A young Queen VictoriaHandout | Library of Congress
Attention citizens of Old York! Seeing as you live in the most righteously WASPish city in the only country in the world to celebrate the birth of Queen Victoria – shouldn't the Victoria Day weekend be commemorated with a little more, well, Victorian behaviour? Here's how:
The Victoria Day moment: After 15 minutes of waiting in line at the Dupont Beer Store, you finally hear the glorious clatter of rolling metal as four two-fours of Canadian shoot out from the warehouse. Back home, you place all 96 brewskis in a kiddie pool, then dump five bags of ice overtop, blanketing them in maximum chill-down. Your friends show up, you high-five, head out to the back deck, grab that first frosty cold one and twist off the cap.
What you want to do: Raise the bottle to your lips, glug down half, belch obnoxiously and yell, "Parteeeee!"
What you should do: Pour it out. Every last drop! From every last wretched bottle! And plug your nose so as not inhale the devil brew's corrupting odour.
The Victoria Day moment: You buy four 1.5-inch thick 60-day dry-aged rib eyes from Olliffe, rest them at room temperature for four hours, and dust them with sea salt and ground black pepper.
What you want to do: Fire up the charcoal grill to volcanic, sear both sides, then do a three-minute slow roast over smoky coals until the interior is a perfect blood-pink.
What you should do: Boil them for three hours.
The Victoria Day moment: You tune in to Q107's "London Calling Victoria Day Long Weekend" when the Zeppelin classic Bring It on Home comes on.
What you want to do: Crank the stereo to eleven, get down on your knees and simultaneously air-guitar Jimmy Page's riffs while air-drumming like a frenzied John Bonham, and rocking your head back and forth like AC/DC's Angus Young.
What you should do: Turn the stereo off. Open The Anglican Hymn Book to Hymn No. 7, and sing Richard Corbet Singleton's 1867 chart-topper, As Mounts on High the Orb of Day.
The Victoria Day moment: A goddess makes eye contact on the Black Bull patio. She smiles at first, then walks right over and says, "Haven't we met?" An hour later, she's sitting on your lap. Your jokes are all hilarious. You flick a beer cap that sails 40 feet in the air and into a garbage can to uproarious applause. She turns to you and says, "Want to go somewhere we can talk?"
What you want to do: Tell her your roommate is away for the weekend.
What you should do: Admonish the vixen for her coquettish ways, hold forth on society's ever loosening morals, then retire early to bed. As you fall asleep, your mind clouded by impure thoughts, pray these vexing nocturnal emissions come to an end, for they surely lead to insanity.
Special to The Globe and Mail