Y ou've heard of road rage, air rage, cubicle rage, retail rage and even gym rage. But is it possible to suffer from city rage?

On Sunday, I returned home from a barbecue to an unpleasant discovery: A fiend had smashed into my locked shed and absconded with my lawn mower.

"Can you believe this?" I asked my wife, who seemed more concerned with the length of our grass than the actual theft. "Our Lawnhog was abducted in broad daylight. What is happening to this city?"

As I stood in the crime scene, examining the shed's mangled door frame, my blood boiled. It wasn't just the electric mower or the oversized black urns (stolen last year) or the fact someone had once squeezed through our kitchen window while we were sleeping, swiping a few household items, including the keys to our car.

No, as I walked toward the front porch, across a slab of sidewalk spray-painted with graffiti, my anger went beyond property theft.

These days, admittedly, everything about Toronto is making me mad: Construction, dirty parks, appalling customer service, endless fees, abysmal leadership, dysfunctional council, inept urban planning, potholes, expensive goods, dilapidated neighbourhoods, aggressive panhandlers, the ongoing futility of our hockey squad.

Toronto the Good has become Toronto the Enraging.

The other night, after ordering sushi, I glanced at the bill and noticed I had been charged for the plastic bag in which our food was delivered. Granted, five cents is no big deal. Still, as I choked down sashimi, I could feel a bad case of city rage burning in my mouth like wasabi.

It wasn't the money. It was the principle.

"Can you believe this?" I asked my wife. "What are we supposed to do? Courier a canvas bag to the restaurant before we order? Next time, maybe I'll ask if the poor delivery guy can balance our miso soup on his head instead of using a bag."

Then there's the municipal strike, which started yesterday. Whether this labour action is short-lived or long lasting, one thing is clear: Once again, honest, hardworking, law-abiding taxpayers are being held hostage by a system that always puts them last.

That should be Toronto's new motto: Where Citizens Are Taken For Granted.

A disruption to garbage pickup after we just started paying new fees for garbage pickup?

Charging residents with "illegal dumping" after they left bags outside a designated transfer station yesterday because pickets had blocked their access?

Sometimes I wonder if we wouldn't be better off if a crime syndicate took over our waste removal system.

Thug: "How much are you throwing out this week, bub?"

Citizen: "Ah, let's see, two bags and a box of recycling."

Thug: "That'll be three bucks. And don't worry about it. You'll never see this stuff again, if you know what I mean."

As it stands now, we do all the work – recycling, reusing, sorting, hauling freakishly big bins to the curb – and keep getting told that we're not doing enough. We pay a lot of protection money for not a lot of protection.

The shuttering of daycare centres is also galling. Shouldn't "taking care of children" be deemed an essential service in a civil society? Believe me, young parents are already struggling with a raft of recessionary realities.

That's right, I forgot, "reality" is never a factor in a municipal strike.

And let's not get started on the cancellation of island ferry service, parks maintenance or summer camps. Why, it's enough to make a person drink – assuming, that is, LCBO workers aren't also on strike tomorrow morning.

What is happening to this city? It is making us furious.





vmenon@thestar.ca