Since times are evil and money scarce, I've had to resort to acquiring my newspaper quota from atop the garbage bin areas of local food-counter merchants whom I know will only throw them out at the end of the day. This is what was done with the Sun--the only paper the bar would subscribe to-- when I worked in restaurants. But if the place attracted patrons who read other news sources, I would snatch up a copy of the National Post or Globe and Mail if someone had left it behind and before it sat too long atop the dishwasher and the ink ran into illegible blobs.
I was working one night in one of these places when I mistakenly showed interest in the Calgary Herald that an over-fifty regular male patron was reading that evening. "Oh yea? You read the papers?" he asked, turning his eyes upward to meet mine. "Yea, of course. It's necessary to be kept informed and is my job as a citizen of this country and as a person walking around on planet Earth," I replied.
"Is that so…"
He decided to give me the paper when he was through that night and I accepted gratefully…until I realized I had unintentionally started a 'thing' between us. He would came in every night at 6:30 to eat and drink and read the paper. When he was done and I was processing his bill he would slide the paper over to me with an off-putting gleam in his eye and say, "I hope you enjoy this tonight after work." It didn't matter that it was just a newspaper which cost less than $3, he was getting off on giving it to me as a (used) 'gift'. I felt sick about what I had started and knew I had to end it one fateful night; I had to refuse the paper. I watched the clock until both hands were at the bottom of it and he walked in, right on time. It was all business as usual until it came time for the bill and until his mouth parted to say the line and his hand motioned toward the paper. "I won't be needing it this evening," I almost yelled. "Oh?" he replied, surprised. "Yea, I bought a subscription and now it comes to my house," I lied. "But don't you live on your friend's couch?" he argued. Goddamn you for sharing your life with everyone, I silently cursed. "Yea, but she gave me the key to her mailbox because she doesn't use it anymore after CanadaPost keeps stuffing it with flyers. It hardly even opens now it's so full! But I'll get rid of them. Say, wanna buy a Walmart flyer?! Hahaha. So long! See you tomorrow! And don't forget your paper!"
Ah, but that was then and now I've learned to only take abandoned newsprint. Which brings me to my Post score last night. I came across an article written by Joseph Brean about the disturbing yet recurring trend of big lotto winners spending their loot and going busted broke within seven years of the win. The man they chose to showcase was an ex small-time weed dealer who (now broke) was recently arrested and sentenced to two and half years in jail on crack trafficking charges, proving he was better off before his $5-million windfall. But this isn't the telling part of the article. Brean chooses to cite sociologist H. Roy Kaplan at the University of Florida who surveyed hundreds of winners and who found an interesting statistic. "He found that American winners tended to move house immediately to areas of established privilege whereas Canadians tended to renovate." I saw this and nodded my head so as it almost fell off.
I have lived all over this city and since finding my favourite place--still in my girlfriend's apartment but now alone and with my own bed--I have in the last three years been plagued by the ceaseless sounds of skill saws, drills and pounding nails until my ears are bleeding and I'm pacing around the neighbourhood with a Jamaican air horn and megaphone just to compete. I do not live in a flashy neighbourhood whatsoever. It may be downtown, but it's the last notch on the west end of the belt line. I pay $900 rent because I'm close to the hip 17th avenue--an avenue I would have loved to live off of in my 20s--and because it is still Calgary, the second most expensive city in North America to park downtown in after New York. But the sounds of renovations and general fussing over domiciles whether the owner has won the will to do so or not is something I (not being a homeowner) cannot fully understand. The blasted condos across from my apartment who constantly have teams of landscapers, roofers, leaf blowers, sanders, skill sawyers, table sawyers, sweepers, shovelers, painters and a regular stream of commotion, look no different after each major 'overhaul' than they did before.The small home next to the condos had just finished adding an extension to the front of it this summer. After the sounds of that ceased it was time for the condos to fire up the air guns for shingle repair on all four roofs and forty-eight accompanying overhangs although I could find not one of the damn shingles lifted, curled up, or in any signs of distress from the elements whatsoever.
But back to Brean's findings and how they must mean Americans care more about personal image (i.e. moving to a home in an affluent neighbourhood when they win) than they do about that particular homestead's image. Making news this year was the selling of the Playboy mansion, with the hitch that Hef comes with and won't leave until he's dead. Both him and the mansion are around 90 years old and while Hef still gets upgrades (mainly in the form of the playmates he keeps) the house allegedly hasn't (See Vice's "I Went to the Playboy Mansion and it was Kinda Depressing"). But that didn't stop it from being sold for $200 million to the 32-year-old billionaire owner of Twinkies. Daren Metropolous, son of a Greek American billionaire and private equity tycoon, currently lives next door to Hef in an $18-million mansion and plans to combine the two properties, creating a 7.3 acre compound. Hef is already been heard asking after the biggest load of Twinkies the Hostess heir can get so that he turn one of his infamous 'movie nights' into a Twinkie eating contest between his bunnies that will go until the first one who requires liposuction loses. He mentions no plans to renovate.
The only 'renovations' I have sought after to my apartment since moving include the reduction of the amount of flyers stuffed into my mailbox. I first wrote a letter to the mailman, telling him it was his turn to get stuffed and left it in my mailbox after clearing out the flyers. But I ran back to rip it up after I serendipitously met him on the corner on my way to work that same day. He was real nice and told me lugging around those heavy flyers was messing up his back and that he hated having to deliver them but had to because they were such a large chunk of CanadaPost's revenue. The next day I found a letter in my box with a pink CanadaPost issued sticker that I slid into the window that read: No Flyers Please. I had made one myself, of course, but I found out it wasn't legitimate because it wasn't in pink construction paper issued by the Feds. I haven't received a flyer since. One man giveth the news and the other (mail)man taketh away.
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