Toronto: where everybody knows your name

Toronto’s population is 4 million but it feels more like 40.

I know about five people in this city and last night, I ran into four out of the five. At the Raptors game.

First, my sister saw a friend there she actually met through my friend – although this was no surprise as he has a Raptors’ shrine in his pad and she uses her season’s tickets enough to describe every regular in section 312 of Air Canada Center. (“That guy always wears a sweatband” or “I don’t know why these fat guys are here, they don’t usually sit here.”)

Now, we had already established that this friend of hers was friends with my friend from high school, which was weird enough. Then he said that she was actually also there tonight, in another section. So I saw her. And she was there with another high school friend I knew. So I also saw her.

And that was just the beginning. Three rows behind me, in the 20,000-seat Air Canada Center, my friend’s sister was sitting. Literally three rows behind me. So that’s what, four people already? It keeps going.

After the game (I’m pretty sure they lost, but I was just happy they scored 100 points so I could get a free Pizza Pizza slice today) we went to get drinks. We weren’t even completely out of the building when my sister ran into another person she knew.

“Wanna grab a beer with us?” she asked her friend – who, mind you, did not even attend the Raptors game but we still managed to run into him.
“Sure,” he said and switched directions.

Apparently Canadians don’t need much convincing to drink beer. And Torontonians are apparently used to running into each other as I was the only one who kept screaming “Are you kidding me?! You gotta be shitting me!”

Ok, so we’re up to what, five run-ins now?

Then we went for drinks, where the first friend (The Raptors shrine guy) was with another friend. So that friend calls up one of his friends. He shows up and my sister looks at me and says:
“I know that guy. I played basketball with him.”

So yeah, either my sister needs to be the Toronto mayor or this city feels small.