The Tipping Pint

They also serve who only stand and wait. From 17 to 27, I earned my living from tips.

I left home/was kicked out just as I turned 17. I ended up in Banff, where I worked as a chamber maid for a couple of months and then found a job waitressing in a pancake house (I was too young to get a job anywhere that served booze once they checked my S.I.N, although I looked old enough to make it into almost every bar in town).

For two years, I got up (or, okay, was still up from the night before) at 5am and made my hungover way down the pathway on Sulfur Mountain to Phil's. One spring morning,I literally walked into a moose. Luckily, he or she did not take offense. I'd let myself in, turn on the back lights, start the big pots of coffee up, and begin squeezing whipped butter islands into little side bowls. The cook would show up and cook us some eggs and pancakes, and then the utility crews, the ski patrol, and the hands from the dude stables, along with any early morning hikers or skiers would start pouring in, desperate for coffee and carbs.

I'd work till 1:30pm, turning over about 80-90 tables in that time. The money was great--not much per table, but the sheer volume made up for it. And time flew by, because it was so insanely busy. Everything I know about multi-tasking today, I learned at that job. When I turned 18, I was able to move over to evening shifts, serving booze. Even better tips, and not quite as frantic. I took a bussing job at a good restaurant and, by the time I was 22, I was serving in a high-end, nationally rated bistro, featuring a French trained Japanese chef, who created some of the first fusion cuisine North America had seen. On a slow night I'd take home $60, on a good night I'd take home $150 (this after tipping out about 30% to the bussers, bartender, and kitchen staff). Typically, my customers tipped 15-20% on their rather hefty bills (I think Canadians tip at a lower percentage than Americans, but we have up to 15% sales tax on a bill, too).

I made almost nothing in wages--the owner refused to pay us for more hours than he had assigned to the shift, which he said ended when the restaurant closed. Yeah, show me a restaurant where the wait staff get out at the same moment that the kitchen closes! My covenant with the customer was that I would serve delicious food in a way that enhanced the evening--whether inobtrusive and seamless, or friendly, flirtatious, slightly aloof--but always as flawless as I could make it. I hated it when a customer had to ask for water, bread, wine pouring and coffee refills...

I treasure the memory of the engagement proposals I helped facilitate; the nervous guy on a first date with the woman he ultimately married who used his finger bowl (hot water with lemon slices) as a dip for his mussels. I didn't say a word until I had cleared the plates and she was in the bathroom and then slipped him a note for future reference. He thanked me with a 40% tip and came back often.

It's been over 15 years since I last put on my cummerbund and bow tie. I'm still a heavy tipper and can't help but grab the check when it's one of those group bills and tell everyone how much they owe, having factored in tax and tip. I dine frequently with an older friend who loves high end dining but hates tipping--he thinks that 10% is generous--I can't help but slip an extra $20 or so under my saucer when he insists on picking up the bill. I guess I am a pathological tipper, because I know how poorly the serving staff are paid, and they are often required to tip out a certain percentage of their sales (not their tips) to the kitchen, bartenders and bussers. From 3-7% of sales, in fact, depending on the business model. Which (there is no other word for this) sucks if you've had a big table that has stiffed you.

P.S. if you recognize yourself as the slimy type who "forgets" to pay at the group table, once you realize that there is enough money down--your table mates didn't decide to treat you, they were TIPPING the server who ran back and forth with drinks, water, appies, meals, desserts, coffee and tea, etc. It's theft, and there is a special place in hell for you.

Flashman: The Non Musical

One of my dream jobs is being the casting director Supreme. This morning's coffee discussion turned to Flashman, who was one of my favourite and slightly problematic anti-heroes when I was a teen. The books are great; well researched, lots of adventure, and, ummm, a fair bit of misogyny and racism, as is only appropriate for the tales of a Victorian bully-boy. Which is why they are tough books to translate to screen (one miserable attempt with a woefully miscast McDowell some years back).

Casting Flashman requires an actor who looks physically impressive, is a handsome brute, can toady with the best of them if he thinks it to his advantage, and who can display convincing cunning and deeply subverted cowardice. My top pick (though I haven't seen the last two characteristics on display yet) is Gerard Butler. Then Clive Owen. Then Adrian Paul. Maybe the Rock, if he could grow mutton chops and do a convincing upper-class Brit accent.

Thinking about Flashman made me think about Billy Bunter, one of my favourite reads as a kid (despite being a fat kid, myself). Again, rampant classicism, racism, and women don't even exist, except as Tuck Shop ladies dispensing jam tarts (hidden code?). But they made me laugh out loud. And want jam tarts, even though they've always been a disappointment when I actually had one in my mouth. In my local library, nary a Billy Bunter title to be found--censored, and maybe rightfully so...

Magic Shoes

As we became more deliberate in our sexuality, the shoes we chose for a date were coded messages

A few nights ago my husband and I beat the summer heat by lounging around on the basement couch. Random channel surfing produced a surprisingly fascinating documentary, Ballets Russes, about the ballet troupe founded by Diaghilev in 1909—in it’s heyday, talents as Nijinksky, Balanchine, Picasso, Matisse, Stravinsky, Debussy, and Ravel collaborated to create dances, sets, and music which are still in use almost a century later. The film combined archival footage of the troupe’s fifty years of performance with interviews of the surviving dancers, all of whom seemed to have the kind of old age that I hope to (still actively working and full of mischief). My husband, not a ballet fan, enjoyed it, too.

When I was a chubby eight-year-old, I pestered my parents until they enrolled me in ballet class. The teacher an Iron Curtain defector, was a Hungarian in her early fifties, who stalked around the mirrored basement with a cane in one arthritic hand and a cigarette in the other. Practicing my “un, deux, trois, etc.” amidst a row of equally clumsy little girls, I would covetously eye the eleven and twelve-year-olds who, perched on the wooden bench at the back of the classroom, banged their toe shoes against the floor and then wove the pink satin ribbons around their ankles, tying them in perfect bows.

This, I believe was the start of my magic shoes fetish, one that most women share. At some seminal point in our history, we gazed at the satin-encased arched foot and gleaming, rounded toe supporting a ballerina’s impossibly graceful pose and we were lost. We wanted that elegance, that ability to transcend gravity, the capacity to transform from girl into swan or fairy queen. And then we saw the Wizard of Oz, the sparkling Ruby Slippers whose true magic lay in their ability to change a frumpy farm girl into a Power in a magic land (and NOT in taking her back to a farm in Kansas, for heaven’s sake!).

As puberty approached, we clopped around in our mother’s party shoes, dreaming of the day when we would become grown-ups, elevated not just by breasts but by three inch kitten heels, too. Later, as we became more deliberate in our sexuality, the shoes we chose for a date were coded messages. Shiny stilettos and anything that resembled a cat or snake skin told them, if they knew how to read it, that we set out on the date with passion as a possibility. Wearing high heels involves physical pain at sometimes excruciating levels (it’s why the Little Mermaid story so resonates for women, once they’ve embarked on their adult lives), so they are only put on for a man when there was strong motivation. Sensible shoes were a signal that we liked you as a friend.

A little older, and women wear shoes mostly for other women. Their shoes are every bit as much a declaration to those they regard as competition as a man’s choice of car or mistress is. Jimmy, Manolo, Ferragamo, et al—these are the Porsche, Ferrari, and Mercedes of a certain woman’s world.

I’ve spent my life yearning after unsuitable shoes. A decade as a waitress was not kind to appendages that, as the culmination of many generations of Irish peasants, were already leaning toward triple E status. I am forced to live in flip-flops, earth shoes and clunky boots. But, walk me past a window full of killer heels with tiny straps and I am lost in a dream of what might have been: the pointed toe emerging delicately out of a Park Avenue limousine, a career as a dominatrix, the heady romp of groupiedom, being Margaret Thatcher’s security double… the list is endless and the only thing stopping me is sensible shoes.

Co-Existentialist Angst

My mid-life crisis involved a first marriage and buying a house

After many years of contented singledom, I re-encountered my first love about 18 months ago. Four months later we were married—a first for both. So far, it’s pretty damned good. We’re revoltingly lovey-dovey, combine passion with a steady background appreciation of each other, have survived a home renovation, and even work together. I thoroughly enjoy his company, and still get a thrill when he walks through a room. Frankly, it’s embarrassing to feel such a surfeit of emotion. I’m happy.

But. My life used to quite fearless, and now I feel it—that dread of a future parting. My morning newspaper has the notices of people celebrating their fiftieth anniversaries on the same page as the obituaries. I stare at the pictures of aged couples, and feel angry that it’s unlikely we’ll hit a golden wedding anniversary (we’d be in our mid-nineties). I now read the obits obsessively, keeping track of whether the person who died was married and, if so, was the surviving spouse male or female? I feel a weird happiness when I see spouses who have died within a few days of each other. It’s what I hope for, too, now that I’m sharing my life so profoundly.

But. I used to totally disapprove of infidelity, and scorn my married friends who stayed together after one or both of them had strayed. I thought they were weak; both for stepping out and for not doing their level best to destroy their cheating spouse. And now I know that I could tolerate it, under a wide variety of circumstances, although it wouldn’t make me happy.

But. My single friends seem to think I’ve won some kind of jackpot. Maybe I have, but it’s not the one they seem to want. They attach an almost magical significance to being married, some of them going so far as to say that they feel like losers because they aren’t. This comes more from women than men, but even the guys feel this pressure. I never felt that way—based on my parents and many of my friends, marriage looked like a great opportunity for unhappiness. The jackpot I won is finding someone that I don't just tolerate, but totally enjoy. It is in finding another human being that I am willing to change for, in order to accomodate our mutual happiness. It's not about the white dress and the diamond, or some societal judgement on those who live, for whatever reason, a single life (which is no way the same thing as a solitary life).

But. I’ve turned into a bit of a Wife. I make the dental appointments (because I’m scared plaque will migrate into his arteries and stop his heart), I do most of the laundry (because I notice that it needs doing and I don’t like asking), and I’m the one who handles the bill payments and does most of the picking up around the house because it hits my mess tolerance level before it hits his. Sometimes, I feel like I’m on the verge of nagging, as the boundaries are nowhere as clear as they were when I lived with a room-mate.

But. I’m agnostic, held back from atheism only because I can’t prove there isn’t a god. And, now that I'm married, I really wish I did believe in an afterlife; one where my love and I could be united for eternity, or share endless turns on the wheel of reincarnation, instead of my conviction that the biochemical network that is "me" dissipates upon death, and my slow dissolution into component atoms will occur.

But. All the buts don’t matter. This mystery of love that survives amidst the practical concerns of daily life is wondrous, forming an existence that is purely celebratory.

With thanks to Urquhart for sparking the thought chain

1 God, 23 Korean Missionaries

23 Korean missionaries were recently captured by the Taliban in Afghanistan. Two of them have been executed, including the pastor who led the group (mainly women) into their fatal adventure. It’s hard not to wonder “What the hell were you thinking? That God would protect you?”
And it’s equally hard not to feel an immense sorrow that this group of naively well-intentioned souls may all meet their premature deaths on such a futile mission.

I used to coach Korean students though the application process for the Ivy League Schools. They lived in Vancouver's wealthiest enclaves, in grotesquely overbuilt houses that cast shadows on resentful neighbours. They had the most expensive computer gear and Prada pencil cases. They spent four to five hours a day studying with an assortment of tutors. They joined school sporting teams that didn’t require much athletic affinity, such as golf, ping pong, and bowling. They all played classical musical instruments. Most of them told me that they didn’t enjoy the sports or music. They did it so that their university applications would look good. Ditto for the near-mandatory volunteering in local senior centres and hospitals.

These young people were scheduled from the moment they woke up to the moment they collapsed. Video games were their only down-time, usually sneaked in when they were supposed to be studying. Few of them had friends, because there simply wasn’t time for friendship in the schedules created by their parents. Trying to get my students to write the creative essays that the applications called for was like pulling teeth with a spoon. The term “automaton” regularly crossed my mind during our interactions. 90% of them would list some luxury car as their "dream" (one of the regular questions on almost all the application forms).

The only area where there was any spark of life was when they talked about church and God. Most of them belonged to a Pentecostal church, which is a fairly wacky and mystical variant of Christianity. Here is where they experienced mystery and freedom, albeit with some pretty stringent riders, in terms of what God wanted them to do. The weekly church outings were their escape into a life beyond the relentless drudgery of studying for the degree that their parents had chosen for them.

I’m an agnostic (and would call myself an atheist if I didn’t think that it is equally a matter of faith to absolutely say that there is no higher power as it is to say that God exists—neither can be proven). But I was happy that my students had at least one outlet for joy and pleasure in their school-stunted lives. Anyone of them would have leapt at the chance to go to Afghanistan on a mission. Their faith in their pastor and their God would have been absolute. For their sake, and for those young Koreans who must have been very much like them, I hope against my own beliefs that there is indeed a heaven for the two who have already been slain and a wondrous miracle for the rest of them.

The Weight of Blue

We’ve been driving for four hours in a straight line across the Prairies. Soon, we’ll hit the one curve that detours around Medicine Hat and then there will be another four hours staring into the horizon as we listen to some plummy-voiced Brit actor read Jane Austen on the audio-book which replaced the unending stream of country music filling every radio channel.

The sky is vast. A deep blue that surrounds us, made more overwhelming because the top of the battered convertible is down (and, when it rains tomorrow, will only come back up with the muscular help of five other people). We’re at the edge of the Badlands and the weird, bounding leaps of white-assed pronghorn deer keep making my head swivel. The landscape is slightly rounded; what the glaciers didn’t grind flat, the wind has worn down. After four hours of this, I am road-stoned. Stunned into submission by the sky, my mind drifts. I feel the weight of the blue.

It strikes me as strange that we are 3000 feet above sea-level (water boils at just a little below 212 F, here). And this thought of the sea, and the endless blue above and around, remind me that we are driving along what was once the floor of an ocean. 70 million years ago my companion and I would have been crushed below the weight of water. As I stare up, the blue above me is deeper, filled with the ghosts of strange life; 60-70 foot cousins of the Great White might not even have found us big enough to be tempting snacks (although that’s probably too hopeful a thought). But the giant, long-necked plesiosaurs definitely would have deemed us worthy of being on the menu. There would have been clams, 8 or 9 feet across, and other marvels that I can’t even begin to imagine. I’m reminded of the moment when, as a child, I realized the true height of a tyranosaurus as I counted off three floors at the Montego Bay Holiday Inn Hotel where my parents worked. “That’s big,” I thought, immersed in wonder that anything so large had ever walked on land.

The sea was different and, to this day, some part of me still believes that that 70 foot long megalodons might yet hungrily swim through the depths. Out on the ocean, past the 10 mile line, the land is gone and the curve of the world is visible, and the sea has a blue-black colour that speaks of unimaginable depths. A whole world lies beneath the shifting skin upon which we float. Back in the car, I shift my gaze to the dashboard. I never did feel comfortable swimming past the reefs.

High in the Rockies; the SAS and Madonna

In my new province of residence, Ontario, the middle and upper classes belong to cottage culture (which is quite different in meaning than the British term “cottaging”). On Friday afternoons there is a vast exodus to these rustic lake shore retreats. Myself, I enjoy nature when it is mediated by concrete—is there anything lovelier than a dandelion’s green and cheerful yellow against a gray pavement? Every once in a while, I forget this fundamental truth about myself and go hiking.

One fine July day, a friend and I set out on a blazingly sunny morning to climb the highest pass in Banff National Park and then spend a couple of nights camped at the shore of Fish Lake. Because it was July, we hadn’t bothered with snow gear. About six hours in our foolish optimism was rewarded with a blinding snowstorm that obliterated the trail and left us with a visibility of about 3 feet. A quick look at our guidebook indicated that pressing on made more sense. It’s actually easier to go up under slippery conditions that down. This is even truer when your footwear respectively consists of a pair of Teva sandals and sneakers.

Eight hours later, in near darkness and chilled to the point of hypothermia, we stumbled out of the storm. It was surreally beautiful; the last rays of sunlight broke through towering pillars of dark cloud to illuminate a mountain meadow in full bloom. We were lost in wonder at the exquisite tableau. Which was probably why we didn’t see the porcupine until we almost stepped on it.

We managed to quickly jump to the side of the trail while the porcupine waddled by. Unfortunately, I landed in a large pile of reasonably fresh bear scat. Did I mention that I was the one wearing the sandals? We trudged grimly down until we reached Fish Lake. I washed my feet in the glacier-fed lake and then warmed them at the fire before retiring for the night. The next two days were idyllic. Small day hikes, sketching, and epic bouts of backgammon.

Late the afternoon of our final day, we returned from a languid walk to a small lake known for its plentiful fish. We looked forward to a good dinner and a quiet night under the stars. Weirdly, I could hear what sounded like a faint chorus of “Poppa Don’t Preach”. As we got closer to the campsite, Madonna became more distinct.

I don’t know what we were expecting to see, but it certainly wasn’t two dozen British soldiers in fatigues, their guns and grenades leaning against tree trunks. They were a training group learning mountain survival techniques. An essential part of the survival supplies seemed to be 26 ounces of Rye Whiskey per man. All I can say about the rest of that night is that you haven’t fully experienced life’s rich pageant until you’ve watched (cautiously and from a safe distance) a troop of drunken soldiers dancing to “Like A Virgin” while singing along at a high pitch.

We left while it was still dark, stopping a few hours later to boil some oatmeal for breakfast. The return hike was pleasant, except for the horseflies, which swarmed around our heads, landing for an occasional brutal bite. We were both relieved when we finally saw the car. In only two hours we would be freshly showered, eating pizza, and laughing over our hellish trip. This happy reverie was shattered when the car wouldn’t start. The problem was easily diagnosed when we opened the hood. The engine had been stolen. Since then, I’ve made sure that all my hiking is done within hailing distance of a taxi fleet. I’m leaving the great outdoors to the bears and the SAS.

The Beastly Badgers of Basra

As if foreign troops, sectarian violence, and daily living weren't bad enough, the besieged inhabitants of Basra have something new to worry about--man-eating badgers.

This morning’s paper elicited a novel reaction. I laughed out loud at a news story out of Iraq. For once, it wasn’t the appalling list of civilian and military casualties (and isn’t that a sweet, gentle word to describe maimed bodies and bloody flesh?). The headline news reported that residents claim that giant man-eating badgers are terrorizing the Iraqi city of Basra. Inevitably, the occupying British forces are held responsible for the mutant beasts—farmers around the Karmat Ali area air base believe that the English released them into the country side. (They’re lucky, if they are right the English are being relatively mild, compared to the smallpox infested blankets that they used to get rid of 90% of Vancouver Island’s First Nations population 200 hundred years ago). Despite the reassurances by a local veterinarian that these are actually indigenous animals who typically weigh in at about 35 lbs, residents live in fear that the badgers will attack them in the night.

In a way, they are right about the British. The sudden increase in the badger population that has raised their visibility and predation is because the new government of Iraq has been restoring a vast marshland, which had been dammed (or, perhaps, damned) by Saddam Hussein as a means to rid himself of some rebellious tribes. As the wetlands are restored, the badgers, which had expanded over the last few decades into this new territory, are forced into the adjoining countryside of Basra. So it is legitimate to assign at least part of the blame to the bloody English.

I assume that, if I were unfortunate enough to live in Basra, dwelling on killer badgers would make a pleasant change from worrying about heavily armed sectarians determining that I subscribed to the wrong belief system or US allied troops deciding that I was an enemy. A new urban-folk myth might be the kind of marvel one discusses with neighbours and friends over coffee, almost a return to normalcy, rather than the daily, drearily sad horror that is life in occupied Iraq (and which will probably be even worse once coalition forces have withdrawn). In the end, it seems that my laughter was, after all, misplaced.

Whose body is it, anyway—when you’re on welfare?

Some years back, the governments of Wisconsin, New Jersey, and Georgia floated the idea that women on welfare should be denied benefits unless they agreed to contraceptive implants. There was the usual flurry of polarized for or against articles and speeches, mostly grounded in either feminist or right-wing ideology. I am a radical feminist (by Webster’s primary definition of each word) who came down on the side of enforced contraception. This was not a popular position within most of my social circle (I believe the term Anti-Christ may have been bandied about).

If, for whatever reason, a person goes on welfare, he or she gives over the responsibility of caring for their basic needs to another. The last time most of us were in that position, we were children. It is pretty commonly agreed (in wealthier societies that have the luxury of not needing children as economic resources) that adolescents should not become parents. The practical reason behind this is that children are dependant on their parents, and lack the financial and emotional resources to effectively care for offspring (if anyone reading this article is the happy parent of a thirteen-year-old mother or father, I can only assume that drugs or a fundamentalist sect form your worldview).

When on welfare, you involuntarily surrender some of your status as an adult. You’ve declared to society, “I can’t provide for myself; please feed me and house me.” The government becomes the de facto parent of the welfare recipient, albeit the kind whose neglect would probably lose the kids to foster care. Society provides some form of food and housing, no matter how grudgingly, by sharing the products of other’s labour. It’s the upside of taxation—at least if you are a knee-jerk left-leaner like me. While I’m happy to make sure that you don’t starve or freeze to death, I don’t want you bringing new lives into the world that I am also expected to pay for, because my taxes are already high enough—I enjoy my Starbucks’ habit and frivolous spending on unnecessary décor items.

Because of my selfishness, I’m in absolute agreement with the idea that if a woman applies for welfare it is fair to require that she be given a contraceptive implant for the duration of her time on social assistance. Just to be equally offensive to both genders, I think men wanting welfare should also have to use hormone implants or sperm duct plugs, as they are patently unable to support any offspring they father during this period.

This is not a misogynistic or anti-poverty position. It is a fair, economic practicality. Some of the aforementioned state governments also decided that they would deny financial support to any children that were born while a woman was on social assistance. Now that IS child abuse, coming from legislators who, even if they have the heart of a pre-visitation Scrooge, should be able to see the long-term medical and jail costs of malnourished, uneducated, uncared-for children. In fact, along with mandatory contraception, I’d also like to see a major increase in the funding that goes towards health, nutritional support, and education for children within the welfare system.

To those who scream that it is a human right to bear children, I ask, why? Simply because we can, biologically? Most of us have the physical strength to overpower and kill a child—does that mean we have the right to do so? Of course not. Do men have the right to rape women, simply because most of them are stronger than their victims? No. As one feminist slogan says, “Biology is not destiny.”

(For a well-reasoned, practical argument against my position, visit www.cwpe.org/node/89)

How I became an American--Sort Of

One of the joy’s of living in Canada is our health care system—depending on the province and your level of income it ranges from free to about $700 per year. It’s not perfect but, when one considers that the number one cause of personal bankruptcy in America is health care costs, the Canadian system is a fine and happy thing to belong to, because that little, throw-away statistic on bankruptcy can’t even begin to convey the horror of suffering from a major illness and knowing that you are the cause of your family losing their home and every other asset you’ve built up during your life-time. I can’t see it helping with the healing process, either.

The Canadian health care system is legally guaranteed by the federal government, but is administered by each province. So I found myself in a bit of a catch-22 recently when I fell into a mad love affair that ended, at least according to Oscar Wilde, badly(we got married). My husband and I conducted our courtship over a separation of almost 2000 miles. This was wildly romantic and very good for our national airline’s share prices, but the time came when one of us had to move. For a variety of reasons, it was me.

Just prior to the move, a thief’s deft fingers liberated my wallet. It was the second time in seven years that I had fallen victim to one of the pickpockets who ply their trade on Vancouver’s crowded city buses. I cancelled my credit cards, notified my bank to be on the lookout for any strange transactions, and then set about the process of getting my i.d. replaced. My passport had recently expired. I don’t have a driver’s license. I wasn’t born in Canada. The very first piece of i.d. I needed to acquire, before I could get anything else, was a Canadian Citizenship card. For some reason, it takes six to nine months to get this card. You might think this is because of renewed security efforts since 9/11. You’d be wrong. When I went through the process last time, it took just as long. The office is in a small city in the Maritimes. I can only imagine that it consists of a sleepy little bureau where half a dozen officials slowly make their way through the paper piles. This delay was to become a major problem.

After three months, my health care number from B.C. was no longer valid, but, because of my lack of identification, I could not apply for an Ontario number. My expired passport was not considered sufficient proof of identity. In vain, I tried arguing that the fact that the government of Canada had just a few years earlier considered me to be myself, and a Canadian citizen to boot, should be enough confirmation of identity to have a health care number issued. The officials were sympathetic but unable to help. And so, there I was, a few months after a major operation, without any health care. Which is how I became an American–sort of.

For that entire period, I lived in terror of any unexplained pain in my body. When the winter arrived and I routinely walked on icy sidewalks for the first time in over 25 years, I moved with the slow care of a brittle woman in her 90’s. I could not afford a broken bone. A bad cold turned into a bronchial infection that I suffered through, praying with each wheezing, painful breath that I wouldn’t develop pneumonia. I chose not to skate on the canal (a seven-mile long ice rink), because my innate clumsiness almost certainly guaranteed at least one good fall and I couldn’t risk a sprained wrist or concussion (both of which injuries my next door neighbour sustained an afternoon skate with her son).

It was the first time in my life that I didn’t have the comforting, background knowledge that, no matter what my financial situation, I could walk into my doctor’s office and be treated without having to choose between my health and the rent. I spent the next five months thinking often of my neighbours to the South. The comments in letters from friends about being stuck in a job they hate because they’ve developed illnesses that will prevent them from getting health insurance if they switch jobs and, hence, their insurance company, suddenly make sense on a visceral level. The spouses that stayed together long after the relationship ended, simply so that they didn’t lose access to health care. The man who risked jail for insurance fraud by giving his health insurance number to his brother after a fall from a ladder that broke his sibling’s back. And the hospitals that operate to make a profit. There is something vile about the idea that a place of healing exists to make money for shareholders; as a corporation, its primary duty is NOT to the patient, but to the shareholder.

There is plenty of room for improvement in Canada’s health care system. But there is also much to be thankful for. And, next winter, I have every intention of lacing up a pair of rented skates and making my faltering way out onto the ice, secure in the knowledge that I can, if not exactly enjoy it, at least afford a broken bone.