I Have to Go Where?

…I am the road warrior…

This will be another half-entry as I am soon to be pressed into business-related travel for my business-related job.

There’s a saying about the mixed blessing of being the tallest building in Peoria. On the up side, I guess it’s neat that of all the buildings, you’d be the tallest – hooray for you. On the downside, you’re in Peoria and so being the tallest building there only highlights that you are actually just a small building whose inadequacies are highlighted by the even greater smallness of your surroundings.

Personally, I don’t see a ton of wisdom in this as:

A) I’m sure that Peoria is a very nice place – any Peorii can correct me on that (but you won’t, will you?).

B) You’d be a building – you couldn’t move speak or act – birds would nest and excrete upon you and vagrants would nuzzle against your feet for warmth.

C) It’s much easier just to say, “Jim, you suck.” Instead of weighing down the poor dunce with a complicate building metaphor, you condescending jerk.

I should also point out that with a population of nearly four hundred thousand in the greater metropolitan area, Peoria is about two hundred times larger than the town nearest to me. Hail Peoria!!

Anyway, I have to go to Quebec.

This was supposed to be trip to Canada’s’ El Dorado – the famed, mythical and slightly malodorous Toronto. I like Toronto, I used to live near Toronto. I have eaten meals, consumed tasty adult beverages and rested poor, tired feet in Toronto.
In Toronto, I made a person freeze up in a phobic-driven seizure when I didn’t tell them they were standing over the Plexiglas panel in the observation level of the CN Tower.

“Jim, you need to look down.”

“Jim?”

You get the idea. Now, before I get any snooty comments, I’m not bashing Quebec – I’ve had lovely times in Montreal and some other places that I’m sure were extraordinary and formative despite my inability to remember them. So, just relax – I’m only bashing eastern Quebec. In retrospect, I don’t know where the hell I was going with that Peoria thing; originally I was thinking I’d make a comparison between it and small town, eastern Quebec. The obvious problem with all of this is that never having been to Peoria, I can’t guarantee that I hate it there.

I have done three things in eastern Quebec

1.Stopped to purchase gasoline.

2.Gotten sneered at for speaking English, not speaking French with the appropriate accent or allowing the goober pumping my gas to see my New Brunswick license plate.

3.Vowed never to buy gas in eastern Quebec again.

We’ll see how that goes.