SMALL TOWN CHARM

One of the things that bothered me most when living in big, impersonal Toronto was that I was a nobody. I never (barely ever) ran into people I knew on the streets or in the grocery store; I wasn't really a regular anywhere (I was no Norm from Cheers!); and I didn't feel part of much there. Granted, sometimes you just want to run to get the bread and milk and look like shit and not run into anyone you know. But years of that starts to make you think you are barely noticed by anyone.

Now, though, living in the metropolis of Lennoxville, where the house to work commute take less than 7 minutes and the daily newspaper is filled with stock stories from Canwest because there just ain't much going on, the lady at Tim Horton's sees me walk through the door and automatically serves up my 'large double, double'. The lady at the dry cleaner says 'haven't seen you in a long time - how is everything?'. And while I've never really had much of a conversation with either of these people, there is an implicit feeling of understanding and comfort knowing that they actually notice something different. Like if I actually changed my order at Tim's to a vanilla cappucino as I did one day - Natacha was very confused! It made me feel special.

Am I pathetic or what?!?! No, I would rather think that I am just easy to please.