Quintessentially Canadian

Today I started drinking bad coffee again for a good cause.

It is “Roll-up the Rim to Win” time here in the Great White North. For those not familiar, it is the time of year when otherwise smart people like me stand in long lines, using up valuable coffee break time to buy crappy cups of coffee in the hopes that we will find a super good prize, eh? under the rim of our red paper cups.

I want to win the Toyota Hybrid car. Great marketing, I say. Offer up an environmentally-friendly vehicle when your company is known for having the most product littered on the streets of our town, particularly during "Roll up the Rim" time. Those red cups are like fields of Poppies poking up through the snow.

I drink Timmie’s large double-doubles to be exact. Admit it, people. This coffee sucks, but we all drink it because a) it’s cheap ($4 for a cup of coffee at Starbucks? You must be joking. Think of how many lottery tickets I could buy with that kinda dough), b) it reminds us of when we were kids at the hockey rink, freezing our asses off as we scarfed down hot greasy French fries topped with fake Heinz ketchup and vinegar, and c) we are really not as sophisticated as we think we are. I mean, really, how does one sophisticatedly roll up the rim to win? I usually do it with my teeth when I think no one is looking. So sad.

I am also looking forward to reading the next tragic story (which seems to happen every year) detailing how one person throws out their cup without rolling up the rim (gasp!), and someone else finds it and wins and then the two parties duke it out in court.

Last year it was two pre-teen girls (well, their parents) fighting over who owned the SUV their kids won (one girl found the cup, her friend helped her roll up the rim). Added to that mix was the teacher who had supposedly thrown the cup out at school which the girls later found. Don't remember how it all played out.

We are all just too silly.