Neighbours

"Is your father ever wrong?" I asked one of his daughters who lives next door.  "No," she replied.  "And even when you know he's wrong, is he ever wrong?"  No.

This exchange occurred when I mentioned to her that it would have been nice had he swept up the grass cuttings he'd left scattered all over our driveway after he had wipper-swippered.  "I'll tell him," she offered.

"Oh Gawd, don't do that," I said.  "That'll just make things worse."  That was when the "Daddy's never wrong" exchange took place.

These are neighbours that represent all I can't stand about many lower-class Brits who come to Canada.  The father doesn't work because of some mysterious, hidden back ailment, but is fit enough to shovel snow and saunter around in seemingly perfect health.

Ena Sharples, the female version of our neighbour.

This has gone on for years and the Cochrane ratepayers are paying for his keep day-in-and-day-out.  It's just wrong.

His wife, from what I can see, is a doormat and does whatever he decrees.  She runs a home daycare business and I wonder how much of that income is declared to help cover the taxes Daddy eats up not working?  Exactly.  What a bad example for their two daughters.  What are they learning?  How to knuckle under to bullies and cheat the system.  That's what.

When we moved here three years ago, we engaged her to cut the grass and shovel snow.  We paid her $600 upfront and last winter gave her another $400.  For the summer we forked over an additional $200.  That's a lot of pocket money for a 13-year-old!

"I'm teaching her to negotiate," bragged Big Daddy to B one day, as he leaned over the porch railing.  What does that mean?  It means I'm teaching her to rip you off, is what it means.

The final straw was when she took $60 in early June and only cut the grass once before quitting.  "I don't want to do this anymore," she perfunctorily announced, as she returned our mower.  I wanted to ask for $40 back.  I still might next time I see her.

Oh, and naturally the daughters are home-schooled because..."the Alberta educational system is so inferior to Britain's".  Why the hell are they here, then?!  Meanwhile, the kids have no friends their own age and participate in no group sports activities.  Oh, and did I mention they're all overweight?

I worked for a Brit many years ago and he was the same type.  Having lived in Canada for 35 years, he still had an accent as thick as when he got off the jumbo jet.  A bully, he once described my writing as "just words on a page" when he tossed my work back at me.  Really?!  He had tasked me with writing the official consultation policy for the GST and must have been shocked when I delivered it in three days.  

How could a consultation policy destined for the minister himself be written (and so well) in just three days?!  It pissed him off, so he crapped on it because, in spite of his obviously "superior"  British education, he couldn't have pulled it off in six months, let alone three days.

The policy sailed through senior management rank approvals and was adopted as the cornerstone of the department's consultation process with industry across the country.  Naturally, he took all the credit.

So, that's my anecdotal take on the "superior" Brits who come to poor, old Canada.