It's just another city, relatively old by Canadian standards, and with some interesting history, but it seemed to me that there was a veneer about it, as though it was all pumped up for the "taurists" (the accent) and maybe not quite real. It's not a rich province, and the gap between rich and poor is staggering, but again not obvious until you look a little bit.

When I first arrived, I felt very uneasy. Too many white people. It is, as someone put it to me one day, "A relatively homogeneous society." You can say that again, even though it's the oldest black settlement in the country. Let's gloss that over too, shall we? and ignore the racial discrimination. At least the police have reduced the number of times they pull someone over for 'driving while black'.

One incident that sticks in my mind, and which I'm trying to get around to here, happened one morning when I had Katie out for a walk. We're stepping along a tree-lined street, and she stops for a doggie piddle, and being a girl does what a girl dog does, which is squat a bit with her tail up. My mother used to refer to this as a curtsy, but it's not like any curtsy I've ever seen a human do. Anyway, she's on about her business and when done we move along so she can sniff a tree and other things, as she does. We passed a car, and the guy rolls down his window and yells at me, "Aren't you going to pick that up?"

"Pick what up?" I have a bag in my hand of course, for the solid eventuality.

"What your dog did. The shit. I saw her."

Now I'm angry of course, first because this asshole is yelling at me at 7:30 in the morning, secondly because he's making assumptions about how much care I take of my neighbourhood and whether or not I pick up after my dog, and thirdly because if this place is so fucking friendly, why is Dickwad yelling at me in such a rude manner? So I said, "She's a female dog. It was pee. Would you like to come and see it? I can't pick up pee with a bag."

"Yeah, sure. Whatever. You're probably one of those people that just carries a bag around and doesn't pick up the shit. Leaves it for others."

I am quick with the reply, but he's closed up his car and started it, so I can only hope that he sees my response.