Freed: Trick or treat? Hope this Halloween ‘cone poem’ isn’t too scary

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It’s Halloween weekend and somebody has posted humorous on-line images a few really scary topic: Montreal building.

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One doctored “picture” exhibits metropolis employees as skeletons in onerous hats, engaged on a road known as “Chemin du Terror,” with a road signal saying: “RUE BARRÉE, FOREVER.”

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One other road picture is festooned with orange no-parking indicators saying: “Chantier hanté (haunted work web site). No candies: Nov. 1 to Oct. thirtieth.”

Close by, a poster says: “Work to be accomplished by 2021,” with the date crossed out and changed by 2023, then crossed out and changed by “NEVER”.

These humorous “memes” are simply the tip of an enormous humour trade that has been constructed round our metropolis’s building woes, as a result of when driving in Montreal you’ve bought to snigger, so that you received’t cry.

What number of one-liners have you ever heard about Montreal being Coney Island? What number of jokes like:

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Have you learnt why there are such a lot of cones in Montreal?

As a result of different Canadian cities use us for building cone storage.

As one comic from out of city cracked at a present final summer time: “I’d by no means visited Montreal earlier than, so I didn’t know your metropolis was simply being constructed.”

The orange cone is now our unofficial metropolis image. On-line websites are full of pics of Montrealers posing comically beside clumps of cones. At hockey video games, followers hoist and wave enormous cones at any time when the Canadiens rating.

This Halloween, I predict extra youngsters costume up as cones than ghosts or pirates. Even our dialog starters have develop into cone-versations.

We don’t break the ice at events by discussing the climate, like different Canadians. As an alternative we commerce tales about what occurred to us en route, with tales like:

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Visitor 1: I used to be on my manner right here after I hit a flashing “Rue Barrée” signal and was detoured down a lane, which compelled me onto a tiny rampway, that led down a dust alley that all of the sudden plunged straight into the St. Lawrence River the place my automotive sank.

“I assumed I used to be lifeless, however then a passing beluga whale swallowed my automotive and coughed it out on the opposite shore. I can’t imagine I nonetheless made it right here to Jonah’s home!”

Visitor 2: “Wow! However y’know, my story is much more unimaginable. I used to be driving right here when …”

In Montreal, all roads result in damage. We spend our lives misplaced in a maze of cones, with no exit, affected by claustroadphobia. So, my fellow coneheads, as my very own small contribution to building humour, right here’s a Halloween “cone poem,” with apologies to Dr. Seuss:

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A Cone of My Personal

Montreal is a metropolis
A really unusual zone,
With two million individuals
and two billion cones.

All of them stay collectively
As in the event that they had been one,
In a competition known as
Fête du Development.

Each road, each lane,
Each again alleyway
Has an indication proudly stating
“Bienvenue: RUE BARRÉE!”

There are potholes and craters
And shuddering bumps
That make your automotive leap
And provides your head lumps.

There are numerous nid-de-poules
(Potholes, en français)
And dirt clouds galore
That make you go “Feh!”

There are detours and lifeless ends,
Streets all car-packed,
That lead inescapably
To extra cul-de-sacs.

There are limitations, detours,
Flashing arrows and ruts,
And “pas de stationnement” indicators
That drive us all nuts.

There are overpasses in storms
That leak like a sieve
And billions in restore payments
All onerous to imagine.

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This metropolis’s true image
As endlessly proven
Is a Halloween-coloured,
And scary orange cone.

There are cones at midnight
That glow faint as a ghost
So look out!, drive fastidiously
So that you don’t develop into toast.

Darkish highways shrink shortly
From three lanes to none
They’re scarier than a ghost
Or witch, or goblin.

A billion cones right here,
A billion cones there
Cones, cones, cones, cones,
Turning cash to air.

The cement in our potholes
Appears hopelessly weak,
Even when patched up
It barely lasts weeks.

Specialists say it’s our winter,
The thaws and the frost
They are saying it’s our fault
Not sufficient of us floss!

They are saying it’s our air,
Or our hard-driving methods
Regardless of the purpose
We’re all misplaced in a maze.

The issue is hopeless
One resolution awaits
It’s time for Quebecers
To vary licence plates.

Overlook … “Je me souviens”
Let’s change our motto
To “Province Rue Barrée
“Fermé aux autos!”

Then we’ll seal off our metropolis
In an enormous Bixi zone.
And that would be the finish
Of our Sport Of Cones.

Have a really merry, not-too-scary Halloween, everybody.

joshfreed49@gmail.com