Run This Town.

A flailing woman tries to pull my purse from off my shoulder. As I jerk it back, I think to myself "Calgary is a crack town".

For the fifth time since the beginning of the year, one of my clients shoots up after being clean for a short while, and overdoses herself. "Sometimes," I think to myself," we are a heroin town".

While in the convenience store, a twitchy man nervously asks the clerk if they have an Sudafed. It is an emergency. As I stand behind him in line, I think "Actually, Calgary is more like a meth town".

I go for sushi early in the evening one Saturday, and on the back of one of the toilets are two perfect, powdery lines that someone must've forgotten about. I shake my head and think "Man, we're more like a cocaine town".

Trailing exactly ten steps behind a random group of business men waddling from the Stampede grounds in July. There are grease stains on their shirts. It is barely noon, and they are already loud and boisterous. I change my mind once again; "We are a gluttonous town. And a drunk town".

I admit to my co-workers that I haven't watched 'Orange Is The New Black', and their murderous stares tell me one thing. I had it all wrong from day one. Calgary is a Netflix town.

~sarah p.