The delights and joys of Service Ontario

Sorry I’ve been away for so long, I’ve been in a Service Ontario queue, trying to renew my driver’s licence and health card. If you wait until the last minute, counterintuitively, you can do this online. But, as I was disorganised (or was I organised?) and recently realised my driver’s licence would expire in 5 months, and I needed a full year’s validity in order to hire a car in Portugal, I was out of luck. So, with more than a certain amount of resignation, I made the trip down to requisite plaza, took a number (I was F42 – and the number was E17 when I arrived, meaning I had to go all the way to E99, and then start again at F1 and work up to 42 – and the place was packed to the rafters.
 
It could all have been much worse, however, as I was standing in a loosely formed queue before the front desk, I asked the guy next to me whether he was in the queue or just waiting for someone. “Oh, there’s no queue,” he said, ignoring the fact that there was, in fact, a massive queue, “you just take a number and then wait.” Then he pointed to the ticket dispenser in the corner. I might have knocked over a couple of old ladies in my rush to get there – most people heard what he had said and nobody else had seemed to realise there was a ticket system in place. This I put down to the fact that there was no signage anywhere saying “Please Take A Number” or “Don’t Just Stand There Like A Prick, Take A Number, What Are You, Stupid?”
 
The number system obviously meant nothing to me, as I hadn’t set foot in a Service Ontario centre for 10 years. I had no idea how long I would have to wait – and, indeed, was a bit downcast that the number was resolutely stuck on 17 and I was 42; this was BEFORE a nice lady behind a momentarily vacant counter told me how it worked. I asked how long it would take to get to my number and she smiled. “You can’t really go anywhere, I’m afraid, because if you miss the number when it is called, you have to start again at the beginning. But you’ll find it goes quite quickly in the end.”
 
I tried to get a ballpark – one hour, two, six… 24 – and as I asked, I looked around at my fellow participants in the Service Ontario misery: one of them actually had cobwebs between his head and his shoulders, he looked like one of the crew from the “Flying Dutchman” ghost ship in Pirates of the Caribbean. “I’d say two hours,” she smiled. “But, might be more, might be less. People just leave, you see.”
 
I did see. The only thing I didn’t see was whether they left this mortal coil or just the misery-inducing warehouse that seemed to be the Service Ontario centre. I thanked her and went to wait outside. I waited for about 5 minutes, and then saw the Beijing Legend on the corner of the street, and heard it calling my name. So I went for a solitary dim sum lunch, read a little of the Philippe Djian book I had brought with me, and meandered back to face the music. It was as if I hadn’t gone away, as if I had broken all the rules of time travel, because when I looked at the counter it was still on 45. I had a bit of a panic that I had missed it after all, but was reassured to hear the clerk shouting “E46”. Outside I went to stand, watching as a man in a yellow high visibility vest wedged the door to the centre open and started oiling the hinges. How the time flew by.
 
There was, after that, a flurry of numbers. People had indeed left. E47 wasn’t there, for example, nor E48. E49, disappointingly was. But not E50. People were beginning to look hopeful – and within the hour, we were up to F29. From there, I had a clear run of people not being there, and I sauntered to the desk and was served by a strangely polite clerk, who was actually helpful. I paid my $90 for the new licence, was told there was no way I could get it in time for my trip, and so left, wondering for what godforsaken reason I had just spent a large portion of my life pointlessly queuing for. It’s all my own fault too. Oh well. At least I had dim sum.
 
Today was also the start of the official Covid vaccine hunting season. Whereas the Glorious Twelfth is a loud and violent day with no discernible cause for joy, this is a time-consuming, frustrating and morale sapping day, on which people scour the Shoppers Drug Mart web site for any openings for a vaccination. It’s like a multi-participant Whac-A-Mole game: as soon as an opening comes up, you have to dive on it, enter health card numbers and vaccination statuses and dates of birth and inside arm measurements, and hope you have done it quickly enough to prevent anyone else from taking the time slot before you. I suspect some pensioners have hired IT crews to speed up their applications, as there is no way these slots can come and go as quickly as they do. Maybe it’s run by Ticketmaster?
 
Anyway, I was in no mood to take any shit from anyone after my epic wait, so I managed to get us all booked in with a minimum of fuss. The key is to not read any of the questions. Admittedly, I may have an inner arm measurement of 5 foot 10 and be allergic to my health card number, but I can sort that sort of crap out when I am in front of the needle-wheeling white-coated pharmacist wannabe. I have a sneaking suspicion you can edit the information in your appointment beforehand, so that is what I shall be doing. Realising there was no way I was going to get any more work done, I booked appointments for Mrs Ottawacker and the plum of our loins (425 lbs and 7 inches tall respectively), so we might make it through the winter in one piece. Unless, of course, you can’t edit the appointment information…
 
The rest of the day was uneventful (did I really just imply that waiting in a queue was eventful?). I actually did manage to finish the lengthy translation reviews and submit to my client. And now, praise be, I get to drive Ottawacker Jr. out to his soccer practice, where he will run double the amount to make up for the session that was cancelled yesterday.