When Peter played in his last curling bonspiel he was awarded some tickets to the Home Show. Not just any tickets – VIP tickets! I imagined us being picked up by a black stretch limo and chauffeured to the VIP entrance. How exciting!

Well the limo failed to appear but the VIP entrance part was true. The trip was easy for us: one stop on the Lakeshore GO train for $1.97 seniors. And there was a free coat-check, handy for attending an indoor show when there were piles of snow all around the building. No matter what was on display, we figured it was a fun adventure while we escaped from the cleaning lady.

The displays were mostly about things you would expect to see at a show about homes: reno projects, appliances, building supplies and furniture. As we are well into our 70’s, we are not really looking to do renovations. But this bed could be a great hiding place for us when the grandkids visit.

We wandered past items promoting a relatively recent trend: entertainment for the home. It may be a holdover from those Covid days of being housebound. We saw pool table, hot tubs, arcade games, massage chairs and putting greens. There were also a lot of “backyard homes” that could be used as granny suites or man caves or teen hideaways.

But Peter and I weren’t interested in any of these things. With tariffs on our minds, we were interested in giveaways. And there were plenty. We couldn’t keep track of the number of bite-sized chocolate bars, fudge samples, and hard candies. And we tasted savouries like olives, salami, cheeses. We also picked up a few pens, note pads, water bottles, stress balls shaped like construction hats, and a chip clip for closing up half-empty Miss Vickie’s bags (although who would ever need That?) As for free Ontario wine samples, there were some of those too.

We were almost too full to stop for lunch, but the food choices were not gourmet. We had to decide among 3: pizza slices, burgers with fries, or peameal bacon on a bun. We carried our food to a separate lounge which had comfy chairs, big windows, and free coffee delivered to our seats. That part was definitely VIP.

After lunch we went on a Canadian shopping spree. I got a nifty garlic peeler which Peter swore he would never borrow, but just last night he showed me how to use it. I also got some magic stone cleaner for our kitchen window ledge which has has stains on it since before we moved in. And we found a couple of adorable pop-up birthday cards for our 2 grandsons. We met the artist:

There were a few items meant for eccentric buyers: tubular back yard saunas, leather elephant stools, and large painted ceramic zebras. There was also an ugly lime-green Tesla cyber-truck. Sorry readers – no photo of that. This blog site has standards!

Finally we were done. We walked towards the exit, patriotically side-stepping the huge Canadian flag on the floor. A perfect ending to our day:

Sue