the daily snivel

Most of you know that next fall I will be moving away from my ancestral home in Ottawa to start articling at a criminal defence law firm in Toronto. It will follow my summer of the Bar Admissions Course and is the final phase in my legal education, requiring 10 months of legal clerkship at a law firm, after which I will be eligible for a Call to the Bar of Ontario. I've lived in the Ottawa area my entire life, and have a lot of attachment to the city, which despite its "small" size of only a million or so people, is beautiful and resplendent with culture, music, energy, intelligence and activism. Toronto, of course, is a gigantic city that can fairly boast to be the home of far more culture, music and energy, as well as having more schools and more venues and lots and history and resources and opportunities. And, to be sure, my older sister will be there, and a lot of my good friends will be there. But my beloved friends Natalie, Mélanie, Celeste, Tara, Mike and Kari won't be there. My mother and my older brother will also be left here. My snuggly-wuggly cat, George, will also be remaining, since I have joint custody of him with Mélanie and I won't want to separate them or subject him to the trauma of moving to another city. I'm going to miss them all desperately, and it will be my mission to drive back as often as I can and keep a big enough apartment to always keep a place ready for my welcomed guests.

I can tell you, though, that there are still quite a few things I won't miss when I move away. Let me recount some of them.

1. Microwave popcorn. I don't have anything against air-popped popcorn or movie theatre popcorn, but the foul, unholy stench of fake butter from microwave popcorn can fill a house like mustard gas and is as stubborn in resisting attempts to decontaminate. The only thing more terrible and stubborn is the smell left behind by a decomposing body. Popcorn stank lasts for hours. And I won't miss it because, in my roommate-free apartment, I won't allow it inside.
   
2. The pungent reek of marijuana smoke. I don't really care if people smoke marijuana, but never again will I have to put up with its acrid influence filling the building or my apartment. It's the smell of losers. Not everyone who smokes up is a wanker, but most complete wankers smoke up.
   
3. The classic struggle of man vs. toilet paper. Namely, why it is that human nature invariably compels one to leave just one or two squares on the roll so as not to be the one to change it, and who will blink first and buy more once it runs out.
   
4. Washing dishes that I didn't fucking use in the Augean stables known as my kitchen. Ohhh, that angers up the blood. I will especially not miss the fact whenever I need a measuring cup, both of them are inevitably filthy and soiled with some greasy, stubborn, unspeakable horror.
   
5. Sharing the refrigerator. I have the bottom shelf of my refrigerator (ie. "the crisper") and it never keeps milk fresh in the summer, though possibly it keeps it crisp. Someday I will be able to put whatever I like wherever I like in the refrigerator and not worry about whether it's in my sovereign territory or not. I will also be able to keep more than one thing of my own in the freezer. And my ice cube tray will always be full. Full! Do you hear me?
   
6. Not being able to walk around naked in my own home. I am a thing of beauty, dammit!
   
7. The godawful water pressure in my apartment, and the inviolable rule of life that whenever I get in the shower, someone is going to do a load of laundry and reduce that shower to a freezing cold dribble, usually right when my hair and eyes are full of soap.
   
8. House centipedes. They actually own the apartment. We're their tenants.
   
9. Hair. I will not miss the ubiquitous presence of "not Rob's hair" that clogs the shower drain and sticks to the walls in the shower and to my bar of soap. I will especially not miss the bristly little hairs that are left behind all over the bathroom sink when my roommate's boyfriend shaves his head.
   
10. The sound of my roommates fighting and/or having sex reverberating through my walls and vents. And whistling. And burping. And tickling fights. I don't really want to know what goes on behind those doors.
    
11. By extension of number 10 above, I will not miss live-in, non-rent-paying, boyfriends and girlfriends.
    
12. As you can tell, what I really won't miss when I move out is having roommates. The people I live with are decent enough, and I'm sure I do all kinds of things that drive them crazy, but the important thing is, when I go, I won't need to share and (shudder) compromise anymore.
    
13. Another thing I won't miss is Ottawa winters. I hate being cold more than anything, and -40 C is not uncommon here. While Toronto is just a bit further south, its location, size and protective layer of airborne chemicals means it has far milder and shorter winters. Plus, on those rare occasions when it really snows in Toronto, they call in the army.
    
14. Ottawa buses will most assuredly not be missed. They usually arrive late, if at all, stop running early, and will leave you behind in the cold with sadistic glee on the frostiest nights. I eagerly embrace you, oh prompt, efficient, and enduring subway system of Toronto!
    
15. The fact that people from Toronto always get defensive when you talk trash about it and ask you "How can you hate Toronto if you've never lived there?" Well, I'm going to live in that big, terrible, crime-filled and self-absorbed city, Mr. Stupidhead! How do you like them apples?
    
16. Idiots who talk on cell phones indoors, or smack their kids in grocery stores, or abuse helpless retail peons. Wait, what do you mean they have those in Toronto too?
    

Now, some people think that, once I move away, I won't come back to boring old Ottawa. But I tell you now, I'm pretty sure I will be back as soon as I can get a job lawyerin' here. After all, in a year or two, you're going to see a list about all the things I can't stand about Toronto, assuming I'm not home-invaded or pushed in front of a subway or dead from SARS by then.

[update:] Another thing I won't miss when I move out: Garbage day.

Garbage day is my most hated day of the week. Now, I can hear you saying, "You know, Rob, they have garbage day in Toronto, too." The thing is, I don't mind puttering around the house and doing the usual chores. Garbage day around my house, therefore, must be a special event to earn such a high amount of my ire. In fact, I'm the de facto garbage man around the house. According to my lease, my unit gets a modest rent abatement each month in exchange for chores around the building like shoveling snow, cutting the grass, and taking out the garbage. Therefore, every week my unit is responsible for taking out the garbage for all five units in the building. As it happens, however, I personally of my three four roommates (including one live-in boyfriend of a roommate) end up being the one who does this every week. I also end up being the one who cuts the grass, changes the lightbulbs, and shovels the driveway and salts the steps in winter.

Today was garbage day again, and I woke up after two days of being bed-ridden with food poisoning knowing that I had work to do. But let me tell you. I was tired, only now recovering my strength and ability to stand up without getting sick, and I wouldn't have minded if one of my roommates could have taken it upon themselves to take out the trash, just once, even though I didn't (and never) ask. But no. Instead, the kitchen garbage can was overflowing, to the point where the lid couldn't even sit on it straight. People just kept stuffing the garbage further down. It wasn't a healthy rage that stirred inside me as I wrestled with the garbage bag, but the sight of grapes rolling lazily atop the vast heap of waste that tested the very limits of extra large Glad bag technology was the proverbial last straw. You know, on top of everything else in that garbage bag, someone had to throw out a bunch of grapes that had nowhere to go in the critical mass of kitchen waste, so they just rolled around as I struggled and barely managed to tie the bag closed. No one could be bothered even just to tie up the garbage and put in a new garbage bag so that it wouldn't be such a pain in the ass for me to take out today. Even that small act of not being completely lazy would have been just fine.

Then, as I was taking out the garbage for the other units around back, I noticed that someone had put three big garbage bags of their own on my back deck. That someone, I'm assuming, being one of my roommates. And I thought, okay, fine. Put them out there even though there are bins for that. But why don't you put them out on the curb on garbage day while you're at it, instead of lazily leaving them there and expecting me to do it? Gah!

I completely lost it when I took out the recycling. As I stepped out with the recycling bin onto the sidewalk, I slipped on sheer ice and flew ass over teakettle (as my sailor-mouthed mother would say) into the snow, spilling recyclables everywhere. Wearing only shoes and my robe (which made me feel a bit like a porn star), and, OK, a copious dusting of snow, I had to madly scoop paper and cardboard and flyers back into the bin as the recycling truck came closer and closer down the street. My hands are still stinging from the burn of smacking hard against snow and ice. That. No. One. Thought. To. Salt.

Yep, one more thing I won't miss when I move.