Empathy for the luckless

I was still in my teens when I found myself on a Greyhound making its final approach into the Kenora bus station. Local folks were standing up at that point, knowing we were ready for touchdown, and I heard a guy say, as he was gazing out the window... "there's a lotta dogs out tonight."

I took that as a generic reference to the folks visibly impaired when you looked out the window. I got off the bus, and facing a two hour layover, found time to buy a loaf of bread and a sixpack nearby. Sat down by the railroad tracks for my own personal picnic.

This old geezer wobbles up and sits down. I offer him a piece of my loaf and 1/6 of my sixpack to wash it down.

He tended towards the taciturn, but once we got to a couple more hunks of that loaf and 2/6 of my sixpack, he let out that he was from the White Dog Nation.

I had one of those learning moments that you sometimes hear about but seldom experience firsthand.

Dogs... White Dog Nation... everything suddenly fell into place!

The "dogs" were the down and out from the local res. I've never forgotten what I learned that day at the Kenora International Bus Stop.


Of course you don't have to be First Nations to be luckless, although there can be no doubt that it helps.

A lot.

I used to tour up to Grand Valley now and then to meet up with the local game warden, who managed a huge wilderness area nearby. We'd get together over pitchers of beer and a basket of wings at the local. One night there's a local at the next table recounting the following horror story;

"...so I was commin' home from a visit with my lawyer, who's gonna do my impaired charge, and I was like two driveways away from my place, and a fuckin' deer runs out in fronta me. I know you gotta report this, so I leave my car there, walk ten minutes home, and call the cops. Then I have a beer.

So I have a couple beer and the cops finally show up, and I tell them about the deer. Yup, my car's still out there. I didn't want to disturb any evidence, so I walked home and called you guys...

Well, long story short, they fucking charge me with impaired driving again!

I didn't even have the heart to tell my lawyer..."

Now THAT's luckless!

Game Warden guy, on the other hand, was having quite a run of good luck going at the time. I remember being at his place when he pulls out a big green garbage bag stuffed full.

Stuffed full of weed!

"Hey, is this shit any good?"

It was decent enough. How do you get a gig like that? The taxpayer funds your digs, you're encouraged to own guns, and you can grow fifty pounds of weed on the wilderness reserve without anybody even noticing?

How do you get a gig like that? Fleming College might be the place for you.


But a run of luck only lasts so long. If you've been enjoying a run of good luck, brace yourself; it's about to turn.

If, on the other hand, you've been in the shithouse of karma for the past twenty years, cheer up!



That's about to turn too!

Keep on truckin' 2: so you think you had a shitty day?

So my old pal Janet ends up, and I don't know if her high school diploma played a role or not, as the boss of the loading dock at the shop where she works.

Aka the "logistics coordinator."

After the returns from the inmate driver training initiative began to falter, the trucking industry... oh, I mean the "logistics solution providers," began scraping around for another possible source for workers, as the obvious solution of providing a decent wage has yet to occur to them.

If the ex-cons would rather go back to jail than take the opportunity you've generously offered them, what groups in society are left that you could possibly interest in your employment opportunities?

New immigrants!

It's the American way!

The new guys take the bottom rung of the employment ladder, and everybody else moves up a step!

That's happened to everybody ever since the original Anglo invasion, ie the Pilgrims.

Happened to the Germans and the Jews, the Italians and the Irish.

The Greeks mostly started up restaurants right away, so they're an exception, but not really; they just make a voluntary choice to work insane hours for minimal pay for themselves.

But everybody else more or less expects to start at the bottom when they get to the New World.

One group that's become more visible over the last few years is the Sikhs. There's more and more of them washing ashore, or more likely stepping off a jet from Frankfurt, every day.

There's more and more of them driving the big rigs down the Interstates every day.

And here's why. Driving a big rig may be a shit job, but if you're willing to put in mind-blowing back-breaking bag-ripping hours, you can bring home a good dollar at the end of the month.

So last week Janet is having one of those shit days at work, you know, the kinda day when you're wishin' the Lord would just quit screwing around and take you home... she just can't take it anymore, so she ducks out the back for a smoke.

While she's out there, contemplating the odds of ever winning a lottery, she notices a semi-trailer coming down the street at a higher than usual speed. Hmm... Buddy better hit the brakes soon...

BUDDY BETTER HIT THE BRAKES!!!...

Just as the rig runs over a pick-up truck she notices Buddy, a pudgy brown guy in a turban, running madly down the street after his truck!

The first collision slowed it down a bit, and as it's bearing down on several more vehicles and some houses, he manages to clamber aboard and bring it to a stop.

By now Janet's forgot all about her lottery win.

"Holy friggin Jeezus" she tells me, "all of a sudden I realized my day wasn't that bad after all!"

Buddy climbs out the truck, falls on his knees, and is weeping and praying at the same time.

Which proves that no matter how bad you think your day is, you've still got a lot to be thankful for!