Here we go again — another round of venting from your favourite Elder Gen-Z disaster case. At this point I’m starting to feel like that stereotypical old guy on his lawn, yelling at the sky because everything is stupid and nothing makes sense.
First off: why the hell is Union Station always under construction? Genuinely. I moved to Toronto in the early/mid-2010s and that place has never not been covered in scaffolding, fences, tarps, and whatever new “temporary walkway” they’ve decided is our problem this week. Burnie Burns had that whole rant about Austin-Bergstrom being permanently under construction and Roadwork — yeah, I feel that in my bones now.
Second: what happened to the simple act of talking to a human being to buy a PRESTO card? No, really. When did that vanish? If I wanted to stand at a kiosk like some confused raccoon tapping buttons, I’d just buy the damn thing on my phone. Bring back the counter people. At least they didn’t crash, lag, or reject your debit card for fun, Hell the first two kiosks I tried where “Out of Service”.
And the cherry on this shit sundae: the train had to stop three separate times because VIA Rail was apparently having a collective aneurysm somewhere up the line. Nothing like being stuck on a moving tube of irritation, wondering why the universe hates efficiency.
Sometimes I swear Toronto never spiritually recovered from the Rob Ford era. For those not familiar: yes, there was a mayor, yes he smoked crack in office, and yes he admitted it. Toronto lore is truly something else.
The worst part? I have to come back next fucking week to pick up the documents, I have to drop off today. More lines, more bureaucratic nonsense, more “sorry, we don’t do that here,” and more running around the city like a quest NPC who lost their map.
I’ve got a third blog post in the pipeline too — originally it was just going to be about the bureaucratic hellstorm and the absolutely incompetent people I keep getting stuck dealing with. But after today? Oh, trust me. The material writes itself.