In case you’ve been hiding under a rock lately (or you simply don’t live in Montreal), the WTO was in town for the last few days. Hot on their heels were a ragtag group of tree-hugging activists hailing from all over the continent, armed with spray paint, a lot of rage, and apparently any loose construction equipment they could find lying around, as evidenced by the broken windows of Burger King, Jacob and other unfortunate businesses boarded up along St-Catherine street. There was a picture on the front page of Tuesday’s Gazette of one of the protestors smashing a construction road sign through the window at the Gap on the corner of Mountain. Lovely.

(I don’t mean to poke fun at these activists because not all of them are violent, and the points they are trying to get across have value and make sense. But smashing windows and wreaking general havoc? They’re turning themselves into a big joke and the object of public scorn.)

On Monday morning, I woke just a little but later than I would have liked and once again I was parked on the side of the street where it’s no parking between 7 and 8. I rushed out of the apartment at 7:02 thinking to myself that maybe I had just enough time to grab a coffee from the Second Cup down the street for my drive to work.

I was still trying to figure out the odds of a Ville de Montreal “officer” (I don’t know what we’re supposed to call those heartless folks who dole out parking tickets like they’re Herbal Essence shampoo samplers) driving down the street and spotting my now-illegally parked car in the 3 minutes it would take to buy a coffee when I spotted them. A group of what were unmistakably WTO protesters was standing several feet away from my car. It wasn’t the dreads, nor the modern-day bohemian style clothing, nor the sleeping bags and faded knapsacks that gave it away. No, it was the spray paint cans they were wielding, the gas masks they were strapping to their faces and the sticks they waving around as though to warm-up for street battle that kind of, sort of gave some indication as to who they were.

At about the same time, noisy cheers and shouts erupted from a much larger crowd gathered down the street for early morning anarchy. Standing on the corner eyeing the larger crowd warily were two police officers, who were also casting dark, suspicious looks at the group clustered near my car.

Suddenly, I decided that coffee could wait.