YOU CAN'T GET ICE IN CANADA

Having just returned from Toronto, I'm intrigued by the lack of ice! I'm not talking about the ice in the street, we found a little of that, but rather in your coke. Everywhere we went they made it seem like ice in your drink is forbidden. Maybe it's sort of a national treasure, or something. Maybe it was just Ontario. Don't misread me, the Canadian people are wonderful and Toronto is a beautiful city, and the subways are "safe". Oh, and another thing, the cab drivers like to drive over 100! I was watching that big digital speedometer from the back seat and from the airport it would waiver from 100 to 105. Then I saw a speed limit sign that read "100 kph". Metrics! Phew!

You're probably wondering what all this has to do with optometry. I'll get to that in a minute. And, they don't walk their dogs in Toronto, but rather their ferrets! I'm not kidding, we saw a lady walking her ferret down a busy street in downtown Toronto. I wonder if they have a law there that requires you clean up after your ferret? And speaking of optometry, have you all seen Canadian money? Now this stuff really makes sense. It's color-coded! You don't even have to know how to read to spend money. I have a small problem with their coins, however, it's very difficult, on quick glance, to pull out a dime and decipher it from a subway token. I learned that the hard way. That lady thought I was nuts when I offered a few subway tokens for my iceless coke.

As for optometry….oh, by the way, have you ever surfed the TV channels in Toronto looking for some good ol' NBA basketball? They play it a little different in Canada. There are two teams (so far so good), four players to a side (maybe someone was out sick), and the object was to toss this gas can and slide it down the floor to hit this bullseye at the other end. Here's where they really changed the rules: two members of the team are allowed to take brooms on to the court and actually sweep the floor just in front of the gas can as it slides to the target. I guess they're wiping up sweat from the players, but it's beyond me how anyone would sweat playing Canadian basketball, they all seemed to move in slow motion.

But back to optometry. Oh, I forgot, I later found out that Canadian basketball is actually played on ice! That would certainly explain the lack of sweat, and most importantly, it explains the lack of ice in your soft drink! They need that stuff for the basketball courts.

Seriously folks, I need to touch on WHY I was in Canada in the first place. There was a 2 day seminar on refractive laser surgery at the Vision Institute of Canada. Which reminds me; I was the only American out of 18 attendees, and they thought I talked funny. I had to repeat myself several times, and I don't even have an accent. I'm curious as to how they spell O U T in Canadian. I would guess it's something like…AWOOOT. And if you listen carefully to a Canadian, they will always grunt at the end of a sentence. Well, maybe not a grunt so much as an exclamation. It goes something like this: "Hey Steve, wanna go awooot and find some ice, EH?

OK, now to the main topic of excimer laser surgery. Oh, I see that I'm awooot of space for this month. Maybe another time, eh?

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