23 April 2016

The Last Thing We Ever Do



I came home to rush hour traffic. You know the drill. If it is not the sheer volume of the most demented drivers this side of Bom-fucking-bay, it is a crash; if it is not a crash, it is road repairs; if it is not road repairs, it is a breakdown; if it is not a breakdown it is a fat cunt more interested in their Facebook buddies than their own life, never mind the lives of their fellow drivers.

Every one of us thinking of one thing: a double on the rocks when we get home.

The sun was sinking by the time I made it home. Sonja brought me my double; I looked at the photograph of the Hammer above the fireplace, a small candle above her on the picture frame; I thought about Manitoba and the thaw. I thought about how good it was to be home.

"So, how the fuck was it?" Sonja asked. We had barely spoke since I was gone. My phone, I found, was incapable of making or taking calls or texting that far from home. The e-mail working only in certain locations. If not for wi-fi it was as though I had taken a trip in a Silver Time Machine.

"We do not know what we are missing living crowded as fuck by other other people like we are Chinese or something," I began. "Life makes more sense in a small town. What they have we don't is inter-connectedness - the willingness to give a shit about one another."

"You going to be ok?" Sonja asked. She sensed my confusion about what is good.

"I will get used to the city again. It is amazing how quick you become accustomed to life in another place. When we have visited small towns in the past looking for a cool place to retire we have fretted over how we would adapt. There is nothing to fret about. It is all good. We gotta get out of this place if it's the last thing we ever do."

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Village politiks will eat you alive. I would rather think of how to stop world hunger than deal with the encephalitic egos festering in these townships.

Your first priority when evaluating potential abodes is: How far is a good hospital from here? Forget anything more than an hours drive from a 24/7/365 emergency room.

Good luck on your hunt!

Mr. Beer N. Hockey said...

The first aid attendant in me has lots of respect for the hour rule. Trouble is there's lots of places we have already had our eye on that have had the fucking government either close or stunt their emergency room hours after we figured they were places that had a lot going for them. Everything is so god damn temporary these days.

Kim said...

Retire to Sooke Beer. We got Vic General, a hostile Government and impending doom. It should be quick and painless here.

Kim said...

Also, do it quick, because the Vancouver real estate contagion is reaching us now. As Vancouverites flee to Victoria, Victorians are fleeing to Sooke. So, fuck.

Mr. Beer N. Hockey said...

Well, we are getting to be the age where we could move into Sooke without raising one bushy eyebrow.

Mr. Beer N. Hockey said...

If there is one person who could bring down the price real estate around Victoria it would be me.

Mr. Beer N. Hockey said...

Come to think of it the price of real estate in Dope City accelerates the further I move from it. I bet the market moved up another 20 per cent once word got around I was in Manitoba.