The things you see

You know, living in a big city has some really great benefits to it. And trust me, I've lived in a small town so I know the difference. Hell, the centre of my hometown is the intersection of two seconday highways with a flashing light. On the corners there is a gas station (the convenience store burnt down...twice, it would seem the fire department got there too fast the first time), a post office, I think the antique store (which had been a restaurant that went under every few years) has finally closed, leaving only the funeral home as a permanent fixture. So yeah, I know small towns...oh and if you are wondering where the bar is in town, it's in the next town.

So living in a big city offers all kinds of advantages to the average 20-something person...or anyone who wants to eat out in the same postal code. But beyond the food, the culture, the activities what I like most in cities are the characters. The oddities. The things you see that make you do a double take and still question what you saw.

Pets are often a source of great ammusement to me in cities. Growing up in the country it made sense to have a pet, hell I had a friend who had a "pet" cow, animals are everywhere so why not enjoy them. But city people seem to find some interesting animals to make as pets. I recall a time I was walking home from the bar at about 3 am and came across someone walking what looked to be a slender cat on a leash. It was only after I had bent down to pet it and it had crawled halfway up my arm that I realize this was not cat...this woman was walking a freaking ferret! After seeing that I kind of figured I'd pretty much seen the oddest pet to be walked in a city, until Tuesday. I was out riding on a bike path and notice a woman walking a plump dog near the path. Wrong again, that was no dog, it was a pig. Now why is it that I never saw that out in the country?

Cars can be another source of fun. There are the rediculous, like the Hummer limo and aroudn here a lot are nearly falling aprat, some actually look like they are held together with bumper stickers. Walking to work the other day though Deirdre and I saw one of the ugliest coloured cars I have seen in some time. Oddly enough though this was a Lotus, one damn expensive car. Though I guess the guy spent more than he should have on the car, because he was turning into the McDonald's drive-through for breakfast. Which also means that the smell of new car will be replaced with Egg McMuffin, and I only thought that happened to minivans.

The beauty of big cities is that you can see anything just about any time below are just a few that I recall seeing:

• The guy playing with a bullwhip in a public park
• The black guy wearing a green clown wig in a restaurant over lunch (the rest of his clothes were normal)
• The guy (why are they always guys) out with a faux-hawk and a mullet with an anarchy sign on his suit jacket out to dinner at a nice restaurant with hiw well dressed (and normal looking) wife and daughter
• The punk guys on their double decker bikes
• The woman in a park with a parrot on her shoulder
• The guy painted up as a gold statue/robot

See in the city all these people and so many more are just interesting characters that make the city that much more colourful and exciting. In a small town, these are the people that are talked about in hushed voices and generally thought of as wrong. I'm glad I grew up in a small town, but the big city is where I belong...and no, not just because I fit in better here.