A Hidden Agenda

It's not often that I get to recycle a picture for my blog, but when the opportunity arises, it only makes sense.

As stated in my previous blog, I've traveled from my home in sweet Saskatoon, to the bowels of Hell, aka Regina, for the bittersweet weekend among friends, to commemorate and celebrate the memory of our friend and family member, Darcy.

The last few years, we've stayed at a hotel on the northern end of the city, but this year we've moved to a new spot.  I'm not certain when this establishment was built, but the rooms are nicer, bigger and way cleaner.  To put it plainly, I'm not afraid to sit on the bed spreads while wearing shorts.  The rooms all, from what I've seen thus far, are all generic with practically the same artwork on every wall, but over all, I believe this experience will be for the best.

The location is superb, seated just off a main drag.  There's a decent speckling of restaurants and fast food joints all around, unlike the other place that had a Burger Baron across the street and a Tim Horton's about a block south.  The Burger Baron's food is so sub-par to what should be considered edible, and the walk to the Timmy Ho's is not for the faint of heart.

I got to visit the Carl's Jr, down the street from this Days Inn and though it fell short of my experience when I visited the one in Kelowna, British Columbia, the food was still okay.  The only downside to that visit was the bearded toilet and the creepy albino dude who lurked behind the corner of my booth, readily available to jump out and inquire about my meal.  He asked three frickin' times.

The hotel, costs about the same per night as the previous one did, only this one seems to have a plethora of hidden fees that the other never seemed to have, or at least hid better than this one does.  The room is $128 per night, which by my math, comes out to about $256.  I'm being charged just under $300.  When asked about the extra charges, the quirky fellow behind the desk proudly answered, "Taxes and other fees."

Taxes, I understand.  We can't get away from that, unfortunately.  No matter what a person does or buys, the government needs to have their hand out for their share, too.  It was the "fees" that sparked my interest.  "What sort of fees?"  I asked.

"Well," he explained, "There's the destination fee."

"Destination fee?" I asked, "What's a destination fee?"

"Regina charges visitors a fee for coming to the city." he said.

I found this reasoning, absurd.  "The city charges people to visit their city?  That's ridiculous."  I said.

That sounds as stupid as the conversation with the bank last week, who told me that the bank charges it's customers a fee for banking with them.  Now this city charges people a fee for the "privilege" of visiting their city?  That doesn't make any sense.

"It's to help pay for events like the Exhibition (fair) or Agribition (agricultural exhibition)." he explained, without so much as agreeing that the premise seemed deceitful or devious and no matter how much prodding I made, he wouldn't budge and admit that it was stupid.

I look at situations like this and wonder where I fell short, unable to think up a helpful service that people require then charging them a f**king fee for being so helpful.  I couldn't do such a thing, though.  As much of a scoundrel as I can be at times, I can't be a complete asshole.  I wanna be an asshole, but I can't bring myself to it.  Regina, on the other hand, in addition to being a giant toilet, is proving itself to be every bit the asshole I've always suspected it to be.

Who Shot Will Sasso?

Got a call yesterday from my brother-in-law who is also my accountant.  I took in all my receipts and documentation to do with my income taxes a week or so ago and he's completed my taxation already.  For the first time in years, I'm finally going to get a refund, as opposed to having to pay in.  I guess unemployment has it's perks, although I'd imagine the fifty-two bucks coming my way will be diverted into the outstanding amount owed from four years ago, which I'm thinking is still in the thousands, or something along those lines.

I asked B___ what I owed for doing my taxes and he compassionately told me to simply bring him a coffee with cream.  As I said, unemployment has it's perks.  So I stopped at the nearest Tim Horton's by his office, to assure freshness and temperature, but what a chore that ordering process was.  [Head slap!]

I've voiced my opinions on this subject before and god damn it, I guess I'll be voicing them again.  I feel for any poor f*ck who faces oppression on a day-to-day basis in whatever backward f*cking country they come from, having to flee to the freedoms provided by one of the greatest countries in the world, Canada, but god damn it.  Learn the f*cking language.

It's good that there are people coming into this country who are willing to take those shitty f*cking jobs that no one with a grain of self respect would ever do as a life long vocation.  Flipping doughnuts, schlepping french fries or whatever the f*ck, but damn it!  Learn the language.  If you want to speak your jibberish in the back of the kitchen while preparing salads or cream-filled eclairs, then by all means, do that.  If you're going to work the front counter, then learn the language.  If I, myself, decided one day, "F*ck it!  I'm going to move to Buttf*ckistan."  I'm going to learn to speak Buttf*ckistani, come hell or high water.  I would show the Buttf*ckistanians that much respect.  I wouldn't dream of clumsily selling goat milk with my thick non-Buttf*ckistanian English.  The same should go for here in Canada.

An order that should have taken sixty seconds, at most, to place, took nearly four minutes of my endless failures to comprehend the less-than-broken English of (more consonants than vowels) girl.  I asked for an extra large coffee with cream and got the response, and I'm not exaggerating, "Doo da tray dee dee?"  I assume she asked a question as her tone rose at the end of her garbled speak.  "No," I said, "I want a large co-ffee, with creeeeam."

"Doo da tray dee dee?" she asked, with a look on her face like I was supposed to know what the f*ck she was saying.  "WHAT?" I confusedly responded.  She just smiled and repeated, "Doo da tray dee dee?"  I stared at her blankly...  "I...  I don't know what that means."

"Doo. Da. Tray.  Dee dee?" she said slowly, as if that was going to help.

"I want an extra large coffee with cream." I said.

"Ah." she muttered, and I swear I saw a light coming on.

"Oh good," I said, "I thought I was going to have to shoot myself in the head over that."

"Oh.  You want shot o assass-oh?"

"What?!" I charged, "Who shot Will Sasso?"

"No. You want shot o assass-oh!"

"WHAT?!?" I just stared at her, as she stupidly smiled back at me.  Truly a living example of: The lights are on, but nobody's home.  Dumb as f*ck!!

The one thing that stupidity has that I would consider to be a good trait is; Stupidity is colour-blind.  In fact, stupidity is affirmative action.  Stupidity, for all intense purposes, accepts people of all colours, cultures, creeds, and etcetera.  No matter what background you come from, whether you're a camel jockey from Kuwait or a race car driver in Milan or that Ivy League professor in Connecticut, you all possess the possibility of being painfully stupid*.

I don't know what the solution is to all this.  I wish there were a simple vaccine that people could get shot in their asses, that would vanquish stupidity forever, but until that day comes, I'm afraid all of us, myself included, are going to have to grow thicker skins in order to deal with these stupid f*cking people, whether they are domestic or imported.  In the meantime, maybe we need support groups.  A weekly meeting where us normal people can meet up for tea and cookies and a sympathetic shoulder to lean on while we talk out the idiocies that we're forced to contend with on a daily basis.

I did, finally, get my order.  Like I said, it took way longer than it needed to have taken, and it was finally because (more-consonants-than-vowels) girl finally handed me off to another bloke.  His English was atrocious, as well, but at least he was smart enough (barely) to take my order, accurately, and send me on my way.

.

Side Note: (*I met a college professor once, who was highly decorated with all kinds of diplomas and certificates.  He had a brand new car, which was failing miserably.  The cause was no oil.  He'd run the car for a couple of years, never changing the oil or even checking it or anything of the sort.  Then one day, he turned the key and the engine had seized up on him and he couldn't figure out why.  No oil,  stupid!!)