Mouth Breathers
I live in the "bad" part of Ottawa. It's not that it is particularly dangerous, it's just that the gene pools are extra shallow along the shores of the Rideau River. Today I got to bask in their murky non-depths as I rode the bus to work for the first time in two years.
I remember now why I bought a car — to spare me the gruelling 40 minute commute with the unwashed Vanier masses, where I am a captive audience for the high school students who talk about how they, like, totally get Avril, okay? When I was in high school, the only girl who wore black lipstick was me on Hallowe'en. Now every girl over the age of 10 runs around looking like she's been in a bar fight. (Actually, in this neighbourhood, odds are she likely has.) And just when I thought it couldn't get any worse, the bus driver called me "Ma'am".
The moral of this otherwise pointless little tale? Always remember to renew your car insurance on time, and not at 1 a.m. on a Saturday morning.
Comments
Oh babe - you're just getting STARTED in life! Here's what else you have to look forward to (trust me - first hand experience)
1) Despite the fact that you do receive a regular paycheck (although you always wish it were more), you come home one day to discover that your electricity has been shut off because - well - you forgot to pay your power bill.
2) Repeat 1 but with water instead of power
3) Taxes! My 2nd year in the US I didn't file my taxes by the deadline. In fact, April 15th came, and I was sitting in a meeting at work with Rich (my boss at the time), and people were talking about taxes, and I mentioned how I hadn't filed mine yet and he gasped and said - "do you know that's a FELONY? They will put you in jail for that. Or even deport you for not filing your taxes. Not to mention all of the huge fines you'll pay and you'll never get out of debt". It's all true of course, to some extent. But a couple of days wasn't really going to get me booted from the country or into a lifetime of debt. But it panicked me anyway - so much so I spent the rest of the afternoon alternating between crying in my car (which thankfully Ihad renewed the insurance for ;-)) and driving around to all the post offices and libraries in a 60 mile radius trying to find a copy of the tax forms. Only to finally locate a copy and realize there was NO way I was going to ever be rational enough in the 8 hours I had remaining before midnight, to actually pull all my paperwork together and complete them properly. Finally got calmed down by a kindly librarian who told me to file an extension and helped me fill out the extension forms and mail them. Rich felt kinda bad afterwards I think (just a little bit). But what did I know? I was in "The Evil US" where they do things like that :-) of course I believed him!
After 2 or 3 of those, it all just rolls off your back ;-)
I'm glad you took the bus to work though! Thank you. I think we'd all be frightened at the number of people who would "risk it" for a day... NOT worth it!!!
Posted by: heather at September 21, 2004 10:31 PM
I suspect I'm never going to live that one down and I still feel bad about it...
Posted by: BlueNiner at September 21, 2004 11:19 PM
Why I didn't "risk it": Mom and Dad really should've called me "Murphy".
Posted by: Saedigh at September 22, 2004 08:10 AM