Fear and Loathing South of the 40 : Reno Musings

Hello faithful readers, things might feel slightly off kilter this week. The reason being I was visiting “The biggest little city in the world,” Reno, Nevada last week on business (what business? None of your business) and am just now sitting down to catch up on all I missed. Let me tell you a thing or two about Reno first. My first mistake about Reno was assuming it would be hot. However, in my defense is Nevada not supposed to be a desert? Why would you bring a jacket to the desert? Little did this guy know, Reno is at an altitude of almost 5000 ft. above sea level. What does this mean, you ask? It means it get cold! Reno is in the freaking mountains, cold mountains with snow on them. Next thing, people can openly carry firearms in Reno. I am not going to pretend I know anything about this, let me just tell you how things work. You cannot carry a concealed gun without a special permit, but you can carry a gun on you if it is out in the open, meaning in a holster, on your hip, like ‘cool hand Luke’. While in theory this sounds rather bad ass, in practice it takes a bit of getting used to. To be completely honest with you, it scared the shit out of me. I am not sure what the reasoning is behind being able to carry a gun out in the open as opposed to in your pocket, besides the obvious, quick draw! But those are the rules. Last thing, casinos are not at all what I thought they would be. When I think of casinos (I had never been to one) I think of ‘Casino Royal’, ‘Ocean’s Eleven’, ‘Viva Las Vegas’, poker tables and black jack, roulette! Here is the reality of the situation. It is pretty much regular folks like you and me sitting in front of poker machines feeding their hard earned money into them. Oh ya and you can smoke inside so it is pretty stinky, but you don’t want to say anything about it because they have guns. There is my Reno trip in a nutshell. All in all it was a beautiful place with nice enough people (who have guns). Besides who the hell am I to judge, I come from a place that is famous for naked dancing women and letting our kids legally drink at 18 years of age. Almost forgot, Reno is also three hours behind us, so my biological clock is out of whack. Next week I’ll be back with the regular stuff but for this week take it easy and keep your heads down (specially if you are in Reno, they have guns). Here are a couple of tidbits to tide you over.

Dog Psychiatry

I caught a headline that got my hopes way up but let me down, ‘Service dog kicks up fuss at West Island shop’. The cynic in me instantly goes ‘Oh ya, here we go’, picturing a seeing eye dog going crazy, biting five people and taking a dump in an antique store in Pointe-Claire (what the hell is wrong with me?). Turns out, a West Island man, Craig Read, was spoken to harshly in a shop for having his service dog, Joey, with him. Read suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder. Not quite where my mind went with this but I guess that’s good too.

Un-Bee-Lievable

 

Headline – ‘Massive Bee heist in the Eastern Townships’. Looks like someone stole 184 beehives, that’s approx. 5.5 million bees (I have no idea how they get to this number), from the Miel Labonte bee farm in Saint-Valere. The article goes on to say that the owner of the farm believes the thief was another beekeeper. No shit? I was thinking maybe it was a telephone operator or a zamboni driver. Now I am no detective first class, but if it wasn’t a beekeeper, I think you should be looking for someone with about 5.5 million bee stings (I would check the hospitals).

Drink Milk

One last one, I can’t help myself.
A breastfeeding mom was asked to leave the south shore Charles-LeMoyne hospital because her breastfeeding was making patients uncomfortable. According to the young woman, Sarina Vehar, she was approached by a hospital volunteer and asked to sit in a dark closed off area. When Vehar protested the volunteer called security to escort her off of the premises. Vehar went to the hospital’s complaint department where she was told it would take 45 days to get an answer back and the person working there could not apologize until the incident was confirmed. Ok, how the fuck is this still a thing? Have we travelled back to 1955? Maybe someone can take a drive over to the Charles-LeMoyne and let them know about women’s lib and the civil rights movement, and that women actually get out of the house now and even, as crazy as this may sound, breastfeed in public! Yes, I know, the world has gone to hell in a hand basket.

Got a problem with breastfeeding and service dogs? Let Ken know what you think and share any news you think he should cover at [email protected] or in the comments section below.

About Ken Gaucher

Email Ken Gaucher at [email protected] More Posts