Yo. Bit of an interesting day. Noteworthy, that's for sure.
So my uncle calls me Friday afternoon while I'm out at a pub with my boss and coworkers having a few sociables. He encountered some confusion due to my caller ring tune - "Gold digger" by Kanye West (call me and you'll understand). After jokingly berating me for having an unprofessional ring tune, he informed me that he'd be in Toronto for the weekend. He then suggested we grab breakfast in the morning. I gladly accepted.
At 10am the phone rings. Feeling like a bag of dirt (damn you Brad and your 22oz Gin & Tonics), I answer. It's my crazy uncle... and he's on the way. So I get my shit together and meet him in the lobby. We start to drive, and he says "So... where do you feel like going?" We both came to the conclusion that since we had a clean slate for the day, would could pretty much go anywhere. Then, after naming off a bunch of places in and around the city, he suggests Niagara. As soon as I said I'd never been, that was it. We were off to the Falls.
Along the way we decided to take a spin up north to Niagara-on-the-lake for breakfast. Pretty cool little spot in the middle of wine country. Had a sample of some sparkling white after the meal, and then hit the parkway along the river south towards the falls. When we got there, we realized it was -10 and pretty windy, and we definitely weren't equipped for the weather. We drove around for a half hour until we found a Winners, and then we bought touques (and my uncle bought some boots - all he had were his dress shoes). We were good to go.
So we head on down to the river. Once we got there, I realized that I really should have gotten some gloves as well! But I shrugged it off.... I'd just use my pockets. Before heading right down to the falls, we both get short taken and make a run to the W.C. (twirlet). Long story short, my uncle notices some unsuspecting fool has left his leather gloves next to the sink. He lets what he feels is an acceptable statute of limitations expire on reclaiming the gloves, and promptly pockets them. As we're walking down to the falls, he turns to me and says "Here. Wear these." So I'm like "WTF? Where did you get these?". And he's like "I stole em!" Anyway.. I laughed my ass off and took the gloves. They're pretty nice actually.
After that little escapade, we figured we'd come all this way, we might as well say we went all the way into upstate New York. A few minutes later we were crossed the bridge and cruising around on American soil. The first 5 minutes were filled with remarks like "well.... they look like us.... ". So then we got to thinking. We're in the US. What should we do? The answer was obvious: Go to a gun shop.
Or at least, we thought the answer was obvious. We drove around the roughest parts of town for over an hour, and wouldn't you know, we didn't find a single gun shop! WTF? And they call themselves American! I thought about maybe going to a bank and asking if I get a free gun if I open an account (like in Bowling for Columbine)... but my uncle put the kibosh on that one.
Eventually we gave in to the futility of our task and headed back across the boarder, somewhat disappointed, but generally glad we had ventured over all the same.
I got back in my door around 4:30 from a pretty stellar day. There's nothing like a random road trip on a hangover Saturday with a crazy uncle to make you laugh.
PS. To any Americans who may read this... I don't think you're all gun-toting lunatics. Just 51% of you.
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