a couple of gripes

Today’s For Better or For Worse had me tearing up – but only because I was remembering back to when a 10-year-old Liz, taking out baby April in a carrier, exclaimed about how much more exciting the world is when you’re with someone who’s seeing it for the first time. I miss that Liz. I miss the adventurous Liz who went up North to see whether she could fit into a tight First Nations community. I don’t like this spoiled brat who can’t be away from her family for five minutes, who seems to be concerned only about her wedding and not about her groom, who yells at her sister for not working hard enough on the wedding. I’m beginning to be glad Constable Paul Wright got someone who sees him for who he is, and loves what she sees.

One of the commercials on the local radio station has been bugging me – this is ICRT, the English-language station, which I do like a lot for their non-asshole morning DJs and their wide mix of music. They have the usual stuff with sound bites of people talking about how great the station is. The last bit is a man, American by the accent, who says something like, “We listen to it all day at work, and everybody likes it – I mean, everybody. Nobody complains, ever. that’s really something!” And every time I hear it, I think, “You twit. Could you act any more entitled?” No matter where you are, some people don’t like to complain. Here, that behavior is doubly strengthened by a culture that doesn’t encourage complaining at all and that does encourage people to work very hard to make visitors welcome. My guess is at least some of his coworkers don’t like the music – some of us don’t like *any* music being forced on us in the office – but that if he’s waiting to get complaints instead of actually asking what people would prefer, then he will be allowed to continue in his delusion forever.