The Rude Canadian

I know I promised some blog posts about my trip to Canada, and now that I'm home, I should probably deliver on those. But I'm in the middle of an edit ESPN The Magazine needs by the end of today for an upcoming story in The Body Issue, and because it's an amazing story I want to write amazingly, I'm kind of obsessing over that right now. But because I'm a man of my word, and also because I grew so quickly accustomed to Canadians' politeness that I was eventually more amazed when I met one who wasn't polite, here's a quick story about The One Rude Canadian. 

No, it wasn't some guy dressed in a gorilla outfit. That was just a marketing thing outside of a store, and it freaked me out because I was texting while walking and totally ran into it and was all like HOLY CRAP THERE'S A GORILLA IN A COAT ATTACKING PEOPLE ON THE SIDEWA oh never mind it's just a thing for the store. So I felt I'd share.

Anyway, The Rude Canadian:

I was sitting in a parking lot for a minute with my car idling. Hippie homeless guy comes up to me and just stares at me. I roll my window down. "Everything okay?" I ask. He makes a face and then lets loose this real exaggerated cough and waves his hand in front of his face. I got it. Fumes, the environment, etc. etc. Not really knowing how to respond, I just smiled and waved back. He shook his head disapprovingly and turned and walked away ... taking a nice, long pull on his cigarrette.