OddThinking

I was out in a rural area of Canada, on a beautiful day with a bit of autumn chill in the air.

I was driving along the highway, relaxing on cruise control.

The radio was tuned to my favourite Canadian radio show. (I don’t know its name, and I’ve asked a half-a-dozen young and funky Canadians who have never heard of it, so whatever it is called, I should probably be embarrassed to like it.)

I was singing along with some silly song they were playing about a man who lost his wristwatch playing hopscotch with a Sasquatch in a tree crotch.

Suddenly, the car started slowing down.

“Odd,” I thought, “The cruise control just turned itself off. Wait a moment. The accelerator isn’t working. The car’s broken down? Oh, god! I haven’t… oh, no, I have! Am I really that stupid? Yes, I am! I’ve run out of petrol.”

I couldn’t believe I had done something that dumb; I wasn’t watching the dashboard, and I didn’t think to check the fuel gauge.

I glided to a safe spot at the side of the road and sat for a bit. I listened to the end of the radio show as I collected myself. I ate a picnic lunch as I planned how to solve the problem. Then I dressed warmly, filled my pockets with whatever supplies I had, and started walking to the petrol station I had passed about five kilometres earlier.

Did that part of Canada have any wildlife I had to watch out for? Any biting insects? Nettles? Bears? Snakes? I didn’t know, but I hoped not!

After trudging for ages, I tried to explain to the petrol station attendant (who, of course, only spoke French) that I needed to borrow a jerry can. I got nowhere, until some kind soul in the queue that was forming behind me complained at her bitterly in French. She relented and helped me out.

With a heavy can of petrol in hand, I started trudging back.

I sometimes pick up hitchhikers, but I have never been a hitchhiker. I don’t know; it just seems more dangerous to be picked up than to pick up. So, I didn’t have my thumb out as I walked back. A car pulled over anyway. It was a clapped-out, old rust-bucket, and the driver called me over and told me to get in; he’d give me a lift to my car. I was a bit unsure, but it was a long hike, the can was heavy, I was tiring out and I still didn’t know whether I needed to worry about being eaten by a bear. I accepted.

The driver was an excitable, young Lebanese man. He started telling me happily about his job.

He worked at the local abattoir.

Somehow, that’s not what you want to hear when you are hitchhiking and feeling a little vulnerable.

Part of his job was inspecting that the meat was halal – conforming to Islamic dietary requirements. If the meat passed the inspection, he put his mark on the corpse with a stamp.

“Here, I will show you!” he said, and started rummaging through the mess of items shoved between his dashboard and the windscreen. Eventually, he pulled out a little hand-stamp covered in (what I hope was) blood-red ink. “This is what I stamp the corpses with.”

My bizarre-o-meter was flashing red. By this stage, I was ready to jump out of the car and take my chances with the bears.

In the end, however, I am grateful to him. He did me a big favour, getting me back to my car, snakebite-free and blood-red-stamp-marks-free.

And so I continued my journey…

…checking my fuel gauge every 20 seconds for the rest of the trip.