MARTENSVILLE, SK ― Sources close to Terrence Graves, a local mechanic, report that the 54-year-old who has been grousing for months about the entirely unrealistic dream of making North America the slightest bit walkable, has yet to hear of San Marino.
They further note that everyone around him fervently hopes it stays that way.
Graves, who lives in a city every bit as remote as the possibility that anyone will ever force him to give up his large, black-smoke-spouting truck (or even the truck nuts and Fuck Trudeau decal on it), has posted a good 728 times in just 3 months about the downsides of fixing food deserts and increasing opportunities for light physical activity in day-to-day life.
Even so, his fear of bicycles is nothing compared to his daughter’s constant terror that he will one day find out that you could walk the width of Liechtenstein in about an hour.
If he ever learns this, she suspects that an hour is also about how long he would rant in her face about the woke EU before pausing for air, never mind that Liechtenstein is not part of the EU, nor that shortness of breath is his main excuse for avoiding physical exertion at all costs.
Besides literally 15-minute countries like Vatican City, larger European nations also boast some prominent cities that largely adhere to the 15-minute concept. The prospect of building a subway system as quick and reliable as that of, say, Prague, is not at all feasible in sprawling North America, but this would not stop Graves from being scared of it, which is why his acquaintances have entered a pact to hide the mere existence of Czechia, and several of its neighbours, from him.
This is very easy, because Graves has never travelled outside his province and has not looked at a world map since high school, before Czechoslovakia was dissolved. Despite this, he is quite sure his car-dependent lifestyle is the best and only way to live.
Calling it a “crazy new idea dreamt up by stupid young punks,” Graves continued to list the horrors of the system, oblivious to its having been the default for centuries before cars were invented. He was stopped by the end of his lunch break, at which point he’d clocked a cumulative 2 hours and 9 minutes raving to his coworkers about it this week. That could get him from Croatia, right through Slovenia, and into Austria with time to spare, though it would not be enough to get him from his home to his province’s capital.
Graves was last seen working himself into such a rage about Justin Trudeau’s “exorbitant” carbon tax that his blood pressure skyrocketed. This necessitated a trip to the nearest hospital, which is located not in Martensville, but over 20 minutes drive away in Saskatoon.
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