It’s as if the adult world has been rendered small, simple and fun, and as we boarded the ferry for the three minute journey to the airport, we felt like children getting on a ride at the CNE. It was first thing in the morning and a dense fog hung mysteriously around us, covering everything.
We could not see where we were going, and this created an atmosphere of adventure and whimsy, and in this context all the businessmen looked particularly ridiculous. Each one of them in a suit that suggested the distance between the corporate status to which they aspired and the disappointing status that they’d actually been assigned, they sat in isolated, self-important concentration. Brows furrowed over spread sheets and columns of data, their too-large fingers hunted-and-pecked on miniature keypads, and it was all a little heart-breaking. Like kids pretending at being adults, they attempted to project that what they were doing was of vital importance, but you could tell that inside they all knew better.
Inside they still wanted to discover a waterfall.
Swim with a knife clenched between their teeth.
Find the hidden treasure.
To our son Jones, who is nearly two, everything is a wonder. He is on the edge of language, and his words, mysterious and uncontainable, are still holier than ours. Excited, almost breathless, he exploded onto the ferry with bright, astonished eyes. He ran around pointing, naming everything he saw. The businessmen all kept their heads down—there was important work to be done—but an older couple watched, smiling as this new world broke into day around our son, aware they were in the midst of a tiny God now bringing his universe into being.
]]>Rob: You hear about the fucking cronut burger????
Me: It’s all anybody in Toronto can talk about!!
Rob: It’s a fucking doughnut that’s been bred with a croissant and a bacon cheeseburger! I want to eat about seven of them!
Me: It’s made 100 people sick! The city (YOU) shut down the stand at the CNE!
Rob: No way! That doesn’t sound like the free market! Gonna fuckin’ look into that. Gotta let the people decide.
Me: I love the word cronut.
Rob: I love being drunk.
Me: Me, too, buddy, me, too.
Rob: Cronut, it sounds like the fart noise you make after you drink chocolate milk.
Me: It sounds like the name of a military transport vehicle.
Rob: Or like the sound of fucking Hulk Hogan’s arm breaking when I arm wrestle him on Friday!!!
Me: You really doing that?
Rob: It’s what Da Mayor’s got to do. Can’t back down from bullies. Rule numero uno. It’s good fuckin’ governance.
Me: You should get him to eat a cronut before the match so he’s poisoned and weak.
Rob: Good thinking, gonna get my people on that, make a cronut task force. Get special cronuts for Hogan. He’s a bitch.
Me: He’s a big bitch
Rob: Like his daughter, tho. She be spicy! Anyway, I like this cronut game. Let’s keep playing!
Me: Cronut: A verb, slang for shitting the bed.
Rob: LOLLOLOLOLOLOLLLOO!!!
Me: The Cronuts: the name of an Improv comedy troupe.
Rob: Cronut: the sound your head makes when ur really drunk and you fall down!
Me: Saint Cronut: The patron saint of irony.
Rob: Cronut: The sound two reporter’s heads make when you fucking bash ‘em together!
Me: Cronut: The traditional Serbian ceremony performed when a boy passes into manhood.
Rob: Getting a cronut: What you say when you mean you’re going out to score drugs!
Me: My Little Cronut: A pet name for your lover.
Rob: Rusty Old Crunut: What you call a crack whore.
Me: Okay, I gotta go to bed. Rob, great chatting with you, and remember, you’re just governing the shit out of this city. Keep up the good work!
Rob: Don’t I know it! Alright, think I’m gonna go get me a cronut right now, gotta stay alert, get some of the cronuts for my arm wrestling thing! Fuck Hulk Hogan!!! Fuck him!!! Wonder if his daughter will be there?
