We've got crazies at 10 O'Clock!

Had my first "crazy-guy attack" today, Toronto-stylee (something you'd normally expect in an American city, but less so here).

Here I was casually taking my lunchtime walk in the sunny 35C weather along Eglinton St, when I noticed this blind fella about to run into a car that was driving out of a driveway.

Naturally, I switch to Good Samaritan (tm) mode and run up, 'gently' putting my hand on the guy's shoulder, pulling him back to safety. No sooner have I done this than he swirls around with AMAZING speed and latches on to my arm with instinctive-precision shouting "WHO'S GRABBING ME??!?!" in the loudest possible voice (attracting the attention of many onlookers).

At this point I can see that the guy is homeless and quite mad. Also he was covered in all these odd sores .. sorta like plague

I try to explain calmly to him that I was stopping him from getting knocked over, but he continues to protest and when I try to push his arm off me he starts shouting "DON'T TOUCH ME SIR! I DON'T LIKE TO BE TOUCHED... YOU SHOULDN'T TOUCH PEOPLE LIKE THAT WITHOUT WARNING THEM!!"

And finally... "CAN YOU LEAD ME TO THE SUBWAY STATION NOW?!?"

Sure it was only 20 metres away so why not? Oh yeah... did I mention he was mad? As we walked this 20 metres (the longest 20 metres I've walked in a while) he was still latched onto my arm, muttering out loud about the way I "touched" him, and frequently whacking me on the leg with his swaying blind-man stick.

As far as I knew the only subway entrance was across the road, but a passer-by pointed me to the side of the building on this side of the road where there was a bank. Evidently there was a subway entrance there too and I never noticed it before.

So naturally I lead him into the wrong door!

Oh wow, this pissed him off so much that I thought he was going to lunge at me.. puss flying out of his face and everything.

I somehow got backed up into a corner beside the entrance way.. not a good idea since HE would have to backtrack if I was to lead him elsewhere.

.."SIR NOT HERE .. NOT HERE".. I push him back slightly to reverse out the door "DOOOON'T TOUCH MEEEE! WHY CAN'T YOU UNDERSTAND!! I HAVE A SICKNESS!" He starts stamping his feet now.

Right.. when he mentioned his "sickness" I started to get a little worried (I was relatively calm up until this point since I had pity on the guy). I started to wonder did he have some sort of contractable skin-disease which made him not like people touching him??

I quickly noticed he was pinching my arm with his dirty nails (I have a red mark there now), so I daren't risk any further contact and quickly lead him to the correct door and then managed to unhook my arm.

Needless to say, when I got back to the apartment, I washed my arm with 5 different kinds of soap and detergent and then put some rubbing alcohol on it.

That should kill anything! .. bloody hope so!



Actually talking of annoying things I've found while walking the streets of Toronto.. here are a few more...

The pathways aren't particularly wide here.. around 2-3 people max width. Why then, do so many Torontonians walk side by side when walking with their friends or as couples?

What makes it REALLY annoying is that when you walk up behind them, they don't move unless you shout "EXCUSE ME!" over them. They don't seem to register that "footsteps behind = someone wants to overtake".

Why should I need to walk on the road or grass verge just to overtake ye?? Mad.

I even got some irate slow-walking ponse give a sarcastic "Do you want to pass by or what??" to me while he and his friend were poddling along at a snails pace, expecting me to walk up on the verge. I just said "Cheers" and pushed on through them.


Another rather annoying thing here.. when I'm walking along at night on my own and I'm coming up behind some girl who's also walking along the pavement, the girl ALWAYS starts freaking out and looking over her shoulder every 10 seconds.

I don't feel the need to have to walk faster to make the overtake any quicker, so live with it woman

I guess a lot of women get attacked here or something.