This morning, two young men walked into a Tim Horton’s in Saskatoon and ordered breakfast sandwiches. They insisted that the onions had to be diced, not just sliced. The counter person explained that they could not do it. This led to an argument and finally one of the young men reached into the other’s pocket, pulled out a garter snake and threw it behind the counter. Everyone scattered.

The police came, picked up the snake (garter snakes are harmless) and found a temporary home for it. It will be released into the wild in spring. The police also found the two culprits and they probably won’t get off so easily.

Now, people do not ordinarily go around with a snake in their pocket – not even in Saskatchewan – unless they are planning some outlandish stunt. Asking for diced onions on a breakfast sandwich was just a way to start an argument.

It was probably about a year ago that someone went into a Tim Horton’s, in Edmonton I think, bought a coffee and then left money to buy coffee for the next 100 customers. That soon spread across Canada, with unknown benefactors paying for coffee for large numbers of Tim Horton’s patrons that were unknown to them. That was a copycat streak that created a string of good news stories for about a week.

Times being what they are . . .  Well, I just hope that all the garter snakes in Canada have gone into hiding for the winter.