Departure Tax

I went backpacking in Ecuador in the fall of my twenty-third year.

It was the most significant thing I had done up until that point. It had unfolded almost exactly as it was supposed to, with as many wrinkles as there tend to be during life's significant events.

Our trip was planned rather impulsively. We travelled from town to town in our six weeks on a series of whims involving things we thought we'd like to see, and things our guidebook told us to find. Our choices were the products of a completely unencumbered set of goals. We had nothing on our plates that had to get eaten, and no list that needed checkmarks to look fulfilled. Even Ecuador itself was chosen because of affordable airfare.

Upon our arrival, the airport looked like any other that could be expected in that level of economy. It was sort of like a bus station with a lot of heavily armed security. When we arrived we disembarked right on to the tarmac and walked into the terminal. Through the rush of Latin American stimulus everything struck me as new but not unfamiliar. Though I could barely understand the language circling me, or recognize any of the celebrities on the posters and magazine covers, or recognize any of the locations, cities, hotels or restaurants advertised around me, I was familiar with the airport environment. After all, I was in the Quito International Airport, I wasn't in a foreign country yet.

Airports are unique as elements of our civilization because of how they distinguish themselves from the places they are doorways, or more to the point, portals into.

Being in an airport is like standing in the doorway of a brochure designer's home. This entrance is carefully crafted to represent the best of this dwelling in its best state. True to the craft, it is also a fierce employer of bite-sized caricatured local color, mascots and symbols of a clichéd and perhaps inaccurate nature. It endeavours to represent the locale it services but often does so often with a Las Vegas Holiday Inn sense of subtlety and character.

All the while, standing in this doorway, looking over the vignette of your host's decorative vision you have the distinct impression that though you can't casually or politely leave, you are also not quite warmly welcome to stay.

A quick question: Have you ever paid or heard of a Departure Tax?

After our six weeks of modest adventuring, my buddy Joe and I strolled into Ecuador's International Airport in Quito for our returning flight home, on time and according to plan. We had left little to chance, or to the whim and schedule of cabbies, traffic and transit in the bustling capital. We were astute in every measure, walking proudly into the terminal, our maple leaf backpacks over one shoulder, as eager as we could be to rest comfortably in our home and native land, and revisit our familiar fast food chains and Seinfeld episodes. That warming sensation of the first step on the road home was interrupted as we were then greeted with an unlikely obstacle.

It was written in big bold letters, the first English language sign we'd seen in a month and a half.

---DEPARTURE TAX $25.00---

To most people in our world, traveling our world, passing you on the street, trying on clothes, filling their gas tanks, or ordering seconds, twenty-five dollars is not a staggering amount of money. Any amount of money can be significant and to choose an arbitrary sum that becomes important is ignorantly affluent. Twenty-five dollars has rarely been the starting point of many crises in my estimation. How could twenty-five dollars be that big a deal to anybody?

That being said, I feel that I have encountered that line because of my experience in a country where the currency exchange is not in its favour. At that time, two ‘gringo bucks’ could buy a steak dinner in a semi-swanky restaurant in downtown Quito. As was also an important part of my experience, six weeks is just long enough to really grow accustomed to those empoversihed luxuries.

First we tried to rationalize the presence of the sign:

This must be for Ecuadorian citizens travelling abroad. To which we both rhetorically answered: “Then why is it in English?”

How could we have been here for over a month and never heard of this? To which we then answered: “How could we have thought to ask?”

"So, what's the cost to leave this place and go home?"

How can they charge us to leave? Again we retorted: “They already charged us to enter, stay, eat, sleep, travel and play; they charged us for bathrooms at times; why not to depart?”

Then we rationalized.

“If it's intended for us I'm sure someone will guide us through.”

"Maybe they'll have some information when we check in our in bags." We walked sheepishly over to the baggage check-in.

"Maybe they'll have some information after they're done pouring the contents of our bags on the floor in the search for cocaine." Apparently we appeared suspect.

Sadly, they did not. It wasn't until we entered the line of internationals checking in their passports prior to their flights that we saw they were all indeed lining before the booth with a sign over it that matched the dreaded sign we saw at the entrance.

OUR PROBLEMS (In no Particular Order)

1. Money. Money was not easy to come by in Ecuador. Among the creature comforts that we and certainly most of our nation and generation had become accustomed to are easily available cash sources speckling the retail landscape like cell phone signals. There are more ATMs then phone booths these days. When we wanted cash we had to go to a bank and take out cash advances on our Visas because none of the local cash machines or banks would accept our debit cards. We were clever leading up to that morning. We diligently blew all of our local currency the night before as we knew we wouldn't the cumbersome weight of cash-laden pockets until we were in reach of an ATM that spoke our language. So clever.
2. Day, time, location. Like most airports, Quito's was positioned somewhat distant from the downtown core. This meant that getting to a bank that would give us our Visa advances in the timely manner needed to catch our flight would be unlikely. That fact that it was 7:30 AM on a Saturday made it impossible.
3. Our look. We looked just like two American guys. Yes, we had our Maple leafs proudly adorned, but in times of political peril people need you to walk the Canadian walk or they assume you're just another pair of callous American gringos using the popular and congenial red leaf as a passport.
4. Point of No Return. Perhaps it would have been nice to inquire about changing our flight, collecting ourselves in an extra few days of relaxation and returning with our new plan, but such couldn't be the case. As I mentioned earlier, the nice gentlemen that tore our bags apart looking for contraband, were certain to have by this time seen them on to the plane.
5. Communication. A slight to staggering language barrier would certainly prevent us from eliciting our best grovelling to whoever could forgive us this levee.

After a semi-frantic series of last-ditch efforts to try the airport's ATM… seven last times, we ran across the street to the airport's hotel. After several attempts to barter something out of the concierge we considered violence. We went back to the booth, but with fortune still making an embarrassing example of us, we found they staunchly refused any form of payment of currency other than US cash funds.

A quick word about desperation. I've been in the standard amount of harrowing situations in my days. I've been lost, I've had car trouble in rush hour, I've been threatened by the bully, harangued by my boss and busted by my girlfriend. I'd go so far as to say I've seen above the average amount of danger. I think I have a useful knowledge of what it feels like to be amidst desperation. I can quite confidently say that in those Spanish-speaking moments, under the shadow of that sign, my good friend Joe and I were the desperate literal embodiments of several key curse words.

What was left? Crime, harey-carey, a peaceful life on the Ecuadorian countryside, or perhaps calling our parents?

Or…

Begging.

A quick word now about begging. It’s not easy for people where we are from, in a place where we had come, to bring ourselves to pandering to the pity of strangers. Panhandling is an unfortunate and widespread trade in Third World Ecuador, making it a particularly sour tasting pill, to engage in it ourselves. It’s an altogether deeper level of pride-swallowing pain to see so much of the population scraping by on scraps from foreigners and then ask more of the same from others of our traveling ilk. We were co-monarchs of the Kingdom of Suck.

Our career in Ecuadorian airport panhandling ended up thankfully being a short one. At the door of the cafeteria we surveyed the crowd and found our intended mark in a woman a few years our senior sitting alone, who we saw earlier in our line at check-in. With our smiles 'set on stun' we moved in.

We were more gifted at the craft of international-level mooching than I predicted we would be. I knew we'd be good, but we came through as winners in the first round. The curt but pleasant German photographer needed actual convincing of our Canadian status which we were happy to provide through our kind pacifist gestures and a few courteous sentences in our best Francais.

After cunningly tracking us down in US customs, at our adjoining stopover in Newark, our German benefactor was reimbursed through the magic our new sponsor, an American ATM.

I've had second thoughts of every place I've departed ever since.

This story could have only occurred in an airport. There couldn't and perhaps shouldn't be more stress surrounding a human than before he or she takes flight. If he'd meant for us to fly he would have made Customs fun. Only in these tightened consulates of secured conformity could the most respected members of our community be found reduced to dishevelled owners of brief cases turned inside out holding their shoes in their hands, using all their remaining will to catch a flight that will most likely be delayed.

Airports are where the best laid plans are never suitable carry-on. They are in your luggage in Calgary... unless of course you yourself are in Calgary.

Moral of the Story: Do not measure your desperation until you've begged to a German woman in a South American cafeteria.

And always keep an extra $25 US in your sock.

Thanks for reading.

Patrick

Squeegee Gets The Silver

This brief entry is designed to bridge this blog, the long-standing home of my delightfully long-winded answers to questions no one asked, to my new blog, Patricktionary, which the clever readers will notice has an icon available on the right. Visit now and vote often (there is nothing really to vote on) for more of this, only shorter.

In place of a scholarly work of marble-mouthed balderdash, I submit my nomination for the funniest word in the English Language, in a supporting role.

Our delightfully obese discourse is full of contenders to be sure, but plunging forth pungently past CANOODLE and KERFUFFLE stands the undeniable victor, the Clown Prince of our parlance, your friend and mine…

…Poop.

As a cape of vulgarity is most certainly draped across my triumphant yet soulful shoulders, I would remind the poop-me-nots how such a word works against the very nature of crudeness, holding the kind of water that normally flushes its ilk.

Funny all too often swirls around ridicule in our culture. We reference bodily functions and acts of both bedroom and bathroom privacy to elicit every illicit image throughout the spectrum, from ‘I like you’ to ‘Your head is filled with…’ you guessed it.

Poop is a celebration. It was the first word that made you laugh. It takes the waste of our world, both verbal and intestinal, raising the corners of your mouth in playful rebellion.

The entire English language is a celebration, if you take the time to smell the… roses.

And make poop jokes.


Pootrick

What You Like

One of the great socio-pop-culture observations:

“What really matters is what you like, not what you are like.”

It is one of many keenly gilded observations from ‘High Fidelity’, a great book and a great movie, a love story about lovers of pop-culture. The line is sewn by the protagonist in one of many monologues as he lectures his professorship to his audience. It succinctly frames the value system in which we find ourselves on this planet of idols, heroes, labels, and celebrity judges.

It states that we are all judged, not by the quality of our character or our accomplishments, but by the preferences that clothe our lifestyle, the flag that flies over us, the pastimes and cravings that move us, and idols by which we choose to stand. And it's true for worse and for better.

So now that we know how we are judged, ponder for a moment how you do your judging and how you render your own equivalent verdicts. How do you choose those defining qualities?

For your consideration:

We are what we like, defined by what we want to like.

We all choose the things we like.

Finding a preference is a delicate process that occurs through various facets of both our individuality and our rigid conformity. We merge together varying degrees of what we prefer and what we know others won’t criticize. We like and imprint what we think resembles us, and resembles our personal experience. We like that which we idolize and desire to become. We like what that idol tells us to like, or what resembles what our idol tells us to like. We like what our rival dislikes, what we find arousing, makes us look thinner, attracts attention, elevates our social or professional status, keeps us out of trouble and gets us into some…

...and thus it’s rarely a pure reaction, an objective opinion free of any influence. We don't just like the things we like, we want to like the things we like. We control our opinions and we often do so in the most comfortable manner available.

If on some level we chose to like that which we think defines us, then the fruit of that definition becomes as impure as the seed. When we can really be honest with ourselves we can briefly get the chance to see that our foundations are built on bricks of bullshit… at least where our shortsighted prejudgments about ours and other preferences are concerned.

Have you ever liked a potentially unlikable something involuntarily?

Can you recall the last time you preferred something despite your best intentions or your better (pre)judgment?

It might have been a bad boy your girlfriends told you was wrong for you or a movie that everyone else hated. Maybe you treasure a piece of artwork that has no value, are inspired by a song that has no significance, keep ludicrous mementos or voted for a politician for reasons you can’t now fathom. Perhaps you keep an obnoxious friend that seldom shows a virtue, but does enough that you will always stand up for him. You have liked something at some point because something was stirred in you that had nothing to do with an external expression of coolness.

There have been choices you've made about likeable things, flags, idols, artwork and friends that you have no worthy explanation of, whose meanings and origins escape you, that would never support a debate or merit a following.

But if you can accept it, those are actually the choices that define you. The poster you had on your bedroom wall when you were sixteen tells the people around you far less than the first time you got in a fight to defend that goofball friend mentioned earlier.

I worry sometimes about the things we like due to how much they are affected by the things we want to like. I worry about those things when I consider how often we are told what to like, how often we obey that order, but more importantly I worry when we are told what not to like. It’s when we turn away from our instincts, in favor of another’s more dominant opinion that ‘what we are really like’ can get lost. On occasion, the desire to like a certain something is a positive something. It will carry you through the influence of fashionable trends and social politics.

Though I'm a huge fan, the characters of High Fidelity speak in a language of unlikable people. Qualifying 'what you like' in these lists of ethereal musical coolness whose merits land somewhere between arbitrary and critically elitist, smacks to me of unsecure people taking their opportunity to feel that they've earned some adjacent coolness. Their likes should qualify more like, but really their victims fear an unwinnable debate of personal taste that will end in a slap fight with Jack Black.

I would like to see more people liking unpopular things, even the occasional ugly thing, or detestable thing, or evil thing. The truth is we are indeed so the things we like, and those things we like are becoming so homogenized that actual choice is becoming an elusive concept. Soon all that will be left for you to like will be the things you are told to want to like by the powers that you like enough to surrender the will to like that which might be unlikable.

All that eventually will be left are two options, the thing to like and the thing to hate. Standing next to that thing is the person to like and next the other thing, the person to hate for what they choose to like. Once that opposition is destroyed and the next unlikable thing is then dealt with, which is followed then by the next, there will eventually stand one person with one preference and that one thing that they’ve chosen… that one color, flavor, faith, one Marvin Gaye song, one question and one answer.

I will never deny the insight of the quotation found at the top of this page. What would be nice is to live in a world where we say that though we might be books judged by our covers, the artwork is original. Sadly, books are now getting judged by their shelf, or even the store front their covers are found in.

If we could suspend the want behind the things we like and just follow the tuning fork that finds art and beauty and music, our likes and hates in an unencumbered way, we ourselves become the only thing we are like.

Then what we are will become indefinable…

…a like worth liking.

...and worth wanting.

The Up-Chuckler

“So Bill, how’re things?”

“Any better I couldn’t stand it, pal.”

Huhuhuhuhuhuhhh-aghhahahahaaaahhhaa-pughhrrahahhohoho-popoo…phroooot.

Phroooot?

The multi-syllable pile-up above is my attempt to recreate that obnoxious trail of chuckles dangling from the last time you had to put up with someone’s small talk humour. You know when that guy you don’t really want to get to know any better, but for some reason are obliged to tolerate, barfs out that one liner about as fresh as retread tires and expects you (the receiver) to come along with the commotion?

…Segue to the latest Michael Jackson joke…

I think funny is important, in fact I think funny is sacred. I think that the jokey method of conversation that we have evolved into endangers the quality of what funny adds to our discourse. I am certain that fairly soon I’m going to slap that goofy small talk chuckle right off some unfunny dipshit’s face.

Watching people force humour across their personal space and on to another’s, polluted with habitual, inauthentic laughter makes me want to tear my funny bone from my arm and beat myself with it.

I’m funny. Well, I’m pretty funny.

Being funny has always been an important part of the way I relate to people. I’m not the funniest, by no means am I even close. I’m not hilarious, I could never make a living solely on my ability to impart humour, but I am funny... if you ignore the claiming to be funny part, which is usually funny’s ultimate remedy.

I think I’m in tune enough to the cadence of turning an observation into a punchline to discuss the trend of humour’s misuse and abuse beset all around us. There’s a plague a gnawing a cavity into the root of funny’s best teeth. I guess that would make it a plaque... sorry. There’s too much joking around all around, I think we have to stop lightening up.

Is your small talk crowded with small jokes?

When’s the last time you had a conversation with someone that you didn’t feel the need to pepper with needless jokes, retorts, and chattered reflex chuckles? Excluding discussions with a member of your household, immediate family, or those conversations that took place in a funeral home...

When was the last time you just left the jokes aside?

If you’re anything like me, and any of the perfectly normal asswipes I overhear talking on a daily basis, you cannot recall. Admit it, you make jokes, you point out pointless short falls in the people around you, in authority above you, and in the news in front of you. You quote jokes that you didn’t write, you spend expressions you didn’t coin, and you chuckle mindlessly in response to your talk-mates like two or more “ha’s” are approved punctuation.

I’m finding the up-chuckle pollution gathering around me is starting to replace the air. I’m starting to think I’m in one of those movies where everyone has been infected but me, I’m the only one left thinking straight, the only sanity surrounded by zombie brain-eaters.

I could be the world’s only hope.

Have you ever considered: How has it come to this? When did every single person within a mile of a TV come to regard themselves as funny? And whether they do or not, when did it become so important to exude that aspect of charm? There are many ways to be likeable that exclude the comical.

I can remember my grandfather’s reaction to my pre-adolescent hijinks, as I bounced around the room making my younger cousins laugh. He used to look at me like I would be the black sheep he’d one day have to apologise for. It was an “Isn’t that too bad” mixed with “Where did we go wrong?” look, that I know came right from the chasm between our generations. He grew up when there were one or two funny guys around not trying to be Clark Gable, and they were ridiculed or called queer.

All of my other family members in the room had a reaction somewhere between giggle and pee-in-the-pants, and he sat there time after time just not getting it, unintentionally proving two principles of funny:
1. Funny is not Transcendent. It has weak legs and can rarely jump over the wall and invite the old folks into the young whipper-snapper’s yard.
2. Funny is an ‘Are’ Thing. Some things you just are; others you try to be. Funny people were funny at birth, they made jokes about their umbilical cords, others are trying and they probably shouldn’t. They should find the thing that they are… like tall, math-y, or goth.

At a point around the popular advent of TV funny became the charming standard. Once upon a time Shakespeare used funny often as a character’s failing; making him weird or evil. Artists like Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton made it possible for funny to eventually take the lead, and along came television, harvesting performers from Vaudeville and radio, audiences post WWII were ready to invite in the funny.

Suddenly everybody watched clowns like Jackie Gleason, Abbott & Costello, and Jack Benny move from the sideshow to the main stage. Before long guys like Johnny Carson and The Rat Pack became the life of the party, and being cool left a little room for a punch line. Funny has since evolved to become he default characteristic for misplaced charm and uninsightful thoughtlessness.

Other cultures don’t behave this way. When is the last time you saw to someone from northeastern Europe react to your North American’s goofball demeanour? You almost feel that you have to either apologise or punch them at the end of a few sentences. They encounter a Canadian passing off Austin Powers quotes as common language and wonder: Who ordered the buffoon? Will he stop if I give him change? Because they speak curtly and skip all the comedy gobbledy-gook in their normal discourse. I’m certain they have jokes, likely at our expense, but they more likely have their funny strictly allotted, at a more appropriate time and place, and more sparing and savoury portions... I hope.

The problem is that our funny culture devalues the experience of being clever with everyday words, being amused, being taken out of your workboots for a moment, and shown something common in an uncommon way.

It doesn’t seem uncommon though, does it?

Laughter is a very normal part of our discourse, it has become an almost expected exchange, a chunk of change you’re supposed to share with the person nice enough to say two words to you. It has become a polite affectation, falling in the place of genuine thought. It is the product of conversational insecurity and passive thinking.

Throwing a laugh in after an unhumorous small talk observation is the equivalent in linguistic terms to hotel prices that include gratuity, or how we Canadians say ‘eh’, and admit it we do, at the end of almost every sentence.

Ending a statement or opinion with a two-letter ‘eh?’ question softens any possible opposition to the aforementioned statement. Talking like pussies is part of our culture, which is essentially the role that needless small talk chuckles play. You don’t feel the need, the desire or possess the capability to contribute meaningfully, so the reflex is to pop in a lukewarm joke to keep things from getting cold. It is indeed a pleasant thing to contribute humour, but that habitual regurgitation of old jokes and stale laughter does nothing but add to the noise.

I call it the “Up-Chuckler Cycle.”

And don’t get me started on those included hotel gratuities…

So, what’s the solution: Make Up-Chuckling a fineable offence? Establish a Funny Police? NO, nnnnnnnnnnnnono, nuh-uh. Taking funny away is so not the answer. Like every single problem we as a consuming culture face, moderation and thoughtfulness will bring us out of this up-chuckling, jumbled joke-jungle.

I’m not one of these overly entitled assholes to occupy a sacred ownership over his trade or brotherhood. I think humour and goofiness is a more the merrier kind of situation, provided that we keep one eye on quality control.

I think most bona fide, professional funny people, as in to say that they rely on their comedic talents for their livelihood, would agree that being funny is about observation. Funny is normal observed abnormally; the novelty of something actually experiencing an observed abnormality.

If you think you’re one of those people ‘trying’ to be funny, more to the point, if you’re even asking yourself the ‘am I funny?’ question, you probably fall under the umbrella of the following advice:

If you can’t limit that part of your discussion, if habit holds you like a smoker, to chuckle and snarl your way through every verbal back and forth, stomping through the gift of our language and culture like a bull in a… well, in any kind of indoor venue, then maybe try to join the other humans just a little less. Maybe it’s best to just stand back and let the rest of us enjoy life with well-portioned jokes, solid satire and clever observations.

You will benefit from the knowledge and perhaps the distant viewing of a society once again treasuring the gift of funny. You can applaud from afar at population sharing humour that provides a perspective enlightening to our understanding of ourselves, calls our betters into question and poop jokes that once again seem fragrant.

We’ll come visit you, I promise, just not right away.

Maybe I'm just sort of funny.

Guy Talk

Welcome to the land of guy talk.

In this realm you will learn your place, among the guys and around the girls. You will learn how to fix your car and get a deal on your home electronics. You will be exposed to new avenues of philosophical discourse, political insensitivity, vulgarity, sports statistics, and blonde jokes. Most importantly, you will become intimately familiar with all of your most glaring faults.

So, suck it up Princess.



I’ve portrayed this phenomenon in a couple of writing adventures with varying degrees of awesomeness, in which men ridicule, support, and compete with one another, all the while celebrating the bond that defines them. In doing so, through occasions of tragedy, triumph, plunder and conquest, guys ultimately perpetuate the identity of the gender. Guydom will persist and persevere, and will be standing long after makeover shows and Oprah’s Book club have fallen into antiquity, because of this odd chemistry of knowledge, philosophy and fart jokes.

The truly tricky aspect of discussing anything guy-oriented is the continually contradictory nature of the male of the species. Nothing is easily measured among a population as constantly fickle as they are stalwartly dependable, that spend their youth pretending to be men and their adulthood trying to pull the adult hood off their head. These are of course creatures that hunt diligently to save a dollar on necessities but justify spending far too many on toys. They strut around flexing their muscles, breaking bricks with their hands, but become wimpy-whiny patients when they get a cough-due-to-cold. The very second the shadow of adolescence falls over young guys the anticipation of becoming a man, in a variety of literal and figurative ways, becomes an agonising waiting game. You practically beg your beard and body hair to grow as you prey and devour everything your hormones hone in upon.

Then you arrive. And the day after someone finally calls you ‘Sir’ life hands you a man-sized challenge and you seek nothing more than to climb back into your Spider-Man pyjamas and get under the covers.

And that’s when you have to suck it up, Princesses.

Then you arrive to this place, this land of guy talk, where the support from your peers comes in this burly beer-soaked form. You take a minute from your glass slippers and fairy dust to consider who these people are and why you’ve chosen their counsel. The genuine encouragement of your parents, teachers, and more sensitive coaches has been replaced by another grown man suggesting you pull it together, while comparing you to pretty royal heiress wearing a fluffy pink dress.

Numerous elements of guy talk revolve around this kind of… suggestion. First and foremost is the content of this advice. This statement acknowledges some level of adversity and encourages overcoming this problem, which the speaker obviously believes is surmountable and fully within the princess-guy’s capabilities. Referring to his friend as princess further challenges the guy to behave in a manner befitting their group’s shared persona, which probably regards a princess’ frilly pink poise lessons as somewhat contrary to that.

That, or he thinks it’s funny to see his buddy cry.

Or it’s a gay thing. It’s rarely a gay thing but it’s sometimes a gay thing.
No offense is intended to princesses or gay things enthusiasts.

Guy talk is not only about coaching, but providing an information source, a sounding board, and a meter by which you can measure your accomplishments, and thus derive some meaningless quantitative status in the pack.

Being a man is about secretly hanging on to the boy you once were, because of the adventure he once saw in the life laid before him. Guys define themselves in the discourse that revels in that spark of possibility. They come for the quantity but stay for the quality of that connection, and for the calibre of the fart jokes.
We have these fart jokes to preserve this discourse.

And we have so many fart jokes. We have so many guys ready to hear fart jokes, re-enact them, revisit them and recreate them. Though the sounds and the chuckles that follow may not translate to those within earshot not participating, rest assured they do have a purpose.

We have fart jokes, boozing stories, four-part biblical insults, repellent vulgarity, “Your mother is a...” references, feats of strength, using insults as compliments, and useless sports trivia to help hang on that kid and acknowledge to the guys in the circle that it’s okay to revel in this mischief, whether it actually is okay or not. We exist under the shelter of youthful excellence, and to a large extent, the world remains intact.

Guy talk is allowed to cultivate, to keep a guy’s seething primal level balanced. It really is for the best. Without it we would start measuring penises.

...And then we could be in danger of ending up back at the gay thing, again in an inoffensive way.

So Ladies:
The next time you’re on your man about what he was talking about with the guys as you walked in and they went silent, or your spending your energy trying to limit his blonde joke distribution, remember he needs that discourse to keep alive the adventure of being a guy, and you need him to keep killing spiders, providing sperm, and giving you something to bitch about…

...Otherwise known as Girl Talk.

Admit it, it’s true.




Enjoy the land of Guy Talk.

Maybe it should be a Kingdom.


Patrick

Cool as F*ck

We all want to be cool.

We start with an idea; a thirteen-year-old us, a pout poured from an amalgamated mold cast of James Dean, Kurt Cobain, and Paris Hilton and a collective influence of the best and worst of our superficial unofficial reality. We choose our pre-packaged identity from the bin of trendy hats that let in the rain and don’t quite fit, and herd with the other sheep in wolf’s clothing, taking turns following the inept shepherd-du-jour. We define ourselves based on these hats, the identity we’ve subscribed to and try to paint the world around us with a brush of glittered color and sound of our own press.

We have no idea what cool is.

Cool is the secret aspiration of every member of our society, intangibly transcendent beyond wealth and station, that very few would admit to wanting for fear of diminishing the perception of their own coolness. We do our best to keep it balanced and protect it from toppling like cards in the first gust of wind. It’s the thing we all can be and should want to be. Cool is in charge, cool is independent, cool is successful, cool is victorious.

Cool is expensive horseshit.

The cool is a fallacy. The very attempt to ascend into one of our society’s hallowed fantasy hats is by definition a contraction of cool itself. Adorning, pretending, mincing, portraying, purporting an identity that is not a natural part of your core is insecurity and denial, and about cool.

The place for cool grows out of our pack mentality. Every bit as important as the instinct to seek dominance among the other dogs is the need not to appear weak. Survival isn’t just about being the first to the meat, it’s about making sure no one bites your ass while you eat. They say most humans fear the stage more than dying, or far greater yet, then being ostracized.

Sometimes being ostracized is a service to the pack. Sometimes an attempt at cool deserves a cold reception.

Did you ever want to reach back to that younger version of you, that strutting and posturing adolescent peacock with a regrettable haircut, and just slap that little bird silly?

Cool, in terms of an ethos, falls somewhere in between Plato’s ever-evolving always redefining Dialectic and the newest shade of pink worn by a pop-princess’ tiny toy dog.

We seem to, on a psychotically repetitive basis, reinvest in these disposable catalogue identities and false magazine idols. We retract our hand from slapping that former self in the head and promptly grip our fingernails into the next big thing already falling out of coolness in the hear and now.

We all want to be the guy they swoon over or the girl all the others envy and hate just a little. We all want to fit in, be accepted, and if possible be talked about, be watched, be revered and be sung about when are gone. It’s part of a need for attention, conceit, and sometimes a wholesome need to make a time above the dirt worthwhile.

I wonder if they had cool in the old days? In the days before we worried about the needless things, the color coordination of our shoes and handbags, the things we say to those we view as less cool.

Well, to take a wild stab at a subject beyond my reasoning, of course they did. It’s a part of our nature as old as competition, as long as Cane’s jealousy, Narcissus’ narcissism, and the need to get down with the Hebrew’s golden calve.

Now I could talk for consecutive eons about the misplacement, corporate takeover, and eventual portioning and redistributing of cool. I could wax happily about the name brand that best defines you while it undefines the fine just fine… But I won’t. Today is for the cool, the cool that we forgot, the cool that always seems to be brought back to our attention when we’re too old to make amends.

I find myself confronted with making a point on this one beyond a little op-ed self-satisfaction, because self-image seems to something that is becoming an increasingly under-funded resource in the increasingly significant adolescent market-demographic. Beyond making a point: can I make a difference?

There is a requirement for cool. There is a requirement for an understanding of cool, as outlined in this ‘cool man!’-ifesto, to occur when maturity fungifies and it almost doesn’t matter. It’s supposed to be a labor, a journey, and a struggle. As it seemingly becomes more of a tangible commodity it should be administered with some guidance.

Here is the point: Coolness, there’s really no such goddamn thing.

Think of where cool comes from: Teenagers defining the norm largely from role models who rejected the norm because of the rejection and alienation or uncoolness they faced as teenagers.

Cool is the ultimate example of the human instinct of fickle following. We seek a leader and perpetually seek the leader’s undoing. In the rarest of examples, the hero retains a divine level of interest with his/her subjects, but as seen in the best divine example of cool, once that crown slips, the followers are seemingly only too happy to tear that cool asunder.

We have nothing to fear but cool itself.

It’s one of the great paradoxes: You try to be cool and completely obliterate any chance of being cool. When you finally reject pursuing the mirage of being cool, and become secure enough in your own identity not to care, you’re there.

It’s like love. Seek it and you’ll never find it. It affects all of us but is none of ours to possess, and it is largely to blame for most of the movies that annoy the shit out of me.


Fuck cool. It’s that easy. Love, that’s probably trickier.



Coolmaster P

Thank You for the Heartbreak

John's response to the letter addressed to him





Dear Marsha,



Perhaps I should be angrier.



Perhaps I would be better off as a seething lump of rage and regret,
self-doubting and self-effacing, questioning every facet of my
identity in which I thought I found meaning. I should be deep in the
dark of rejection purgatory. I should be directionless and
meaningless. I should be bitter shards of a broken mirror.



The strongest will I posses should cast a shadow over every intention and motivation, every promise we made that served as my foundation, every smile and at every chance at happiness I find before me. My love should turn dark.




But that's not happening.



I've been thinking about what I've lost since you've left, and what
it's going to mean to the new definition of me...



...Me alone, me unwanted, me anything…



But I can't help thinking... thank you.



I don't know your reasons. I have the ones you've offered, I have my
suspicions and my instincts. I have the rumours that belong to others,
their speculations and their condolences, I have the predictions and
the optimism, and I have little else.



I don't know your real reasons. I don't know if it's possible that you do, that any of us have the capacity for that kind of convenient honesty. I have a feeling that you don't even know you're lying, that your reasons are good enough because they're well-intentioned. No one can know but you. I have a feeling you're looking to the future and haven't confronted what you owe to your past.



If you're careful you'll never have to, but that will be unfortunate.



We are measured by our tragedy and by the outcome of our conflict. We discover the best in ourselves when the worst befalls us. I'm glad to see the best coming out in me, but it has come from the worst... and the worst is what you have contributed.


So...

Thanks for the heartbreak.



Thanks for all the things that came before it, that filled my body and my head with promise and belonging and desire and passion and doubt. Thanks for being a part of something that made me see I am worthy and capable. Thanks for being part of something with me that was bigger than the two of us.



Thanks for all that's coming. Thanks for the rush of self-doubt, for
the wounds and the scars, for the catharsis and for the healing that
will come. Thanks for that feeling that comes after pain; the storm
subsides, the sun's rays find me and I feel warm again.



I know that I'm lucky to have felt these things, from the days and
nights with you to the ones now without you. Some will go their whole
life without tasting chocolate or feeling the rainfall. The poignant
and painful can be the most valuable. It's in these moments that we
find out what is truly valuable about ourselves. We cocoon, we
evolve, we re-emerge... we are a better version of ourselves.





I'll one day see what you see, a picture that has changed with time,
no longer tinted by the rose-coloured memories of our time that stand
before the less intangible ones. One day everything will just be a
picture... in a book, a memory held only by the bookmark slid up
against it.




I never thought I'd say this about us, any of this.

I never thought what I had with you could be characterized, quantified
or definable, even by a metaphor. Though a part of me regrets the knowledge it has that weakness, I am only the second to exploit it.


You turned away, and you showed me the truth about something you
probably didn't intend to show.

So you have my thanks as my heart falls from your hands.
You have my best wishes.

I hope you never lose that which you find valuable.




You've made a mistake.

... Dear Marsha.


John

Chapter Two

The Second Chapter of my Novel for your reading ecstacy.




2


The people of the court settled into the stiff wooden furniture. The court came to order.

“To the charge of assault and battery on the night of the 16th, how does the defendant plead?”

“The defendant pleads guilty your honor.”

“The prosecution recommends jail time in consideration of the defendant’s reoccurring criminal offenses.”

“Thank you, Councilor, I’m fully aware of your well-rehearsed recommendation and I’ll take it under advisement.” The judge looked down at his defendant and slowly shook his frustrated, furrowed scowl. “Mr. Verrity… Eric, you seem like a perfectly nice young man. As such I feel compelled to ask you a question that tends to be redundant of people in your current situation: Mr. Verrity, why do I keep seeing you in my courtroom?”

“Because, I…”

“Don’t answer that, son.”

In the defendant’s chair on the floor beneath the judge’s gavel Eric Verrity sat serenely in his rumpled corduroy suit wearing the same satisfied smile we wore the month previous when he was charged with disturbing the peace and again previous to that when he appeared for assault.

“Mr. Verrity, you appear to be two people. You’re the subject of these charges and reports, a raucous repeat offender who seems to spend every evening on the streets of our city looking for trouble. You’re also the young man who appears before me every few weeks, polite, patient, punctual and even well-dressed. My question is this: which of these are you?”

“I think…”

“…The details of your file make so little sense to me. The victim’s in your assault cases, who all seem to have endless priors of their own, never appear to testify against you. You’ve been apprehended in warehouses and jewelry stores, but you never appear to be stealing, your fingerprints are never found on any evidence or merchandise.”

“Well, I…”

“… Either there is something you’re up to that this entire justice system is missing here, or you just happen to be the unluckiest guy on earth.”
A minuscule rise in Eric’s smile went unnoticed by the judge. “I just… want to help.”

“To help? What does that mean? Look, Mr. Verrity, do yourself and all of us a favor, and stop helping.”

Eric had an inkling that the police officers in his neighborhood resented his interference, though they never acknowledged any such intentions, on his part or theirs. They never advanced when he earned charges and arrest on the streets but they smiled when he sat in the defendant’s chair. He suspected that were they to acknowledge what he was trying to do in the spaces and the shadows they weren’t patrolling, that his contribution would somehow become real.

“Well, you’re not getting away scot-free this time, Mr. Verrity. I’m sentencing you to six months probation and to mandatory psychological consultation. Maybe some therapy will give us some answers. We’ll reconvene to check on your progress in six months. I had better not see you again before that, young man.”

This is no place for heroes. The city is a place where inspiration gets buried and eagerly replaced. The city is a place where life subsists amidst the absence of life. Like a motherless child in an incubator, the inhabitants of the city thrive not from the artificial womb that nurtures them, but in spite of it. In the creation of their city, they marvel at the skyline and bask in the architectural wonder of their will, within a cage of their own design and willing capture.
The curse of technological advancement is that convenience becomes dependence. Those who dwell in the city, who fear it, love it, or hate it; all depend on it. They depend on twenty-four hour retail, gridlocked traffic, flickering streetlights, and the frowned expressions of their fellow inmates. Prisoners often develop a feeling of security, learning to depend on the walls around them in time, needing the protection of their enclosure. This is what the city can render. It can make you need it. It can make you rely on isolation amidst over-crowding, services that no living being requires, and conditions in which no one living was meant to exist. It thrives and it pulsates, it is home.

The city had been Eric’s home for a decade. He had long ago grown accustom to the eyes of strangers, and distant screeches and bursts he couldn’t identify. He found comfort in its unnatural lights, and heat, and actions. The city was his home and he thought it deserved his protection.

Patient Log Entry #1: Dr. Benjamin Maynard. March 12. Introductory interview with patient Eric Verrity.

Eric presents an interesting study. Subject is twenty-eight years old and has no visible abnormalities of any sort. He’s a lot more normal looking than I expected. From the rumors and frustrations floating around the colleagues of mine that have dealt with him and dealt him away, I expected either a disheveled mess or an Adonis figure. Certain memories and facets of his troubled childhood are locked behind his legendary calm. Eric is required to attend therapy as a condition of his probation. He seems quite content with the arrangement.

Dr. Julius Harmon’s files over the nearly ten years of their therapy indicate a developmental disorder. Though he is clearly keen in awareness, elementary concepts such as arithmetic, grammar, and science seem alien to him. He has a very capable level of focus and concentration, but has trouble maintaining a heightened level of conversation. Further sessions will be required to establish a diagnosis and the appropriate therapy method. On a personal note: I find this young man quite personable and intriguing. I look forward to our next meeting.

Eric noticed things about the city on his nightly walks that its other dwellers failed to. He noticed every single smile in the city. He sensed them as though they sent a warm breeze in his direction. He saw every door opened for a stranger and every seat given up in a restaurant. That warmth became almost addictive to him, he sought it out. By the same unfortunate token he felt every sneer, every profanity, and every briskly bumped shoulder like pins and needles on his neck.
Regardless of how the morning sun struck him through his bedroom window, how the first breath of air felt in his lungs, or how good he felt he needed to feel, he would walk. Eric would walk until the day, or the night, felt better. A good day bloomed when Eric found a chance to help somebody.

Eric once counted fifty days that went by without anyone speaking to him. After a while loneliness becomes its own companion. For someone like Eric, living alone is much simpler than co-existing.

The moments that most people tend to treasure, when they found recognition or their place in the spotlight, held a different meaning for him. His fondest memories took place as an observer in relative anonymity. In Eric’s experience, every time he emerged from the background the spotlight singed him. Every time he was noticed it was for being different.

There’s a strange muscular cramp that accompanies being noticed and singled out when you’re the object of alienation instead of appreciation. People hate you in a way you can’t mend when they don’t understand you.

Being different was the first thing Eric was ever certain about. While other children were learning how to tie their shoelaces, Eric was teaching himself to blend in. Before he could walk he taught himself to mimic, in order to keep himself camouflaged. When foster parents or child welfare workers spoke of him they always made the same remarks. They always spoke in that way people do when you’re present but not among them. They always commented and puzzled over his distant stares and oddly subdued behavior. Though he looked like other kids, there was something off-putting about him that people noticed right away.

Eric had a certain vacancy in his expression that was undeniable to new people he encountered. His body was incapable of injury; he could never experience the effects of malnutrition, asphyxiation, or exposure, leaving him lacking certain segments of the normal instinct of a social animal. The human animal has a deeper purpose in seeking out acceptance, favor, and dominance; the pack mentality ensures shelter, reproduction and survival. His instincts inherently ignored those requirements. He could never lie or beg or compete because there was never a single facet of his entire structure that sought such validation. Win or lose he was always going to survive anyway.

Not once in his life did Eric try to join in. He knew he didn’t belong in the pack. He stood quietly and watched, trying not be noticed. He observed while others lived and interacted. He smiled when they looked happy, looked down at his feet when they were sad. He did his best to remain overlooked.

There were few rewards that could motivate him and fewer punishments that affected him. He didn’t care to see how far he could go before being swiped back into line by his keeper. He didn’t challenge for dominance. He always did what he was told. He got up and got dressed every morning at the same time because he was once told it was expected of him. His bed was always made with sheets tucked as tight as a drum and his room was never messy. He said please and thank you with almost every sentence and never spoke until he was spoken to. He made mistakes of etiquette and protocol only once. Programming himself into a robotic reacteur kept him safe and anonymous. An independent motive never entered his head; until he saw someone he could help.

Standing between a victim and danger tends to push you further from the crowd.
People want to forget you when you save them. They want to forget the feeling of helplessness that brought you to their aide. On more than one occasion, eyes that once looked up at him with endless gratitude utterly lost their acknowledgment at a later meeting.

Hero is perhaps the least transcendent word in our language.


* * *


The only time Eric almost belonged to something was when he was eight years old. After a few months at his newest foster home, a real friendship had grown between him and Todd, his foster brother of the same age. Eric was along for anything Todd would suggest, which made him the perfect sidekick.

As the years passed and they approached adolescence, Todd’s social needs were changing. He no longer wanted a playmate. He was beginning to rank the value of his acquaintances based on some superficial half-adult value system. Eric’s witless content and complete ignorance of adolescent social structure made him a liability to Todd.

The only consequence in high school is in popular opinion. The status that Todd’s dashing looks and athletic prowess had quickly garnered him was in potential jeopardy at any moment but made more precarious thanks to his awkward foster brother. People in his new circle of friends could begin to ask the wrong questions and would soon potentially link them in some way that could have been socially damning. He had to distance himself from his foster hindrance and quickly. Todd soon resolved that public humiliation was the only answer.

Eric, Todd and his friends all had lockers at the end of the Math Wing hallway. Despite Eric’s presence it had been established as one of the ‘cool’ group’s hangouts. During the lunch period the teens would strut, parade and rank one another. As Todd and his friends would chuckle and flirt with the girls passing by, Eric would enter periodically to grab his lunch or his books. Each of Eric’s entrances were intolerable to Todd, he constantly feared some form of reprisal from his unmerciful friends. In an inspirational flash of mean-spirited brilliance Todd suddenly had a way to both distance his allegiance from Eric and discourage him from making the frequent visits to his hangout. The grape juice drink box he had was still unopened; if he could soften the cardboard it would likely explode on contact when thrown.

“Oh great, here comes Verrity.” Todd began the scenario by bringing the attention down on Eric himself.

“Isn’t he your foster brother or something, Todd? Go give him a bug hug or something.” Jakob Williamson was always first to chime in with a chance at ridicule.
“Screw off, man. He’s just staying at my house. My mom’s into charity.” After seven years, Eric’ status in the foster home had been assessed as permanent for some time. Todd’s mother would have filed for adoption long before if not for the expensive legal fees. “He’ll be out soon. They’ll probably cart him off to the ‘loser hospital’ soon enough.”

Jakob’s retort was immediate. “Yeah right, Danver. Who will you have to play dolls with? You’ll go to the loser hospital together on a family rate.”

“Oh yeah?” Todd turned up his hand to unveil his softened cardboard juice grenade.
Eric could hear Todd’s whispering comments as he approached his locker. He could feel the disdain as a small shiver that crept up his back. He kept his head down, pretending to be oblivious as he rolled out the combination on his lock. At the locker directly to his right was Amanda Selkirk. She held a similarly nervous stance, as any teenage girl would in front of the popular young boys. Eric could hear the growing chuckles from the boys behind him as Todd plotted his assault.
The shiver in Eric’s spine grew as the moment drew closer. Amanda’s locker had a small magnetic vanity mirror that hung on the door beside him. Through its reflection, he could see Todd’s hand kneading the juice filled grenade. As he raised his arm to throw the juice box, Eric noticed Amanda’s delicate white blouse. Despite Eric’s ignorance of fashion, the shirt looked like something a princess would wear. He could sense how it was important to her, the way new school clothes are vital to teenage girls. He could see in that moment how the grape juice from Todd’s practical joke could ruin the shirt, how the unintentional attack and the humiliation, though fleeting in the long term, would be devastating to her. He knew what was coming. He could easily have prepared to evade the throw, but he wouldn’t. His shiver reached its pitch as Todd’s arm drew back and released the box in Eric’s direction. He had to shield her.

He turned and faced them as the box hurled through the air, his calm expression catching each of the boys off guard. An explosion of purple ruptured across Eric’s chest. Amanda still crouched unassuming as she gathered her books, and then turned with surprise as the group of boys across the hall suddenly bellowed with laughter.
Eric was covered in purple juice. Thanks to his impulse, Todd had achieved a direct hit. The impact occurred directly in the center of his chest, permanently changing the color of his gray sweatshirt. Droplets of grape juice ran down Eric’s face as he turned back to gather the rest of his books. Amanda then realized what had transpired and gasped with relief that she wasn’t the subject. She looked at Eric’s calm expression as laughter raged from behind them. An inkling of what Eric had done for her crept past her eyes, but the storm growing around them was undeniable. The laughter grew in population until it filled the hallway. She stood up, closed her locker, and stepped back into the crowd as the infectious giggle started growing on her face. She soon laughed with a volume that matched the rest of the hallway. Eric shut his locker and turned to see the mass of faces that bounced and beamed with a barrage that now fuelled itself.

It was so loud it was all he could hear. He wiped the droplets off his face with his sleeve and stood in that spot against the wall, uncertain how to react. His eyes remained still as his perplexed expression then found Todd. He could see Todd’s new friends congratulating him with pats on the shoulders as their raucous laughter pulled their torsos forward and backward, like Jack-in-the-boxes rocking on a spring.

As the laughter began to subside and the crowd started to disperse, Eric still stood with his back to his locker, his face straight with confusion. He was left still uncertain how he was expected to react. The bell rang for the next class to commence and Eric watched as Todd and his five friends started off down the hall, still giggling and congratulating one another. “What a loser!” Jakob turned his head back slightly so Eric could hear. Todd’s head then turned back in the same way, looking down on him from the corner of his eye. He looked at Eric the way many had looked at him before, the way strangers look at people they don’t intend to know. Every time he turned a corner that day someone was waiting for him with a chuckling greeting that couldn’t be confused as friendly.

Eric understood their partnership was over on that day. He went back to speaking only when spoken to. He didn’t speak much for the remainder of high school. He was somehow still pleased every time he saw Amanda’s white shirt.




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Patrick

Drive-Through

A short time ago I was pulling into the drive-through lane of a certain much revered coffee and donut establishment for a tall paper cup of something hot and caffeinated. I had chosen the drive-through in favor of exiting the car and entering the store for various reasons, not the least of which was the interesting picture before me.

Quick note: You may be perplexed by my spelling of this evolutionary icon of junk-food delivery service. I am fully aware that by and large this phenomenon is normally spelled in the economical and streamlined ‘drive-thru’. I am using a proper spelling as a form of protest, as I feel I owe little to economical English and less to the fast food windows of our culture.

As I was idling in line in front of the oversized glowing picture menu, I could see some fellow patrons ahead. To put it gently, they struck me as frequent patrons of both the drive-through and the billboard menu’s super-size section.

Now I’m not one to be so audacious as to deny the extent of my hypocrisy. Yes, I dabble in fast foods, combos and concoctions of cheese, bacon and the word to ‘double’. In my defense my indulgences are in moderation, in both the act of eating crap and the process of waiting in my car to purchase crap. I always regard the people around me when I’m in the low points of this moderation, when I’m being weak, to wonder about the weaknesses shared around me. I wagered quietly that my fellow patrons fell in their moderation perhaps more often than me.

As I was watching what appeared to be a mother and son ahead, I noticed the adjoining restaurant, a junk food joint of a slightly different genre, fries and burgers sharing the building with coffee and cakes, and offering between them every variety of the foods none of us should be eating. Their respective drive-through lines intertwine around their shared building, making one visible from the other. From that vantage point I watched as the mother and son in the vehicle ahead get their food at the pick-up window and then do something simple and at once mildly astounding.

They drove through to the other drive-through.

Simple to conceive but astounding to consider.

I understand why this sort of thing happens, but still find it troubling to accept that it does.

Some strange things get under my skin. Acknowledging that not everybody is annoyed by bad toupees, pop idols that use ‘Z’ instead of ‘S’, overly manicured chinstrap beards, people who own huge dogs and live in small studio apartments downtown, lists, politics, unnatural blonde hair, and people that won’t shut up doesn’t seem to offer much in the way of catharsis, not to mention much in the way of change.

The interior of the shared building I’ve mentioned houses both of these popular restaurant chains as part of one shared dining experience. Basically, there are two counters serving one big room. I don’t doubt that most reading this have been in one very similar. In these rooms the counters are no more than three meters apart, providing one of the few instances I can think of where the option to walk is quicker than to drive.

Why and how is twice driving around this building of twinned fast food restaurants a better option than parking and standing at twinned counters for roughly the same amount of time?

Am I odd for finding this strange?

Am I opposing some new form of evolution?

Maybe we could start having drive-through office buildings where one can drive to one’s desk, grocery stores with aisles and an express lane with a more literal capacity, drive-through lanes at the barber and the bank… wait…

We could build houses with garages as family rooms. Imagine it, you hit the button on your visor to open the big door, it rolls up to present a roaring fireplace and a cuddly bearskin rug for you to park on. There’s plenty of parking spots in the kitchen a handy poop-through washroom and even a drive-in crawl space for storage. Line-ups can happen during rush hour, but for the most part, the wait is minimal.

There isn’t really a solution to speak of, we’ll always gravitate towards the business that has a convenient way for us to orbit it and quickly get home to consume the goods they serviced us with. The road less travelled, as they say, is often less travelled for a reason. That reason: laziness.

Every now and then you see those 'what no to do' scenarios unfold before your eyes. They show you the bar and where you need to be in relation to it. I learned something about myself watching that mother and son's short trip, more perhaps than I could ever expect to learn in a line like that.

I guess it would be nice if more of us made the right choices, but what the hell, sometimes it feels cozy to be caught in a vice.

…Especially when that vice comes with large fries.