So, I’ve told you about the time my mother tried to sell me to a Saudi prince. And I’ve told you about the time I ended up shopping with a CIA agent and buying a vampire carved from human bone from the oldest nun in the Spice Islands. And I’ve told you about the time I had coffee with a serial killer. And dinner with the guy who was stalking me. And the red truck at sunset on the dock at Not-Ucluelet.

Yeah, that’s pretty much all of my A-list material. Since I gave the room-and-boarder collie back to her owner, things have been much quieter around home, as I don’t get out so much. Not much happens in my apartment, alas.

Ah.
I didn’t tell you about the car chase. Car chase #1: there have been a number of them in the ‘hood recently.

Car Chase #1 started somewhere out east of here, towards the suburban wilds (tames) of Burnaby. A car, probably stolen, definitely caught the attention of certain officers of the VPD, probably for activities of a nefarious nature if not for simply the state of having been stolen. The details are lost to history. And said nefariating sedan (it’s always an oversized Yank sedan, in these car chases. Nobody ever leads the cops on a high-speed chase in a Pacer or a VW van or a puce Vespa) led the cops upon your basic high speed chase through the Downtown EastSide, whipping through the dark star of Railtown and up to the Main Street Viaduct, down at the foot of Vancouver, indeed, the boot heel, Stanley Park being the seasonally-appropriate squared pirate toe, and beyond, up Alexander at, have I mentioned, high speeds, speeds which made negotiating the, it must be admitted, rather broad, bendy, unchallenging corner at Maple Tree Square an apparent impossibility.
Never steal more car than you can handle.

Hydroplaning on the picturesquely rain-slick cobblestones, said sedan skidded straight into Ye Olde Westerne Boote Shoppe, the OK Boot Corral, narrowly missing the larger than life-size statue of Gassy Jack, presiding spirit of the place who, it appears, is the patron saint (if not the god) of avoiding being hit by a careening Caddy. Being of width as well as length and speed, the Cadillac took out the entire narrow storefront when it nosedived into the shop with admirable precision, crushing wooden cowboy and all (we are quite egalitarian up in Canuckistan, y’all, and our storefronts feature at least as many wooden Cowboys as Indians) and completely sparing Six Acres restaurant and drinketeria next door, sheltered as it was behind the beneficent ass of the aforementioned Gassy Jack.

All I cared about was, it missed the Irish Heather. My local is safe!

Seeing no immediate method of egress which didn’t include walking right past the cops who’d pulled up immediately behind him, and apparently not feeling quite up for that, the Caddypilot considered his options, which included taking the back door into the barred and gated Gaoler’s Mews (not frivolously named; they used to hold the public hangings here, and the bars are still on the window of the Irish Heather from back when it was the jail; as one of the bartenders said, “I always knew I’d end up in jail, but at least you can get beer in this one”) and decided that indiscretion was the better part of valour.

He hid under the counter.

All of which is to say: slightly damaged Western boots are probably on sale in Gastown this week.