Right next door to hell

It's a good thing Toronto doesn't get any snow. I got on the bus 20 minutes ago and we have almost covered the 1.2 kms down Yongue Street to the 401. If it stays like this I'm looking at a 13 hour bus ride. Nah, if it's like that I'll get off at Yorkdale and catch a movie - presuming the theater is still open.

In reality though from what I've seen Hogtown doesn't get much snow. But don't get to thinking the weather here is good or anything. It's better than Sin City but that's like saying being stabbed is less painful than being shot. In fact I think the garbage weather is one reason no one here owns any decent winter clothing - they never go outside except to run from one door to the next.

Being a good Canadian (don't tell anyone) every morning I listen to the radio for the weather to know how to dress for the day. It's always some variation on minus two with a windchll of minus ten, or minus five in downtown with a windchill of minus 29. While the Big Smoke may not be hell on earth it's close enough that every day we feel the icy blasts. (Editor's note: In Inuit tradition hell is a frozen wasteland) So the reason there is no snow is that it all blowsaway.

Actually the highway is heavily salted and we are making good time. With any luck my connecting bus will be late and I won't have missed it. My connection is at the massive Square One Mall that is the epicentre of downtown Mississauga and a monument to why consumerism is wrong. 500 stores, ninety percent of them dedicated to telling the ladies that they are ugly if they don't buy this. And this. And that other thing. Not that Yorkdale is any better (it might actually be worse).

Anyway it all makes me think of this aboriginal comedian I saw on TV once. He had this little bit about how the only land in all of Ontario that is not currently subject to a land claim is downtown Toronto. He figured that when the first Europeans showed up and asked the natives where was a good place to settle the natives said, "Well the neighbourhood's pretty crowded alraeaqdy but nobody's living in that stinking swamp over there."

Not so any more...