In which your humble narrator's stagecoach journey is interrupted by a royal procession

[sabotabby]

I stood in the cold and dark, shivering, telling myself that I ought to probably walk to the subway station rather than taking the streetcar. That's what I'd been doing until the weather turned, and it wasn't that horrid out. But the St. Clair streetcar is normally quite fast, and I'd recently been ill, and so I gave in. A distant part of my brain noted the blue flashing lights up ahead, but this was Toronto, a large and relatively civilized urban centre, and there are frequently blue flashing lights that have no impact on my life or travels whatsoever.

At last, the streetcar arrived, and I piled into one of the seats, turning up the volume on my trusty Ministry of Culture. I was so engrossed in listening to Of Montreal and losing a game of Solitaire that I barely noticed that the streetcar had stopped moving. Several people stood up and walked to the front of the car, having an animated discussion with the rather weary looking driver.

"...about 15 minutes," I heard, which is never what you want to hear on public transit. I tugged out one earphone.

"Can you let us out to walk to the subway?" As I mentioned, it wasn't far.

"Can't open the doors," the poor driver said (I realized that he had just been asked this question multiple times). "It's a garish parade of inbred parasitic Nazi-sympathizing douchebags.*"

"We're stranded here until they go by," a woman told me.

"This is the third time it's happened to me tonight," the driver added. "They've got secret service cars and motorcycle cops and it's a mess from here to Weston."

"Jesus," I exclaimed. "Your tax dollars at work!"

"I can't believe they need this many cops," the woman added.

"You know," I said. "At my school, we can't even afford to have textbooks for every kid. And yet we can afford this farce?"

"You'll get no argument from me," she said. "I'm no monarchist. One bulletproof car wouldn't have been enough?" (Monarchists, of course, do not take public transit.)

Just then, the scum-sucking scions of a decaying empire cruised past. You could tell by their hair. We were trapped in a royal traffic jam! I am fairly certain there were inbred idiots in the pissy little backwater where I grew up (you don't need to import them all the way from England) but no one ever halted St. Clair to let them through.

"It's not like anyone's going to take a potshot," I added. "This isn't the 1800s." Unfortunately.

"What do they do exactly? What contribution do they make?" a man asked.

"Nothing," I said, "they just take." My fellow stranded travellers nodded in agreement.

Finally, we were allowed to go. We bid each other a friendly goodnight. I was disgusted at this opulent display, but my heart was warmed by the fiery righteous outrage of the good people of this city.

And that is how I came a stone's throw away from the bloody royals, but was unable to throw a stone.

* I may have taken some liberties, gentle readers, with our good driver's phrasing. He probably just said "it's the Royal Family." But his tone said everything.

Comments

[montreality.livejournal.com]

They never come to Quebec.. :-D

[sabotabby]

In Quebec, someone would toss a brick.

[sabotabby]

What do you know...?

[montreality.livejournal.com]

I thought of the comment I left on your journal when I learned a few hours ago, I spoke too soon! No one can accuse Montreal of a cold reception, at least ;)

[fengi.livejournal.com]

Still, if it's a choice between them and the Palins - I'd take them any day.

[sabotabby]

They have the advantage of being just useless at this point in history.

Nevertheless, come the revolution we'll party with them all like it's 1918. Trig can live.

[krinndnz.livejournal.com]

Yeah, there's a distinct element of lolsob in the fact that they're useless - and that's above average for tippy-top elites of industrial nations.

[northbard.livejournal.com]

That's a false dichotomy, like saying "oh sure it sucks to be poor, but at least noone's forcing you to have sex with German shepherds while Ronald Reagan clones slowly trepan baby seals with your grandmother's heirloom silver spoons and eat your keepsake Teddy bear from when you were three!"

[shelestel.livejournal.com]

I remember the gay parade got me stuck in traffic for like half an hour. Those faggots. But the worst was Santa's parade: I needed to get to the library and couldn't cross Bloor street for over an hour.

[secretsoflife.livejournal.com]

...you couldn't just go through the subway to the other side of bloor? just sayin'

[sabotabby]

One time when I lived right on Bloor, I couldn't get out my door.

[shelestel.livejournal.com]

The closest station that had exits on either side was 1km away. And I'm not even sure I knew that at the time.

[bike4fish.livejournal.com]

Nice to see the Guy Fawkes icon back. Just in time, too.

[sabotabby]

It is that time of year.

Instead of burning an effigy, I will be stuck in a frustrating union meeting. Though hopefully it will involve sandwiches.

[rrrao.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm sometimes heartened by other ordinary people's instincts sometimes, like a healthy anti-monarchism. But the fact that CEOs travel around relatively unmolested means democratic populism still has a ways to go...

[sabotabby]

Did you know that while they're running out of the H1N1 vaccine for doctors in some parts of the province, CEOs are getting it quickly through a private clinic?

A private clinic that has not been stormed and ransacked yet.

So yeah.

[frandroid.livejournal.com]

Really? Someone got fired in Alberta for securing the vaccine to the Calgary Flames. Many of these guys make more money than your average Calgary CEO!

[ironed_orchid]

The timing is pretty wonderful wrt Guy Fawkes.

I kinda love that you had such a conversation witht he other passangers, and I'm sure that's exactly what the driver would have called them had he not been working at the time.

[sabotabby]

It was very much there in his intonation.

[erikthedane.livejournal.com]

Permission to filch your Fawkes icon? Tis made of much awesome. Full credit to you, of course.

[sabotabby]

Why certainly!

[pofflewomp.livejournal.com]

I got confused! Christine is here patting Ronniedoggie and Ian smoking fags, and my name is St Clair, so I thought eh? then I had to ask Christine what a streetcar is. Then I got all confused because I'm sure Canada has no royals. Was it our royals? I heartily apologise if so. We haven't got rid of them yet because we feel their sweet quaint frumpiness attracts American tourists, not that I can stand being surrounded by tourists of any kind, yet alone the American ones, but apparently it is good for money or something.

When I was at horrible Cambridge university the royals used to visit and everyone except me would get all excited and go to see them arrive. The queen would take an entire train from Kings Cross to Cambridge for the day.

When I was ten our school had to do a dance for Princess Anne, so my dad dressed me in red and black anarchist clothes, with a red gypsy headscarf, and I pointedly refused to shake hands in line with the princess afterwards and read a book instead. Heh.

[sabotabby]

Good for little pofflewomp! That's an adorable mental image.

We have your royals. We're still part of the Empire I mean Commonwealth.

[pofflewomp.livejournal.com]

goodness me! does that mean we are citizens of one another's homelands and that I can move to Canada? Actually, better not as the benefits/welfare system there sounds like what baddies are trying to make ours become.
p.s. do Canadian foodstuffs' boxes have vegetarian labels on them? I bought some chocolate brazil nuts boxed in Canada today and they do not say suitable for vegetarians, but I thought maybe that is because they just don't mention such things on chocolate boxes in Canada...I suppose I'll just eat them anyway. I bought them for my grandmother, who thinks vegetarians are stupid, but then I remembered her dentures.

[ayoub.livejournal.com]

Awesome...

And I love your icon!

[sabotabby]

Why thank you! I have several.

[rohmie.livejournal.com]

What a lovely story. Nothing this cool happens on Louisville buses.

[sabotabby]

Public transit in Toronto could be better (the end of my morning commute reminds me of nothing so much as the post-winter, ill-maintained roads outside of St. Petersburg) but riding it is quite frequently an adventure.