Homeless in Vancouver: At least the sun was glaringly obvious

We like to say that things are “glaringly obvious”. But more often than not, glare blinds us to what would be obvious (if there was no glare).

Ask the three truck drivers I watched yesterday morning, speeding eastbound on West Broadway Avenue, straight into the glare of the sunrise and right through red traffic lights!

Or just ask me. This morning I completely missed my friend Virgil.

A hard worker with a bright and sunny disposition

Virgil is a building custodian. I see him almost every morning on the first leg of my trip to get breakfast.

Often I’ll round the corner into the east end of the alley of the block where his building is just as he’s arriving in his little putt-putt car at the west end of the alley.

By the time I reach the middle of the block, Virgil will have parked his car in the building’s parkade, grabbed his broom and dustpan and be busy sweeping up around his building’s dumpsters.

He’s a cheerful fellow—nine years in Canada from Romania—and he never slacks off.

I appreciate that kind of work attitude. I’d have been happy to have him as a coworker when I did custodial for two years, between 2008 and 2010. I hope his employer appreciates him enough to pay him more than minimum wage.

Anyway, this morning he was a no-show.

I stopped right by where he works so I could try to photographically capture the fierce light from the sunrise. I figured he’d turn up but he was nowhere to be seen.

I was frankly worried for him. The light was mercilessly bright. I couldn’t even see what I was trying to photograph. What if he’d suffered sunstroke?

Well, wouldn’t you know it? According to the photographs I took, he was there the whole time sweeping away. So much for “glaringly obvious”!

Obvious to who?

And while I’m on the subject…when people declare that something is “glaringly obvious”, they usually don’t mean to everyone, just themselves.

Usually they say it to take a shot at someone—saying this someone missed something that should have been obvious to them but wasn’t.

A similar, but more obvious, dig is to tell some one that something is as “clear as the nose on their face”.

A nose is a very obvious feature to everyone except for the person who’s nose is being referred to. Sneaky, huh?