So I'm having some trouble uploading my photos, (are we surprised?), hence the reason you have yet to see my home, but I thought in the meantime I would regale you with other Ontarian tales.
Being back at the Center of the Universe I am reminded of how weird Ontarians truly are. There are a few things, that while completely normal to the people who live here, are odd to those of us who have not been here forever.
#1- Milk comes in bags. Everyone I know has a fishhook looking device magnet on their fridge that has a sharp edge to it for slicing open the corners of the milk bag. Which is a science in itself. Make the hole to small and it takes hours to pour milk on your cereal, make it to big and you have a splashy mess everytime you try and use it. Now it's true that you can get the 4 litre jugs, but not at grocery stores and they are more expensive because you have to pay the recycling deposit yada yada. So I am trying to get used to using bags again. I'm sure that once we've adopted the fridge in the garage, (another Ontario necessity), which is used soley for beer and milk it won't seem so crazy. But for now having the bottom shelf of my fridge full of bags of milk is weird.
#2. It's not unusual to hear the phrase "Yeah I got that out of the garbage." On a regular basis. And not from homeless people, but from everyone from teenagers, to the thrifty, to the moms who look entirely too prim and proper. In Calgary there is a strict two bag garbage policy. You can only put out two bags per household per garbage pick up and if it doesn't fit in the bag you have to take it to the dump yourself. Not so here in Ontario. It is actually quite common on garbage day to have a pick up truck pull away to take the family to work and school and beside it on the curb there is a pile of garbage as big as the vehicle. And everything goes in there. My friends just picked up a slightly damaged dual glide stroller, a little tykes kitchen and a small playhouse. Get them home, hose them down and give them a good wash and they are as good as new. It's neat. But weird at the same time. To think you go out for a family walk on Tuesday night, (wednesday morning is garbage pick up), and you just start "shopping" as it were. We saw some good stuff, but it was actually garbage, and so we didn't pick it up. Plus, neither of us are quite ready to join the ranks of the garbage pickers. But we'll get there I'm sure.
#3. Turning lanes. Right down the middle of the entire road with arrows pointing which direction you can turn in if you're in the lane at that particular moment, which no one follows. It's odd, but it gets you out of the way of the fast traffic. It's like the third lane that no one really uses properly. Funny.
#4. Usually The Beer Store is located directly beside the LCBO, (the Ontario liquor board store). So you see all these guys going in to pick their fine hard liquor at the LCBO with cases of beer on their shoulders. It's funny. I'm so cool with my MGD and my strawberry schnops. I giggle.
While all these things are funny to me now, in a few months they'll totally be the norm!
8 comments:
I find Ontario to be quite American as well (all of my aunts, uncles, etc. live there - I was born there)
I forgot about the milk in bags, though :)
Milk comes in bags???!!! Lucky!
Blogger rarely let me get pics uploaded either so I've started to only post from Dropshots...I just don't have the patience to try over and over!
Thanks for the cool new Ontario info! I had no idea about the milk in bags (haven't seen that since I was a kid!)...it would be really nice to beable to throw away as much stuff (and whatever stuff!) you wanted aswell. Neato!
So you slice open the bag for your cereal, use a little bit, and then what? How do you close it back up? Or do you pour it into a jug?
Can you can tell I've never encountered milk in a bag before? haha.
I'm accident prone. It'd probably just be best for me to spend the extra money on the jug since I'd be spending twice as much on milk replacing the stuff I've dumped all over the counter/floor.
Sam, this is just for you:
http://home.cogeco.ca/~husky66/Milk/
this shows the whole shebang except the nifty fishhook cutter device as this guy uses scissors.
every time I visit TO i end up going grocery shopping a few times!! and every time I walk past the milk and laugh at the bags..and as a memory of my childhood..we had the slicer thing on our fridge I actually think we still have one just in case we get bagged milk her some day!! Chris and at one point in time used to fight over who could open the next bag just so we could use it....like it must have been some kind of thrill or something!!
YOu need to walk to a Beckers or a Daisy Mart as they are all called now and have a banana popcicle for me...if you like banana slurpees or cream pie at all you should love the popcile..the mini mart sells them to...Just a week and a bit ago I was walking every day or second day to get myself one!!!!! I miss them!!!
When I moved to Saskatchewan I thought it was weird that milk DIDN'T come in bags. And, yes Amanda it is a science to opening those bags of milk (I am speaking from experience). As for those turning lanes and being from Ontario, I get quite annoyed here in Regina when people don't know how to use them. I guess there's still an Ontario driver in me (LOL) Oh the joys of living in Ontario :) Enjoy immersing yourself in the "culture" of Ontario.
What a great funny list.
Apparently garbabge-picking is trendy and I have to admit I did it once. There was a beautiful metal headboard painted gold sitting on someone's lawn with all their garbage. I felt bad stealing their trash though, so I asked if I could have it. It's really not that much worse than taking something from the "free pile" at a garage sale, is it?
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