The Black Fly Summit

Photo Rick Eglinton, Toronto Star

I can't believe I haven't written about this before.
I mean, the G-freaking-8 is going on in my backyard and I haven't said boo about it yet.
Well, enough of that shit. Today is the day I let loose on what is the biggest thing to hit Muskoka since the invention of the black fly.
We're talking the G8, people, the summit of some of the world's greatest political leaders. We got France, we got the U.S., Italy, Germany, the European Union, Japan, Russia and Canada, of course, and we've got them in HUNTSVILLE.
In case you don't know where Huntsville is, it's in the middle of bum-fuck nowhere.
It's this little town that thinks it's a big, important town, sitting on the tip-top of some of cottage country's most expensive real estate. Not everybody is stinking rich. There are plenty of folks who haven't seen a dentist since the second coming of Christ, but there are enough Beamers running around to make everyone think that the Royal Canadian Mint shit gold nickels on these thar granite hills.
Normally the busiest thing to hit Muskoka is summer tourist season, where locals put up with diamond-clad plastic surgery patients drowning in daughters named Muffy, dogs named Miffy and designer dog-shit baggies that smell like rose bushes.
Now isn't normal. Now is anything but normal.
The streets are filled with cops. Every third car on the main drag is a marked cruiser. Every second car is unmarked. The poor asshole in the shitbox in the middle is sweating bricks the size of Cadillacs, hoping he can get home before someone shoots him in the back of the head.
The restaurants are full of steroidal men in army fatigues with necks the width of the Muskoka River.
The highway is one long motorcade of cop cars, limousines, motorcycles and army trucks.
The skies are buzzing with armed forces helicopters - I had no idea Canada had such big helicopters. All you hear is how cheap Canada is when it comes to national defence - I had the idea Canadian helicopters were flown with rubber bands pulled off broccoli bunches.
It's freaking scary being average Joe Citizen amongst all this.
Some farmer went out and shot a groundhog last week and he was instantly surrounded by men with guns.
A golfer at Deerhurst Resort went after a lost ball, which was returned to him by a soldier who growled, "Take your ball and get outta here."
There are fences as high as apartment buildings around the perimeter of the resort, where the summit is being held.
There are rumours of submarines in the lake.
There is a running BUZZ of weird energy. It's all everybody's talking about.
When the phones went out last week it was because "G8 security was testing phone blockage."
When Highway 11 was closed down today it wasn't because of an accident, "it was because of the G8."
When the earthquake shook everybody up, it was because "they're testing missiles for the G8."
It's crazy!
It's exciting!
It's SURREAL.
What's really bugging me, though, is because the G20 is happening in Toronto on the heels of the G8, all the media is talking about is Trawna this and Trawna that.
Well, WAKE UP people!
There's always some big shit happening in the Big Smoke.
The real story is a small town in Bum-Fuck Nowhere being visited by Barack Obama and a billion and a half dollars' worth of boys in khaki.
But that's not what is bugging those boys, no sirree. What's bugging them are the local mosquitoes and black flies. Apparently there's been some bitching about our bugs. I don't know what they're so surprised about - everybody knows June is High Season for bugs in Muskoka. And no amount of submarines, machine guns and tanks can do anything about that.
Here's a suggestion for our visitors:
1. Take a piece of duct tape and a Bounce sheet and tape the sheet to the back of your ball cap, fedora or army helmet. This is known to thwart deer flies.
2. Wear light clothing, not dark clothing like camouflage. Bugs like dark clothing. So, soldiers, put on some pastel capris and you'll be fine.
3. Invest in a Mosquito Magnet. They're small enough to put in your tank and guaranteed to kill mozzies within a one-mile radius. Heck Barack, you could probably fit one in the back of your limo.
4. I personally recommend bug jackets. They're not pretty, and they're hot as hell, but they are also good disguise mechanisms. Nobody would be able to tell a Barack from a no-nuker from a cop. So everyone would be nice to each other and play nice with the other kids.
Now, I sincerely hope that my house isn't surrounded tonight by guys with big guns.
I am not an ingrate, a communist, or a protestor. In fact, I'm barely a local yocal. So please, don't come in the middle of the night and steal my laptop and shoot me. Promise? I'm getting married in the fall and I don't want to have to deal with hiding bullet wounds with make-up.
P.S. - If I don't show up at work tomorrow, will somebody please come looking for me?

The G8 leaders and the leaders of the developing nations wait for Prime Minister Stephen Harper to arrive to a family photo during the G8 Summit in L'Aquila, Italy on Thursday July 9, 2009. (Sean Kilpatrick / THE CANADIAN PRESS)
Apparently he DID show up -- just late!