Tourists are Weird

by CORIANDER NEUMANEIMANAYMANEEMAMANN, Alternate Reality News Service Urban Issues Writer

Marcus Peritonickus leafed through the photos he had taken while he was in Toronto, the whole time challenging me to see the old man who stood on the corner of Yonge and Dundas and ranted about the coming squirrel Armageddon prophesied in the book of Revelations. "Can't see him, can you? Have you seen him, yet? Hunh? Hunh? Have you? Bet you haven't!"

I told Peritonickus that it really wasn't necessary for me to see all of the 2,347 photos of his trip, that I was quite willing to believe that he hadn't seen the man he was looking for. Unfortunately, he muttered something about journalistic integrity, so we both became obsessed with me seeing every single photograph in his camera. Every. Single. One.

"I'm the only member of the Saint Ginette of Napolitano Glee Club of Buffalo who hasn't seen the old squirrel Armageddon ranter guy," Peritonickus complained three and a half hours later. "I waited for almost an hour, and all I saw was this bag lady -"

"The term is Maitresse du Sac, boy!" the bag la - "Hey!" - sorry, the Maitresse du Sac shouted. "Watch what you say to me, or I'll have the Ogre du Jour rip off your lips and show you just what you said to me!"

"Yeah, right," Peritonickus continued. "We got Mattresses of Suck where I come from, too. How am I supposed to go back home after this and face my friends?"

Peritonickus' complained that he was misled by the Transient Tourist app on his cellphone. "Worst 99 cents I ever spent!" he bitched. (He swears the dog followed him around Toronto and, if you ignore the chicken fingers, cow intestines and spam, he hadn't fed her a morsel!)

Transient Tourist collects the signals from the chips implanted into the soft, fleshy bits of the homeless and plots them on a map of Toronto so that people from out of town can experience some local colour while they're in the city. The map has colourful icons that represent different types of homeless people, including:

ICON	TYPE	DESCRIPTION	WARNING
	Sleeps in bag on street.	Usually male, usually between 35 and 50, treats the sidewalk as his own home.	Often treats the sidewalk as the bathroom of his own home.
	Lives on street with animals.	Usually a younger person, possibly two or three, with an animal.	The animal is usually tame. The same cannot always be said of the people.
	Is surrounded by bags.	Usually an older woman.	Asking what is in the bags never ends well.
	Homeless person who mumbles to self and/or screams at passersby.	Can be combined with any other type.	Talks, but isn't prepared to listen. Engage in discussion at your own risk.

These images are often accompanied by characters that add detail to the description. These include:

"Yeah, well, that's the -"

Sorry, but before we go on I should probably explain why homeless people have chips implanted in them.

"Right. Right. Sorry. Carry on."

The Harness the Homeless programme was started in Toronto seven years ago in order to monitor people who had nowhere to live. In theory, it was supposed to help city services find homeless people before the weather became a danger to them. In practice, in woeful, highly underfunded practice, it helped them identify the corpses of homeless people after the snow thawed.

"That's the beauty of the system," explained Transient Tourist creator Enzo Mukluks. "Good intentions? There's always a way to generate revenue streams from them!"

There is some debate about this development among government ministries. The city's Social Services Department considers them 'revoltin'.'" The city's Tourism Bureau, on the other hand, responded, "Well, let's not be too hasty in our judgment, here. You know, the more tourist dollars the city brings in, the more money we have to pay for the social services that people who live on the street rarely use!"

The two departments have agreed to a thumb wrestling match to resolve their differences.

"Yeah, that's great, but, to get back to what's really important, what about me?" Peritonickus interjected. "I wanted to see a crazy squirrel Armageddon ranter - instead, I got a bunch of men in tights building human pyramids to protest...I don't really know what in Egypt! What a rip!"

Mukluks explained that the feed that they get from the city isn't entirely, you know, please don't make me say it, umm, well, officially sanctioned, okay? As a result, there are days when, oh, this is really embarrassing, could we please just change the subject, please, please, pretty please, I'll be your best friend forev - okay, fine, be that way, the Transient Tourist database can't be updated, but we've got hack - hack - hack - err, sorry, something got stuck in my throat - professionals, yeah, professionals working to get us the most up-to-date information on homeless people for our treasured customers.

When I started to explain Peritonickus' problem, Mukluks cut me off with a curt, "Sorry, no refunds."

We tried to find a street person to ask them how they felt about this situation, but, uhh...we couldn't find any. Really, they're like cops and husbands - never around when you need one!