6/23/00
I happen to be very happy to be from New Jersey, especially because it’s treated like the nation’s spittoon. It’s just unabashed patriotism, for no good reason, and the existing reputation the place has only adds to the pride. People from Texas know what I’m talking about.
It helps that the area I’m proud of gets no respect; it proves that I’m not a fair weather fan. People from New York do the same thing. New York itself has a reputation as the greatest city in the world, which it arguably is. But any individual part of it, like Bensonhurst or the South Bronx, has a dumpy attitude. So that’s where people say they’re from, just so they can take pride in what the rest of the world dumps on.
I got to go to Canada recently. I was in Buffalo for business, rented a car, drove over the border, bought Canadian retail goods for work, then drove back. As far as international adventures go, this was quite possibly the most boring one in existence. But this stands out in my head, because I was basting my head with Canada the whole time.
It was mainly to remind myself that I was in another country and not just the state above New York. When you spend a lot of money on a dinner, you go out of your way to try and enjoy it, because you don’t normally get triple digit bills. Ditto for me in Hockeyland. I had only been out of the country once before, and that was also to Canada, so I wanted to get the most out of this. Who knows how soon before I’d be out of the country again, hopefully to someplace that had a cultural difference?
After covering a conference 9-4 on Monday, I got my car and pointed it north. Buffalo note: the city is EMPTY. Very nice, very clean, with a mile and a half section closed to cars so a pedestrian mall and trolley line can run through, but absolutely no people in sight. Not Sunday at noon, not Monday at 9:00 AM, not Tuesday night. Great place to live if you don’t want neighbors.
I didn’t know the roads, but the main highway out of Buffalo led right to the border. The toll was $2.50, or $3.50 Canadian. The customs toll booth is separate from the paying one. A woman asks me the purpose of my trip. “Shopping.” Contribution to the national economy noted: I was waved right through. My plan was to go to all the major stores I could see from the highway. If I couldn’t find any, I’d hit a phone book.
My dumb luck paid off, and with twenty minutes I’ve found both a mass merchandiser and a grocery store in the same mall. Now all I needed was Canadian money. The exchange places I drove by on the road were closed, and I was running short of time. It was 7:30 now, and I wasn’t going to count on any all-night stores to make my job easier.
There was an ATM in the mall between the two stores. I stuck my card in. Would this work? Yes it would; five Canadian twenties flitted out, which looked very very similar to the new American twenties. They were minted in 1991, way before our twenty, so maybe the US Treasury got unoriginal and dropped Andrew Jackson’s head over the Queen’s.
I hit the grocery store first, marveling that Canadians still drank Five Alive, and that anyone drank enough Clamato to justify a store brand of it. I gave the register girl my first twenty for a $15 purchase, trying to memorize every last bit of design on the money without looking like I had never seen a whole twenty dollar bill before. She gave me back some coins. I politely took them and walked off, wondering how she could compress five bucks into so few coins. As soon as I cleared the registers, I looked at my handful, hoping not to see magic beans. I saw two-dollar coins. What the hell were these, and how come I never heard of these before? They had the Queen on the front, and a polar bear on the back. They were all dated 1996, so there was at least four years for someone to tell me.
Two dollar coins are incredibly useful. You can make a decent sized purchase with pocket change. American money used to have that quality, too. Then inflation hit, the twentieth century hit, and you can’t even get a 20 oz. soda in a vending machine for that any more.
In the department store I found a private label Swifter, only with a less stupid name for it. They were closing at 9:00, so I rushed through it and didn’t get much of a chance to stare at my funny money. I spent way too much time in that grocery store, reading various Simpson promotional root beer cans. Get this: they not only had Simpson quotes, but French Simpson quotes on the other side. Mmmm ... mousseusse.
I hadn’t had dinner yet, and the road was bereft of any sort of non-restaurant, so I found a spot on the road with a Tim Hortons and a Harveys. I had no history with Tim Horton’s, but I had been to a Harvey’s before. Oh, I had been there before.
It was during that previous Ontario trip that my family stopped at Harvey’s for breakfast, the worst breakfast in Canada. The pancakes were like rubber, the syrup was like motor oil, and the vinegar on the table stunk up the place. Usually when you cut through and get Styrofoam with your pancake, you enjoy the Styrofoam less. Not so with Harvey’s Barbecue Pit. It became known as Harvey’s Breakfast Pit, thanks to a combination of the full name being Harvey’s Barbecue Pit and armpits being funny to a fourth grader. I’d be trying Tim Horton’s first. I’d try a dead possum in the road before Harvey’s again.
Tim Horton’s was surrounded by Canadian kids. A hangout; I didn’t know they existed outside of Happy Days and Saved by the Bell. I changed my mind about eating when I got a look inside. Not a hangout, a doughnut shop. If I could speculate, exactly the sort of doughnut shop the one in Wayne’s World was based on, since Tim Horton was a Maple Leaf player, and Mike Meyers is Canadian. So’s Norm McDonald. (See how annoying that is? Thank your God, people.)
My plan to make the most of this trip was to strike up conversations with Canadians, make a friend or two. This was dashed when I found a Canadian radio station. It announced that the Toronto Maple Leafs had just been shut out of the playoffs, by the New Jersey Devils.
Now I’m not a Devils fan, but to be in hockey country the day one of your country’s few remaining teams loses it all, and to be from the tiny part of the other country that you lost it to, is to jump in a lion cage with McNugget underwear. I had to hide my Jersey heritage. I threaded my way around the kids, checked for possums, and then went to (shudder) Harvey’s.
Inside looked like a regular fast food place. They’ve dropped the Barbecue Pit from the name; maybe we weren’t the first to make the oh-so-clever armpit reference. Hot dogs on the menu, but no ALL MAYONNAISE KEPT ON THE RADIATOR FOR A MONTH or 100% BRITISH BEEF signs. This place looked up to code.
Being Canada, I should have ordered something with bacon. That’s my one Canadian regret. I got a regular cheeseburger, onion rings and a mousseusse root beer. I paid in change.
At this point, my pocket system failed me. I had Canadian money in the right pocket, American money in the left. But my right pocket chose this time to spring a leak. All coins under $1 rushed out, bouncing off my ankle and scattering on the brown tile floor. I had to switch right pocket contents to my shirt pocket, which made every payment look like I was creatively going to give someone the finger.
The counter girl went to the topping area and asked what I wanted on my burger. Wow; whatever the opposite of Vulcanized pancakes are, this was it. Lettuce and onions, by the way.
The receipt said PROUDLY CANADIAN below the logo. Jeez, how I can hold a grudge against these guys? I love Harveys now. I can’t vouch for their breakfasts still, but after 10:30 it’s a fine establishment.
Back in the car, I tried for Canadian-only listening. Sarah McLaughlin, Rush, BTO, Bryan Adams if I can find him, Celine Dion, but only because she’s Canadian, swear to God I don’t like her otherwise.
My shopping had a few other highlights. I found a nursery with the initials TSC, after my old college. I overheard a Canadian say not only ‘eh’ and ‘aboot’, but also ‘wicked’, which they must import from Boston. Canadian auto dealerships have giant Canadian flags that fly overhead; I really should have expected that one. I made great time in speed limits of 50, until I realized that whole metric thing.
I came back a little south of where I crossed the St. Lawrence before: Niagara Falls. Niagara Falls note: at midnight, it’s EMPTY. Scattered couples holding hands, but plenty of time to stick your head out the window and enjoy the scenery while not having to worry about crunching the empty road in front of you. Pulled over twice to watch the nature, once on each bank.
I had a legitimate run-in with the customs guard as I went back to America. I was the absolute only car on the bridge coming over.
“Citizenship?” he asked.
“Yep!” I said, very stupidly.
“To which country?”
“Oh, uh, America.” I assumed you were thinking along the same wavelength as me; couldn’t you tell only an American is that stuck up?
“Purpose of visit?”
“Um, uh, pirvate, uh, private label shopping.”
“What?”
“Private label shopping. You know, store brands of items? You know, a Loblaws can of peas?” I always have to explain what private label is, and always use the can of peas explanation. “Anything in your trunk?”
“Nope.” I never checked; there might be a corpse from the last guy who rented the Neon.
“Could you pop it?”
Thirty seconds of me pantomiming trying to find the trunk button. I really couldn’t find it, but I had to put on the act so he also knew that. “Hang on, it’s around here somewhere,” I said as I turned on the windshield wipers for the second time. “Step out of the car.” Uh oh.
I went to the trunk, stuck the key in, and opened it to reveal ... a completely empty trunk. Lot of space for a little car. “The stuff I bought is all up front. I’ve got receipts for everything.”
“How much did you buy?”
“About fifty bucks worth.”
He seemed mildly surprised it was this low. “Go.” It was actually only $35, and a Canadian $35 at that. “Hey, any good deals?” I told him about the Swifter.
Back in America, it turned into another late night drive. Never mind that this was a new road for me: it was America, and thus kinda boring. The Canadian mind-marinater has been turned off, and the Buffalo marinater was just a reminder to eat some wings before leaving. I did, they sucked, about as hot as a Creamsicle. Maybe they would have been better with some private label Clamato.