Only an American would visit a foreign country and even think of doing what three Yanks just did to me. Here's the skinny:
I was walking my dog along the lake front boardwalk in my 'hood a while ago when I got hit in anger for the first time in my life.
I was wearing my Bush Lied / They Died t-shirt with the names of all of the service people killed in Iraq through Aug 2007, when I bought the shirt on-line. Three 20-something louts, half-drunk at noon - probably because Americans don't realise that Canadian beer is real beer, not the watered down mother's milk that Bud and Miller and Coors sells in the States so they get drunk much faster - were walking towards me.
One of the three stopped and shouted square in my face, "You Canucks really piss me off. I'm an American, pal, and I fucking resent you assholes telling our president how to run America!"
Looking back at him as squarely in the eye as I could - in his semi-inebriated stage, his gaze kept shifting so it was hard to know where to look - I replied, "Well, I'm an American too, pal, and I resent Bush being president and resent him telling me 935 lies to stage a phony war."
With that, the guy slugged me, aiming for my head but sort of hitting my shoulder mostly by accident; I wasn't hit hard enough to lose my balance let alone fall. As I stood there in stunned amazement, his two buddies pulled him away and headed into the park.
I wasn't hurt, just surprised. This being Canada, strangers immediately crowded around to see if I was OK and two lifeguards on the beach who saw the incident happen went chasing after the trio. Not sure if they caught them.
My dog was no help at all, being much more interested in a bag of chips one of the three was holding than in the fact that I was a victim of grevious bodily harm.
Tom Degan
1958-2023
To all Tom’s faithful readers of the Rant, we are sad to announce that he
passed away on December 7th, 2023. Thank you so much for th...
