“Good morning!”

“What the $#@%% are you $$#@^^& here? And who the $!@#$*!*% do you @%$#%^! you are, you #$%%@#? And just who #$%$^% gave you the #$%@$# right to set foot on my property?”

The building inspector stepped back from Mother Teresa’s aluminum screen door. [Miller] And felt his bum crunch something hanging over the wrought iron rail of the front porch. It was Teresa's underwear hung out to dry but frozen as stiff as a board.

[Miller] Absolutely true!!! I saw them there last week while passing by her place in the ice fog. Big enough to tarp a Morris Minor.
We may need ground rules if Mother requires a minor variance. There are several targets of opportunity walking around the planning dept today and we may need some rules of engagement. The idea of restricting the blog rubs me the wrong way but I could be wrong.

[Gummo] I'm all for keeping the blog open...I believe we can process Mother Teresa's variance application by by-passing the planning department altogether. Not an unheard of story line, and it saves us some complications with the walking targets. Consider it streamlining. The building inspector is on site as we speak helping with the application form...

[Miller] Of course, just like the old days. There were no planners in any event, and no need for them.

The zoning regulation was extremely rudimentary, a book called a restricted area holding by-law. No maps, but just enough red tape to enrage an old girl from eastern Europe with a low tolerance for rules - especially about land. The problem was half of the tractor shed sinking into the tile field causing the north wall to retain a permanent green slimey slick as septic juices wicked up into the old grey lumber. It simply had to be removastored but Nelson Weins, a building inspector from the old school, had no concept of legal non-conformity under the law. In fact the only law Nelson really had any grasp of was field drainage. Never built a damned thing in his life. Took one look at the leaning shed and the oozing tile field and proclaimed loudly "variance b'gall derned, you need a variance lady". $!#$*!* you said Teresa, "I need a lawyer, not a dumb hick" at which point she shoved Nelson backwards over the porch railing. Instinctively, Nelson reached out to break his fall but the only thing available was Teresa's half frozen drawers hanging out to dry. They made a sound like a ripping tent flap. The inspector screamed as he landed in the snow covering the rose garden. Then he screamed again as his clipboard sliced through the air just missing his head.

The inspector’s next instinct was to reach for the mace that was suspended from his belt just like bounty hunters carried in the States. The building inspectors in Virgil ON were the only local enforcement officers authorized by the police to carry mace. Some of them carried it on their belts, others carried it in shoulder holsters. The use of mace was authorized after a series of unwarranted and savage incidents involving angry residents and young, inexperienced inspectors that left the town’s staff resources crippled, most of the vehicle fleet torched in the works yard, and the council chambers in ruin.

The rampage had lasted for weeks, and when it was over the lord mayor vowed that it would never happen again. He likened it to hell-day at an insane asylum. The town hall was retrofitted with devices taken from the by-law prohibiting the fortification of biker clubhouses. The building inspectors were sent on law and security training at a secret facility in North Carolina, and a new breed of tough, seasoned inspectors was recruited to bring a sense of decency to the lawless town. One or two of the good old boys from the old school were left on so their families wouldn’t be forced onto the welfare rolls. A new chief building inspector was recruited from a special handling unit at a privatized correctional facility in the Deep South.

The inspector was well aware of the potential to really stir up trouble if he tried to defend himself. He knew from growing up there that this was the wrong town to try to pull that stunt. He stepped calmly back to the door.

“I need to talk to you.”

“Oh yeah, you $#%#^%#-sucker. What the $$###$ for?”

“We’ve received a complaint.”

Mother Teresa had had a Wonder Building brought in on a flat bed from a tire dump that had been closed by the environment ministry after a fire that burned out of control. The driver unloaded the building right where Mother Teresa wanted it: within steps of her back door so she could get to it easy. It just lay there on the grass so she could drive her tractor in and out.

Her neighbours lived in neat period farmhouses with original classically arranged outbuildings in back and picket fences in front. They were strung out along a concession road known locally as Dividing Line. It separated two factions consisting basically of the Mennon family who ran Virgil ON and a random collection of outsiders who had settled near the next village down the road and taken it over. The latter were proud to be blue bloods, and the former were proud to have grown up without birth certificates. Dividing Line dead-ended in a tee-junction with the concession that led to the dump. The locals called it Dump Road or Bottom Line. The folk who settled along Bottom Line were another crowd altogether.

Mother Teresa’s neighbours were offended by the Wonder Building, and complained to the town clerk. The clerk sent the inspector to investigate. There was nothing in the town’s building code to prohibit a Wonder Building, but through air photo reconnaissance the inspector determined that the building was located too close to the house. A fire that started in the kitchen, for example, could jump to the Wonder Building and burn it down. Or, opined the inspector, Mother Teresa could apply for a variance. Since the separation didn’t meet the minimum requirements of the zoning ordinance, she could move the building, or a variance would be required.

Mother Teresa listened with increasing impatience to this bureaucratic nonsense. She didn’t bother asking how a variance would protect the Wonder Building from a fire that started in the kitchen. She did notice the unexpected Americanism in the use of the word “ordinance”, and didn’t question that either. Mother Teresa was used to the annoyance caused by officialdom, and was wary of their ability to really complicate your life.

Mother Teresa didn’t know too much specifically about variances. She’d heard of them once on a television show where Al Bundy torments a neighbour by holding up his variance at the variance review board. But she didn’t want to move the shed, so she asked about the application.

“What the #$%@&* does one of these things cost, and what @#$&*& do I gotta do to get #$^&%**?”

The inspector explained, going to great lengths to describe the drawings and justification that were required, and the calculation of the application fee. He wisely ignored suggesting Mother Teresa hire a lawyer. When Mother Teresa heard the fee she realized she’d be growing quite a few turnips for quite a long time to pay for it. But she paid it, and waited for her appointment at the variance board. What happened next was almost beyond her comprehension.

Teresa pondered whether to whack Nelson Weins again when she heard the Harley rumble through the icey pot holes of her driveway. A look of terror crossed the face of the building inspector as he turned towards the sound. Teresa thought to cold cock him with the rake handle but her attention was hijacked by a balding man in dusty leathers who swung off the bike and spit hard. "Blanket my loins, how are ya Teresa?". It was Mongol, an international brokerage lawyer that Teresa knew all too well from the Anchor Bar days. She had shared many a steamy night with Mongol on Hamburg beach after Arturo's untimely death.
Fluent in German, French, Flemish, and most Russian dialects, Mongol worked customs commissions on both sides of the river and acted for three local chapters of Hell's Angels. A rare Canadian chapter, formed by the Mennon Brothers, had taken possession of the crusher building at the old Usher Mill. Roofless, the building was too rough even for the Angels so the club had acquired a Wonder Building and contracted old man Penner to erect it inside the collapsed mill walls. Old man Penner was known to frequent Ife's basement bar and the week before had shot off his mouth about what the Angels were up to at Usher's mill. Well, the word got back to Nelson Weins who in all stupidity paid the Angels a visit, slapped a stop work order on their Wonder Building and loudly proclaimed the stone walls a danger to occupancy in violation of the zoning by-law. He was attempting to explain the need for a variance when the Angels ran him off. Two of Weins' brand new tires were shot flat immediately and the rims bent beyond repair during the high speed pursuit that followed half way to Dump Road.

Mongol was harmless enough but his expression and body language that day caused Nelson Weins to shake - noticeably. "You look like you been for a roll in the snow son" said Mongol laughing and spitting hard again. "I heard tell you don't care much for Teresa's Wonder Building either". The building inspector harboured doubts, but at that point he knew for sure that coming to work in VirgilON had been a big mistake.

In the weeks leading up to the variance board meeting a fire storm of controversy broke out in the editorial pages of the local paper. The accusations flew hard and fast, and the recriminations too. The Wonder Building was universally branded the ruination of the village. It had to be stopped.

When Mother Teresa arrived at the town hall for the meeting the doors were locked. She let herself in a basement window, and found herself in a dark corridor. At the end of the corridor was a closed door. A shaft of light appeared under it, and loud voices came from the other side. She opened the door and stepped in.

The room was wall-to-wall residents. All of them were hollering at the variance board. The board sat behind a long table covered with applications, drawings, and a huge rubber stamp that the chairman used to approve, or not approve, variances. Most of the residents were stamping their feet, and a few were also waving their fists.

The crowd fell silent when Mother Teresa entered. They turned and glowered, not with an intense, sharp anger but more a sullen, smoldering resentment.

The meeting was presided over by the variance board chairman, Junior Mennon. Junior was the second son of Big Jake Mennon who ran the village grocery store. Junior had not learned arithmetic well enough to work in the store, and never could convert to metric weights and measures. To give him some semblance of a livelihood, Jake got him a job on the loading dock at the village seed and feed run by Jake’s brother Jaak.

Junior had been picked on relentlessly through elementary school. Had he made it into secondary the pattern would no doubt have repeated itself. From a very early age the older boys made him look up the skirts of the little girls, and then bray like a donkey. They had also made him blow a raspberry whenever Miss Whyte-Badger walked into the one-room school. The teacher eventually gave up on him, and made him sit at the back of the room near the cloakroom where she could ignore him more easily. Junior was the only student who never changed seats during his entire eight years in the school.

For the rest of his life whenever under stress Junior would bray like a donkey, and whenever a stranger walked into a room Junior would blow a raspberry. Deep down inside Junior knew that he would always be junior.

What with working on the loading dock and poor food choices, Junior had grown to an expansive 280. His girth allowed him to easily control most meetings. And being chair of the variance board gave him a certain stature around the village. He was given to lording it over the other villagers whenever he met them in the coffee shop at the four corners or down the dusty main street at the post office. He gave the impression of having matured into a tough, take charge kind of guy.

When Mother Teresa entered the room he was sitting in his chair’s chair braying like a donkey. When he saw Mother Teresa he blew her a raspberry.

The variance board, who sat on either side of Junior at the head table, was stacked with second cousins of Jake Mennon. In fact, they were all second cousins of Jake’s. They were doing their best to keep up with the input they were receiving from the public, but were clearly falling behind. Junior pretended to be taking notes with a stubby pencil with a broken lead. The village clerk sat at the end of the table appearing to take minutes. He was really studying the racing form.

One old gent, the noted retired British arborist Dr. J.W.S. “Stumpy” Stump, who lived across Dividing Line from Teresa and had driven to the meeting in his sherwood green Rolls Royce, was using quotes from both William Shakespeare and George Bernard Shaw to shore up his argument that the matter of the Wonder Building be referred to the village’s heritage board to see if it could be softened a little from its utilitarian functionality. Mother Teresa grimaced at the inelegant redundancy, and thought, “I’ll soften you, you little #$@^&*”.

Next up was a grizzled old farmer who might have been a woman. Teresa couldn’t tell. The farmer ranted on and on about the plight of farmers, how they were stewards of the soil and the environment and only wanted a fair share from governments at all levels and be allowed to stick to their tried and true farming practices like cleaning out the chemical containers in the stream and keep their firearms without having to get a license and fish from their irrigation ditches and then pass the farm on to their children. But would sell out to the developers if they had to. Mother Teresa realized these were heartfelt and sincere concerns, but couldn’t for the life of her figure out what they had to do with her variance.

The last speaker was the head of the village business association. He argued that bringing cast-off buildings into the village was bad for business and shouldn’t be allowed when there were hard-working local businessmen who paid taxes right in the village and who could supply any building materials anyone could possibly want. As he was wearing his business association hat, he didn’t have to mention that he was the manager of the village building supply owned by Big Jake’s brother George.Nor did he mention that the village council had allowed George to defer his taxes for 18 years running. Mother Teresa just thought, “#$&&*% you.”

Mother Teresa was allowed to speak last. But before she could utter a word she was badgered by questions from the variance board. She was given no time to answer.

Why didn’t she have a picket fence? Who drove the flat bed, and how old was it? Did it have a valid license plate? Why was it painted that colour? Could she plant some flowers and evergreens beside her new gate posts? How was the yield on her peach trees? Why couldn’t she make the pitch on the Wonder Building roof the same as the pitch on her house? Did her creek ever run dry? Could she paint her window trim a different colour? Why did the previous owner put the original shed on the tile bed in the first place? Did she ever eat cod for breakfast? What could the village do to stop the graffiti kids? Didn’t the high school football team and the village garbage collectors look wonderful in their new matching uniforms? How many acres of turnips was she going to plant next year? Mother Teresa noticed there was not a single question about her variance.

Four hours after the meeting started Junior announced, “I don’t like Wonder Buildings”, and banged his gavel down on the table. “Meeting adjourned!” The crowd grumbled to their feet and shuffled toward the door.The clerk rolled up the racing form and stuffed it into his back pocket. The variance board congratulated each other for surviving another meeting, and agreed to go for buffalo wings and beer at the restaurant across the street operated by Jaak’s wife.As Junior had forgotten the rules again and adjourned the meeting without a proper mover and seconder, he would have to buy the first round. For some reason this caused high hilarity among the board.

Mother Teresa let herself out by the basement window. The parking lot was dark, and a small knot of residents were huddled around a truck plotting their next move. She mounted the tractor and started it up. Watching the variance board disappear into the restaurant for a good feed of buffalo wings gave her an idea.