A letter home from a place called Testytown
Dear Mom and Dad. Greetings from Testytown!
It’s certainly been an interesting few months getting settled here.
I’m loving my new job at Supple Wrist Pinball. Who knew that a city this size could support an artisanal pinball factory? And good news! They already promoted me to the ball bearing division. Did you know it takes three weeks to hand-polish each pinball? Well worth it, the purists say.
It’s been very quiet here lately. Almost every resident of Testytown spends the winter in Mexico, Arizona, Hawaii and Cuba. Clearly, they have a lot of money, but it doesn’t seem to make them happy.
The ones who stay behind complain bitterly about the weather, as if it’s a surprise every year. That’s just one thing that makes Testytown testy. There are others, as you’ll see.
It’s a beautiful city, of course. A river runs through it and there are many bridges. They once had an old steel truss bridge, and one year city hall put lights on it that cost about a million dollars and never even worked! People went nuts. Such a waste of taxpayers’ money.
The big excitement last fall was the opening of a new art gallery. It’s so impressive that it won every single architecture award in the world and the restaurant got reviewed in the Globe and Mail. But guess what? People complained about it because it’s a waste of taxpayers’ money. Also, you have to pay admission to see most of it, unlike the old gallery. People got really testy about that. I’m guessing that it’s the only gallery in North America you have to pay to get into.
Forget art. What people in Testytown like to do more than anything is burn wood in their backyards. I didn’t know this but it’s a God-given right. Imagine their reaction when some “elected officials” wanted to limit the hours you could burn things. People went crazy!
I’m surprised they didn’t light torches and converge on city hall — they certainly have the firepower. Anyhoo, I suspect a lot of the councillors wish the issue would go away because they have delayed the final vote to ... I’m not sure when, but it might be the day after never.
It will be spring before we know it, which is a good thing because if it snows again people are going to get even testier. If there’s anything they hate here more than paying taxes, it’s snow removal. In a recent CTV news poll, 56 per cent of respondents said they were not satisfied with the city’s snow-clearing efforts. Ideally, those lazy city workers would make all the snow disappear within 10 minutes of it falling.
Spring will be a relief, but I’m afraid that’s going to get people thinking about bike lanes again. Drivers hate them because there are only five people in the whole city who ride bikes and it’s just another billion-dollar boondoggle. And even cyclists don’t like them because there aren’t enough bike lanes or they’re in the wrong spots. Testy or what?
And then it will be summer and people who wondered why there wasn’t enough gravel on the roads in the winter will wonder why it takes so long to get their streets cleaned. Oh, and potholes. People here detest potholes because they are proof that the city is wasting taxpayers’ money on Rembrandts for the bathrooms of the new “art” gallery instead of fixing the roads. Of course, lots of roads do get fixed, but then there’s a bunch of detours and everybody gets testy about them.
There’s lots to complain about here, which is weird because the air is clean and there are no earthquakes or civil wars and the standard of living is the envy of most countries in the world. But it’s understandable because we also have mosquitos. At least that’s something everybody can agree on.
Anyways, I should be able to get home a bit for seeding. Hope you’re well. Pet Rufus for me!
— Your loving son, Mac.