CrotchetyOldWhiteGuyVille
I had to go to the dentist late yesterday afternoon.
Now.
My dentist is a nice guy and, most importantly, he doesn't give me a hard time about the years of neglect that he's now trying to fix.
And when I'm in the chair we often compare our operations. Yesterday we talked sterilizers. He has these tiny little jobs the size of an old 8-Track player that get up to temperature and pressure really, really fast. Me, I have a great, hulking stainless steel thing that costs me a fortune to fix because there are, apparently, only three people west of Winnipeg that actually know how to do it.
None of which is germane to this story at all, except for the fact that my dentist's office is in the West End.
And since I hate taking the VW (notso)Microbus onto the Downtown Penninsula for all kinds of reasons, and because I want to make Uncle Dave fume, I usually park in Kits, haul out my bike, and ride across the Burrard Bridge.
Which is exactly what I did yesterday after work.
And as I circled underneath the north end of the bridge and came down onto the Sea Wall just past the Aquatic Center I was accosted by a couple of slightly scruffy looking young kids who couldn't speak English.
Now, please understand....
These kids did not want money.
Or food.
Or dope.
Or trouble.
Instead, they just wanted to know if I spoke Spanish and if I knew where they could rent bikes so that they too could ride around the seawall (I think).
Well.
I can't speak Spanish, but that didn't matter (except when I kept lapsing into bad French) as I showed them where all the Denman St. bike shops are on their map.
Then I asked them where they were from.
Which turned out to be Mexico.
They even showed me their visas, laughing as they did so.
I apologized for my Prime Minister which I don't think they understood at all.
But that didn't stop them from smiling and waving madly as I rode away.
.
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