Tales from the Homeland

Due to the ridiculously high price of flying home for Christmas, I elected to alternatively spend Christmas away and then head home after flight prices calmed back down. This particular trip had a few extra twists and turns to make it more of an adventure than I expected. Let's get down to it, shall we?

Just my luck it decided to be rainy and drizzly all day the day I flew out, perfect weather for walking to the bus stop. I simply refuse to pay $50 or whatever ridiculous amount of money cabs charge to drive you to the airport. I can ride the bus - subway - bus combo to get myself there for $3. Everytime I ride the TTC I seem to see something entertaining so everyone wins. I ventured out in the rain on the 5 minute walk to the bus stop dragging my suitcase behind me, next stop - NEW BRUNSWICK! That might be slightly exaggerated excitement, but I digress. It was a relatively lame ride up until the end of the subway line. While waiting for the express bus from the subway to the airport I saw this little dipshit of a man running through the subway station and sliding on the floor, back and forth, over and over. There was a group of guys (likely 18 yrs old or so) watching him as he slid back and forth in front of them. I assumed that the guy was just simply retarded until he stopped and the guys all gave him high 5s. I immediately disliked the lot of them immensely. I silently wished bad things upon them and hoped they were taking a different bus. NOPE! Same bus. I was already on the bus when they funneled in behind me and the little guy was now very loudly singing some ridiculous foreign song. I felt my blood pressure rising. It literally took all of my self control not to kick this little singing gnome in the face as he continued to sing for the next 20 minutes all the way to the airport. Luckily I had headphones, otherwise it might have been a much more eventful bus trip. Moral: Do not use a bus as your unofficial tryout for Canadian Idol. Little man syndrome at its finest. Let's continue on...

I arrived at the airport and checked my bags, then proceeded to security. I took off every piece of metal I had on and put it into the bin then proceeded to walk through the metal detector and of course it went off. Who was waiting for me on the other side of the metal detector? Yes, a little customs agent. He asked me if I wanted to be spoken to in English or French. I said English and he immediately started talking in French. I understand a minimal amount of French so I didn't stop him. He waved the baton over me and the only place it beeped was directly over my crotch. I thought to myself that this was likely a great time to inform him I don't understand French all that well. After having unbuttoned my pants and being waved down a few more times we found out it was the button on my jeans. I found it more amusing than he did and eventually he dismissively waved me on through.

Once I made it through security I found my gate and sat down, ready to kill the 2 hours before my flight. To my surprise and visual amusement, two guys sat down in front of me. I wish I had taken a picture of them, but I fear that a picture would not give this pair enough of a description that seeing them in person delivered. I will do my absolute best to describe them, but I doubt I can recapture the essence. The first guy was a wee bitty man with a shaved head, probably 40-45 years old. He was wearing a black bandana with big, friendly looking skulls all over it. Perhaps they were drunken, happy skulls. That was paired with possibly the oldest faded jean jacket still in existence. How can you dress up the oldest faded jean jacket still in existence you ask? That's easy, you clip a maraca and bongo keychain to the pocket! I can't blame him really though, I would never have guessed he was in Mexico without the keychain in plain view. Next up we have faded jeans with bedazzled pockets. I wish I was exaggerating this. Completing the outfit was a pair of white and very light blue sneakers. Like I said, my description can't even do it justice. The other guy was also sporting a jean jacket, a sweet leather cowboy hat and one of the best moustaches I have ever seen in person. All evidence pointed to them not being straight and the roles seemed clearly defined. No way a guy with a sweet cowboy hat and a moustache is the catcher. Moving on...

The plane ride was fairly uneventful, other than my ears feeling like they might explode during the landing. Also I'd like to take this time to tell anyone that feels the need to clap after a successful landing that I hate your face. Seriously, just smack yourself in the face with your seat/floatation device and save me the trouble. I'm not sure why this irritates me so much, but it does. My brother picked me up at the airport and we loaded into his van for the hour and a half drive to my hometown. The roads were terrible from the snow that had fallen earlier. You'd assume it was a slow and scary drive home, but it was not at all. It was a very FAST and ridiculously scary drive home. The few spots in the road that you could see anything other than snow, it was just gleaming ice. My brother is used to driving in that shit and it didn't phase him a bit, he drove about 120km/h the entire way home. I'm still not sure how we made some of those turns. To his credit, we hardly even slid on the turns and he didn't kill me. It did, however, take a few years off my life...

It never ceases to amaze me some of the stories I hear while in my hometown. One of the big stories this time around was how out of control the illegal cigarette trade has become. It's always been an issue with people buying cigarettes from people on the reservation for a fraction of the cost. My brother used to buy a huge bag of them at a time. Quite classy. It's gotten to the point where cops will pull people over and check their cigarette packages for illegal cigs, there is a $2 fine for every one of these cigs you are in possession of. Hmmm and people there ask me how I can possibly enjoy living in Toronto?? Well for one thing, most people here don't smoke at all. Those people I do know that smoke, they smoke legit cigs. You know the small town cops have a lot on their plates when checking for cigs is a priority.  

It snowed practically every day I was there, along with a 30cm drop on the Friday. That didn't stop me from venturing out to get beer in the storm. I didn't bother shoveling the mouth of the driveway, electing instead to try to drive out as fast as I could. There was so much snow that when I hit the end of the driveway about half of the snow went flying up and over the top of the car. Hey if you were in a small town in NB you would have done the same thing for alcohol. Don't judge me. The days after the snow, it was just bitterly cold. This brings me to my second story. The next door neighbour has a rather large gazebo in his backyard. My brother told me about how the neighbour goes out and stays in the gazebo most nights. On the bright side the guy does have plastic surrounding the gazebo and a wood pellet stove inside. Classical music can be heard blaring from the gazebo as well. How crazy must you be, or how much do you want to avoid your wife, that you would elect to stay in a freaking gazebo in -20 weather than inside of a warm house??

On a side note I had a very similar experience going through the security at the airport coming back, but at least this time the guy understood me when I elected for English correspondence.

All in all not a terrible trip home to NB, good times were had, good beer consumed with good people. Will I be moving back anytime soon? Hell no, but it is not a bad place to visit in metered doses.

Until next time, keep your trays in the upright position until the vehicle has come to a full stop.