Apparently it touches a nerve when you call people “uptight.”
Tuesday’s column, based on an incident in which a man got barked at by another Victoria restaurant patron, advanced the notion that we on supposedly laid-back Fantasy Island have more than our share of wound-too-tight people who are entitled, self-righteous and not shy about lecturing strangers.
That inspired scores of readers to respond, a few in indignation (naturally) but many more with anecdotes of their own.
• A woman whose mother had suffered a stroke told of inadvertently driving the wrong way in the Victoria General Hospital parking lot, earning an earful from a man who glanced at her U.S. licence plates and yelled “Go back to f------ America!”
• A man recalled travelling to Victoria with his three-year-old daughter to spend time with his dying mother. “My sister and I were alternating time spent with her in her care home,” he wrote. “While stopping for lunch at the Starbucks in Fairfield, I texted my sister to see how things were with my mum and to check for when we should switch over. A woman took it upon herself to walk over to our table and loudly tell me that I should be ashamed of myself for looking at my phone while with my daughter, generating stares from all around.”
• Another reader said she got screamed at in a deli because her baby’s laughter was hurting another diner’s ears.
• I thought I had been joking about the SWAT team descending on anyone who has the temerity to park a boat in an Oak Bay driveway. Then this arrived: “When we lived in Oak Bay, we brought our lake boat to the house one Saturday, backed it into our driveway to give it a good clean, and before we could even get the hose out we had the Oak Bay police visit responding to a complaint.”
• More than one person mentioned being honked at by other drivers when stopping for pedestrians while turning.
• “It might be the least laid-back city in the world,” one woman posted. “As teenagers, we were constantly yelled at for just existing. You can’t do anything in Victoria (or Sidney) without being publicly shamed for it by some social-justice warrior or crusty uptight retiree.”
To which I reply: Maybe it should snow more.
Really.
A couple of readers argued that elsewhere in Canada, people are nicer because they’re bonded by bad weather. That’s backed up by a story from Cordova Bay’s Gwen MacPherson, who related what she experienced during February’s Snowmageddon.
It was snowing heavily when MacPherson spotted three people of Asian descent — an older couple and a younger man — huddling outside her gate, scrutinizing a timetable. Need help, she called from her door? In near non-existent English, the younger man said they were waiting for a bus.
“I tried to tell him that the buses were cancelled and I invited them to come inside where it was warmer. It was like a game of charades.”
MacPherson tried to figure out where they were going. “Town?” “Airport?” “Ferries?” “Sidney?” Nope.
It wasn’t until she simply asked “Where are you going?” that she was told “Taiwan.”
MacPherson called her daughter, who lives next door, but there wasn’t much they could do with their cars snowed in. They were standing on the sidewalk, trying to figure out a solution, when a stranger in a pickup truck, heading south toward town, pulled up.
Need help? “We explained that these people needed to get to a flight. Without hesitation, he said: ‘I'll give them a lift.’ ”
The driver got his truck turned around, loaded the tourists and their luggage and headed off — but not before another neighbour showed up and used Google Translate to confirm the travellers’ destination. “Turned out that they were heading for the Vancouver airport via B.C. Ferries,” MacPherson said.
We have our share — maybe more than our share — of people suffering from toxic, self-righteous indignation, the great disease of our age.
Most aren’t like that, though. Give most people the chance to step up and do the right thing, and they’ll leap. Don’t lose sight of that.
