I never really thought that I might live in a bad neighbourhood until I saw a guy getting arrested on the front porch of a house down my street.

I was heading to the subway, late for work, which means basically mid-morning. As I approached the corner, I realized that there were several police cars (like, four by the time I got there), surrounding this one house. I had to walk around the squad cars to get by on the sidewalk across the street. At the house, I could see them actually cuffing the guy. He just standing out there, in his puffy winter coat.

A couple of days earlier, while walking home late from work, I saw these two guys parked in what was obviously an unmarked police car in the vicinity of this same house. (Obviously because they had a bunch of red, siren-like lights at the front). Like they were watching him, because of some ongoing crime. Right down my street. Crackhouse? Opium den?

I guess there were warning signs. Like when the Taber shooter escaped and it was from a halfway house a block away from me.

I’ve never really thought of my neighbourhood as sketchy. I love that there are weirdo Portuguese bridal stores and yard sales every weekend all summer and that it isn’t too hip. I’m in walking distance to tacos, a good used music/book store and a Pizza Pizza. (Though to be totally honest I picked the place almost entirely because it’s close to the subway, a rep cinema, and a Portuguese bakery).

I have never seen any sketchy things going on, though Alex and Rachel and I did have that crazy guy who was talking to himself walk behind us for awhile on the way to the subway.

I don’ t know. It’s not like, Jane & Finch, where I certainly was happy to be accompanied by those tall boys when those drug dealers approached us with their large dog. I’ve never been like, scared, though I did walk really fast that one time when I realized that this guy had stopped his car to watch me straighten my kneesocks. Of course, these are all stories I refrain from telling my mother. Because she lives in the total suburbs, where nothing ever happens.