The Bowels Of Humanity Are Nothing, If Not Busy.

So, you know the difference between a drunk guy and a drunk, right?

Apart from the word being used as an adjective and then a noun, saying 'drunk guy' is implying that the guy's usually sober, and is now drunk, whereas the drunk is generally sauced, and, if caught sober, would be referred to as a 'sober drunk'.

There is a futher, but similar, difference between a drunk and a Goddamn disgraceful drunk. I'm quite sure I don't need to explain this; we've all either been that drunk, or seen it at New Year's somewhere, throwing up on himself in a Subway, but we've never done it at two in the afternoon, on a bus, in Etobicoke.

The residents of the Mimico neighbourhood are all Goddamn disgraceful drunks. All of them.

Let me describe him to you:

• Gimme T-Shirt (either Blue, Canadian or some sort of golf ball)
• Cutoff Jeans, worn low, but not for fashionable reasons; just because a belt and cutoff jeans (extra fringe) don't go together. It's like the white-trash version of blue pants and brown shoes.
• No Gitch. Fuck, why do they all do this and then bend over to help the lady get her baby carriage on?!? Not only are you shitfaced, and manhandling some other lady's children, but you're now showing me things that would make an ER nurse blow her groceries.
• 1992 Nike Air Cross-trainers. Can't wear them basketball shoes; wouldn't want your friends to think you liked something that black people like, so you gotta make do with these. remember the upturned-toe look? Yeah. And no socks.
• Might be a mullet, might be just long hair, but it's flat, and greasy, and under a hat.
• Several missing teeth, and one (only one) of the ones that's left is orange because that's where the Player's light goes.
• At least two large steel rings with either skulls or eagles on them. So it looks real scary when you threaten to punch your nine-year-old.

Now, this guy might be twenty; he might be seventy. In any case, he has to shake the bus driver's hand for some reason. Always. Every damn time. And he has to ask how much it is, every damn time, even if he took the same bus an hour ago. And when you tell him it's two seventy-five, he drops in three bucks and asks if it's okay, as if the goddamn mayor's gonna jump up from the back of the bus and demand that he take his quarter back.

And then -- and this is the best part-- he winks at you in a conspiratorial fashion, as if you've just helped him defraud... something, anything... and he laughs. Just a little chuckle, but it sends a VISIBLE SPRAY OF WISER'S INTO THE AIR. You have to turn on the defroster now, because your window's all fogged with bad rye, and your whole bus smells like that and slightly used pizza.

In eight hours, today, there were at least sixty of this guy. That's once every eight minutes, we're seeing in inebriated mongoloid making his way from his rec room to the worst bar in the world. And there are four buses out there experiencing the same volume as I am... and how many of these baboons are driving?

And as far as the bars go, they all make the Diplomat look like Club Fucking Fifty-Four.

But, I suppose, for every one of these asses, there's a Stephen Hawking, a Mother Theresa, a... John Stamos. The world balances, somewhat. Life finds a way, a wise man once said.

So, then. What time is it?

Oh.