Day 16
I rode on a Canadian bus for the second time today. This ride was much better than the last one (I bitched about that ride in another blog entry). Despite the fact that no one was speaking to strangers I decided I should give it a go. I turned to the Chinese man next to me and asked him how many more stops until we hit Main. He smiled as he put down his paper and described each stop and the areas around them. He gestured to the street and told me that the only reason it is being repaired is for the Olympics, so that visitors from other countries will think Canada is a great country. I told him my life story and a guy who fake coughed for five minutes because he was too scared to say, "Shut the hell up," finally moved to the back where he could read his pulpy sci-fi trash novel without hearing our cheerful banter (dickwad). Meanwhile, my new friend and I chatted about foreign airports and trains until I had to dash out the closing door at Main. I miss him.
The reason I had to dash out was to walk to the Canadian Government Centre (actually, I have no idea what the proper name is, I just went to the brick building with a maple leaf on the side. When I told the receptionist that I had come to obtain my SIN (Social Insurance Number) I chuckled at the acronym. She had me sit with five other people in the waiting area and told me to wait for my name to be called. Halfway through writing a text message a bespeckled, salt-n-pepper haired woman stood at the front and called my name. I stood up, she pretended not to notice my presence (not easy to do when there is only 5 other people in a tiny space). I advanced toward her with my arm raised as though to say, "I'm Emily." I got within a foot of her and she asked if I was Emily. And, dashed off like a woman half her age would walk if she were late for a bus. She led me to her cubicle, number nine. She walked around the side fighting a hacking cough. She sat and said, "I don't know why I'm coughing, I'm not sick. I think I just need to eat lunch, you know? Anyway..."
She took my documents and everytime she turned to her computer to type in my information she did so with a sort of fear that she would do the wrong thing. At one point she asked me a question and I answered that I didn't know, that I just faked it (whatever it was). She said that everyone in Canada fakes it, then looked across the cube row to her co-worker. "Look, at Simon, he's been faking it for years." Simon looked up and smiled, almost as if it were a rehearsed scene.
The lady let's call her Karen, kept typing and I could hear her cubicle neighbor interrogate a Korean woman, "Did you claim your mother as a daycare credit?" Silence. "On your taxes." Silence. The Korean woman moves in closer as though it will help her understand. "Did you claim her as a babysitter on your taxes?" Meanwhile, the lady working on my SIN (ha!) shoved a Privacy Act under my nose, "I will be right back." I read the notice taking special attention to the "Old Age" Pension. When Karen returned I asked her what exactly "Old Age" meant. She said, "What? Do you want a number or a philosophy?" She laughed sharply and then turned to me and said with a too-serious face, "Sixty-five."
Before I left she handed back to me all of the letters I had to obtain and forms I had to fill out. I asked her if she was sure she didn't need to keep them. "No, it's kinda funny though...we make such a big thing about you having to provide them and then we just return them." She smiled like a kid accused of stealing lunch money who'd successfully taken the cash and then dropped the cash near the victim and pointed it out and became the hero. Long story. Anyway, she drew me a map to the bus stop (that didn't make any sense) and then thanked me for a little too long for coming in.
As I walked to the bus stop, not taking her suggested route, I wondered if I was just part of some elaborate act. A fake setting that the Canadian government has set up and behind the walls are Canadians laughing their asses off at the stupidity of foreigners. Maybe it's not even the Canadian Government behind it, maybe there is a whole horde of identity theives with nasty senses of humor squatting in the building with the real Canadian workers gagged in the basement. Hmmm, if my SIN card doesn't come in the mail maybe I can't blame the shitty Canadian Postal Service, but I probably will.
-Canadian Castaway
Final thought, why is there a "Sports and Leisure" category in Trivial Pursuit, why can't those snob-asses just call it like it is, "Golf and Tennis."?
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