Column: Check Your Head
This column appeared in Fort McMurray Today May 18, 2006
By DAN MACEACHERN
Today staff
Spending a week or so in a bigger city like Calgary, as my wife and I recently did, gives you ample opportunity to experience the advantages and disadvantages of a bigger centre, and they centre around two things that I normally hate doing anyway: driving and shopping.
Actually, it's not driving I hate as much as it is sitting in a car not driving, as in when you're sitting idling bumper to bumper because some idiot rushed a red light and T-boned someone else just trying to clear the intersection. Actual driving -- sun roof open, music playing (or, as Alex and I like to do on long car trips, listening to a comedy CD) -- I quite enjoy, except for those times you pull out to pass someone who suddenly seems to be offended at the affront and increases his speed to keep pace.
And shopping, I guess, I don't mind, depending on what it is I'm buying. CDs and tools I love buying, even if I buy tools I might never use. Come to think of it, no one ever refers to going to Canadian Tire as "shopping" for some reason.
My parents live in Calgary, and we periodically take advantage of free room and board for a week while we hit places and stock up things that are unavailable, or a lot more expensive, here in town. You know that mind-numbingly annoying jingle, that one that burbles, "You! Can! Find it allll ... in Fort McMurrayyyyy!" all hours of the day during Christmas? It always makes me wonder if there isn't some sort of "truth in advertising" law that can't be used to keep that irritating little ditty from polluting the air every year. Can we at least be honest and change it to, "You! Can! Find a lotttt ... in Fort McMurrayyyyy"? or "You! Can! Find some stuffff ... in Fort McMurrayyyyy"? Local merchants shouldn't in any way take this as a slam; many are great and do a terrific job with service and selection, despite the problems with labour shortages we have here, and most places can order stuff for you if you don't need it right away. (All this is my way of asking that angry business owners don't send me hate mail.)
But this was a shopping excursion with a purpose: baby equipment. We needed a stroller, a change table, a dresser, the works, and we wanted a good selection and businesses competing, so Calgary it was, and now we have a stroller that requires a Class 6 driver's licence.
And like I alluded to earlier, I could browse in a record store for hours. There's a great second-hand place by my parents' house, with the requisite staff of black-framed-glasses-wearing hipsters, whose enthusiastic endorsement of your selection makes you feel momentarily cool, or whose converse silence makes you wonder if nobody does actually listen to Fleetwood Mac anymore.
And in a nice bonus, I'd finally stamped nine out of 10 spaces (buy 10, get one free!) on my frequent buyer's card. When I only visit once or twice a year, that sucker takes a while to fill up.
I picked out a CD to buy, as well as the one I wanted free, and took them to the counter, warning the affable hipster just to ring in one, because then I would be using my card for a free one.
He genially told me that he could do that on just one transaction, and that, unlike a big chain, I could pay for the cheaper CD and get the slightly more expensive CD for free. "We're so far from corporate here, man," he explained, and told me about a woman who filled her card, left the store, went to Safeway, and came back an hour later for a more expensive CD. "It was like, 'we don't care, man!'" he told me.
I agreed that they were very far from corporate, man. He rang up my purchase, explaining that I'd get a new frequent buyer's card next time, since the free CD doesn't earn me a stamp. I told him that that sounded kinda corporate to me, man, and he laughed and told me that he does usually award stamps for free CDs "to hot chicks." I used to be a bartender, so I completely understand this sort of retail discrimination.
And after a week or so of enjoying a wider variety of shops and restaurants, Alex and I were lamenting our isolation in Fort McMurray, at least until we ventured a little farther south to Lethbridge to visit Alex's aunt and uncle for a night.
Friday morning, around 6:30, as we had breakfast and prepared to drive back into Calgary, we saw on some inane breakfast television show that an accident late last night on the Deerfoot Trail was tying up traffic. The Deerfoot was on our route back to my parents' place, but given that we wouldn't be hitting it for another two and a half hours, it shouldn't be a problem, right?
Nope. Around nine a.m., there we were, sitting in bumper to bumper traffic on a major thoroughfare. And it took us more than an hour to clear. Not that we don't have traffic tie-ups in Fort McMurray, but I'll wager they don't happen as often as they do in Calgary. And it struck me just how much of our time we had spent that trip -- whether going shopping or going to a restaurant -- in the car. The shopping trips we go on when we're in a big city take a far longer time than they ever do here. So it's a tradeoff. Fort McMurray doesn't have an Ikea, say (although the thought of going to Ikea fills me with some sort of dread that I can't explain, even if I usually enjoy the affordable stuff with crazy Swedish names), but Fort McMurray also doesn't feature 45-minute drives one way to get to an Ikea. I'm willing to sacrifice the shopping if it means I avoid the driving.
With all the construction starting up, 45-minute drives one way might get a little more common around here. I just hope it'll be short-term pain for long-term gain.
Otherwise, the good-natured hipster might be stamping my card a lot more often, and not because I'll be turning into a hot chick.
© Copyright 2006, Fort McMurray Today.
This column appeared in Fort McMurray Today May 18, 2006
By DAN MACEACHERN
Today staff
Spending a week or so in a bigger city like Calgary, as my wife and I recently did, gives you ample opportunity to experience the advantages and disadvantages of a bigger centre, and they centre around two things that I normally hate doing anyway: driving and shopping.
Actually, it's not driving I hate as much as it is sitting in a car not driving, as in when you're sitting idling bumper to bumper because some idiot rushed a red light and T-boned someone else just trying to clear the intersection. Actual driving -- sun roof open, music playing (or, as Alex and I like to do on long car trips, listening to a comedy CD) -- I quite enjoy, except for those times you pull out to pass someone who suddenly seems to be offended at the affront and increases his speed to keep pace.
And shopping, I guess, I don't mind, depending on what it is I'm buying. CDs and tools I love buying, even if I buy tools I might never use. Come to think of it, no one ever refers to going to Canadian Tire as "shopping" for some reason.
My parents live in Calgary, and we periodically take advantage of free room and board for a week while we hit places and stock up things that are unavailable, or a lot more expensive, here in town. You know that mind-numbingly annoying jingle, that one that burbles, "You! Can! Find it allll ... in Fort McMurrayyyyy!" all hours of the day during Christmas? It always makes me wonder if there isn't some sort of "truth in advertising" law that can't be used to keep that irritating little ditty from polluting the air every year. Can we at least be honest and change it to, "You! Can! Find a lotttt ... in Fort McMurrayyyyy"? or "You! Can! Find some stuffff ... in Fort McMurrayyyyy"? Local merchants shouldn't in any way take this as a slam; many are great and do a terrific job with service and selection, despite the problems with labour shortages we have here, and most places can order stuff for you if you don't need it right away. (All this is my way of asking that angry business owners don't send me hate mail.)
But this was a shopping excursion with a purpose: baby equipment. We needed a stroller, a change table, a dresser, the works, and we wanted a good selection and businesses competing, so Calgary it was, and now we have a stroller that requires a Class 6 driver's licence.
And like I alluded to earlier, I could browse in a record store for hours. There's a great second-hand place by my parents' house, with the requisite staff of black-framed-glasses-wearing hipsters, whose enthusiastic endorsement of your selection makes you feel momentarily cool, or whose converse silence makes you wonder if nobody does actually listen to Fleetwood Mac anymore.
And in a nice bonus, I'd finally stamped nine out of 10 spaces (buy 10, get one free!) on my frequent buyer's card. When I only visit once or twice a year, that sucker takes a while to fill up.
I picked out a CD to buy, as well as the one I wanted free, and took them to the counter, warning the affable hipster just to ring in one, because then I would be using my card for a free one.
He genially told me that he could do that on just one transaction, and that, unlike a big chain, I could pay for the cheaper CD and get the slightly more expensive CD for free. "We're so far from corporate here, man," he explained, and told me about a woman who filled her card, left the store, went to Safeway, and came back an hour later for a more expensive CD. "It was like, 'we don't care, man!'" he told me.
I agreed that they were very far from corporate, man. He rang up my purchase, explaining that I'd get a new frequent buyer's card next time, since the free CD doesn't earn me a stamp. I told him that that sounded kinda corporate to me, man, and he laughed and told me that he does usually award stamps for free CDs "to hot chicks." I used to be a bartender, so I completely understand this sort of retail discrimination.
And after a week or so of enjoying a wider variety of shops and restaurants, Alex and I were lamenting our isolation in Fort McMurray, at least until we ventured a little farther south to Lethbridge to visit Alex's aunt and uncle for a night.
Friday morning, around 6:30, as we had breakfast and prepared to drive back into Calgary, we saw on some inane breakfast television show that an accident late last night on the Deerfoot Trail was tying up traffic. The Deerfoot was on our route back to my parents' place, but given that we wouldn't be hitting it for another two and a half hours, it shouldn't be a problem, right?
Nope. Around nine a.m., there we were, sitting in bumper to bumper traffic on a major thoroughfare. And it took us more than an hour to clear. Not that we don't have traffic tie-ups in Fort McMurray, but I'll wager they don't happen as often as they do in Calgary. And it struck me just how much of our time we had spent that trip -- whether going shopping or going to a restaurant -- in the car. The shopping trips we go on when we're in a big city take a far longer time than they ever do here. So it's a tradeoff. Fort McMurray doesn't have an Ikea, say (although the thought of going to Ikea fills me with some sort of dread that I can't explain, even if I usually enjoy the affordable stuff with crazy Swedish names), but Fort McMurray also doesn't feature 45-minute drives one way to get to an Ikea. I'm willing to sacrifice the shopping if it means I avoid the driving.
With all the construction starting up, 45-minute drives one way might get a little more common around here. I just hope it'll be short-term pain for long-term gain.
Otherwise, the good-natured hipster might be stamping my card a lot more often, and not because I'll be turning into a hot chick.
© Copyright 2006, Fort McMurray Today.
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