City Hall: An Autobiography, Chapter 4

We are now quickly approaching the end of summer. Mid-August. I find this time year a bit depressing. Summer went by so fast. Stores have been advertising "Back to School" for a couple of weeks now.

I needed to be at the office a bit earlier today, so instead of taking the bus, I decided to rent a car. Not realizing how big of a mistake that was. Rush-hour traffic downtown! Now I understand why so many people take the subway.

I decided to put on the radio to see if I could find a traffic report. I was tuning through the stations, and stopped on one that immediately attracted my attention. It was a promo for Tourism Toronto! Damn those two! I told them not to buy prime-time airtime!

Stuck in traffic three blocks from City Hall. What the hell are these assholes waiting for? Come on, move your damn car!

I noticed in the rear-view mirror, a taxi speeding along in the lane next to me. Oh, no, there is no way I am letting him in here.

Wouldn't you know, the idiot is trying to squeeze in here? How about, 'no'?! No, no no, no! Piss off, you taxi! He still tries, and has the nerve to flip me off!

Then, the worst possible thing of all happened. He smashed me. The bugger, smashed the front of the rental car! The impact caused my car to suddenly stop, and thus, the idiot behind me in the Toyota, crushed his bumper into my ass-end! Shit! A three-car collision, with me in middle!

We were hardly moving, so there were no injuries, but there was some damage to some of the vehicles, meaning we would have to get a police report. Damnit!

I grabbed my piece-of-crap 'Crapberry' to call. It took seven rings for someone at that stupid police traffic unit to answer the stupid phone. I wish City Hall would allow them to hire more people. Who was the idiot who suggested cuts to the police budget? Oh, wait, I was...never mind.

It took almost an hour for an officer to show up. At this point, I was already late for work, and it was likely that the Mayor was going to jump on me anyway, so I did not really care any more.

Interestingly, it was John who showed up for the call. That explains why it took an hour.

"Hi, Jake", John said sarcastically as he exited his police car, "Looks like you did a good job of making a car sandwich here."

"Look, John", I said, "I am already late for work, and I don't need the bullshit, so can you just do up your little report, so I can get to Shitty Hall?"

"Oooooooo", John said with a sarcastic grin, "Maybe I want to do a good job, and therefore, I need to take my time." John begins to walk very slowly towards the mess that was once three cars.

"Ass.", I said quietly to myself.

I can't believe, here we are out here at almost ten in the morning, hot as hell already, and John is farting around. What an ass.

I won't bore you with the details of John's stupid report. All I will say is that the taxi driver was found to be at fault, and was ticketed for careless driving. No Shit, Sherlock. I could have told him that, and saved all that time! Sometimes I wonder why we even have police, except to be a pain in the ass.

When I finally arrived at the office, I was two hours late.

Judy was one the phone with her boyfriend as usual, and she immediately looked up as I walked in.

She covered the phone pickup with her hand and whispered to me, "You're late."

"No shit.", I whispered back.

The Mayor looked over from across the hall. He stood from his desk, and began to walk over.

"Good afternoon, Jake", he said with sarcasm, "Nice of you to show up."

"I was in an accident this morning", I explained.

"Hiring you as my assistant was an accident.", he said back.

"I need your help in my office, please.", Wow, he said please!

I followed Mayor Man into his office. Jannet and James were in there, and they had papers and file folders all over the place. What a mess!

"Would you help James and Jannet, please?", the Mayor pleaded.

"Do what?", I asked, "Make more of a mess?"

"They are cleaning up.", the Mayor said.

"Yeah, and doing a damn good job, too.", I said sarcastically.

The Mayor Man was starting to get a bit annoyed, and started talking a bit louder, "They are throwing out old files we no longer need!"

I said, "Why don't we just put everything on our brand-spanking new, high-quality computers that we all enjoy using here at City Hall?"

The Mayor gave me a dirty look, so I decided it was time to shut up.

"I have to go to a meeting.", The Mayor said abruptly, "Jake, you are in charge of this operation until I get back." He then turned and walked out.

I continued to "help" Jannet and James make a mess. While looking to my office, I noticed the guy from Bay-Bloor Radio wandering around, and I think he was looking for me.

I ran accross the hall to my office to greet him, "Hi, I'm Jake. You are here to install the new system?"

"Yes, well, I'm one on the installers. There are four of us.", he said with a smile.

"Great!", I said happily, "How long will it take?"

He said, "Well, with the four of us working on it, and since we are Union, so we get our breaks and such, we can have the entire City Hall done in about three...weeks."

"Well, okay", I said, " Go ahead."

He walked out, and Judy turned to me and said "What system?"

"P.A. system", I said brightly, "Well, P.A. and music system. I am having the entire City Hall rewired with this system that can be controlled by these little keypads. One in each room. You can also play FM Radio, or any one of the 450,000 pre-loaded MP3's! You can play an MP3 in one room, radio in another, and yet a completely different song or station in another room, all from these little keypads! It also controls the music played in the elevators, outdoor speakers, and on-hold music. On top of all that, its a P.A.! Isn't that cool?"

Judy looked at me as if I was some kind of a nutcase.

I continued, "Oh yeah, they are also putting in all new speakers, good ones, and are rewiring the current P.A. wires. Isn't that the best thing you have ever heard?"

Judy replied in a puzzled voice, "Ummmmm, and how much is this going to cost?"

"That is the best part", I said, "Only $2,650,300!"

Judy's eyes became very wide, "Are you out of your mind?!"

"Why?", I questioned. "They gave us a huge discount to do all of the building. It should have cost $2,900,000. I just saved the Toronto taxpayers $249,700!"

TO BE CONTINUED...

Disclaimer: Please note that any reference to any real locations in this story is intended to keep this story as true to life as possible, but any description, characters and text involved with said locations are fictional.