The best man of 2021 isn’t who you’d think.

It’s not Elon Musk because how predictable would that be.

Plus where’s that Cybertruck, Elon?

It’s not some painfully obvious agent provocateur, like Lil Nas X. Besdies, Satan worship is so 1980.

There are no coked out after parties or small statues reserved for our man of the year. What awaits him are simpler destinies — daily dejection at a grinding job that serves society, or, if he’s lucky, the warm love of a family for whom he cares.

In fact, our Man of the Year was never going to be a celebrity, politician or any other figment of what it really means to be a man today.

Did you happen to catch that guy who flipped your trashcan into a face-melting pit of noxious hell? He was at your curb five minutes/days ago.

It’s okay, most of us don’t notice him, and that’s why he’s our man of the year.

That, and because being a garbage collector (not “garbageman”) is dangerous. From inhaling toxic fumes all day to big-ass gashes via broken glass, these people have it harder than we know.

Speaking of hell, you know who else makes our Man of the Year list? Those half giants who run through waves of flames — the kinds that eat through anything — to save lives. We call these people firefighters.

In our great city of Toronto, fires have run rampant since the bug first hit us. Last year at this time, official city stats showed 911 calls for blazes had been rising 14 percent every month as of March 2020, and there was no sign of that slowing.

Wildfires that mow down miles of forestry in minutes are even nastier, too (if that’s even fathomable).

But see if that fazed California’s bravest, who charged headfirst into the infamous Caldor and Dixie fires of last fall — the two of which combined for one million acres worth of charbroiled earth in the Sierra Nevada and South Lake Tahoe areas.

To those who went toe to toe with these warpaths of nature, you are our Men of the Year (and much respect to all the women who joined these efforts, too).

Our Men of the Year are the guys who stick out their necks so we can live good lives.

You know that dude who washes high-rise windows? That’s Man of the Year material. Imagine being suspended by nothing but a harness while cleaning the business end of a 30-storey skyscraper, then you look down. But then those guys are used to that, the stuff of absurdity for us mortals.

Every cop who took a bullet, bludgeoning or barrage of insults while defending innocent life is our Man of the Year. Let’s just hope the good ones out-man the dirty ones.

To all farmers who herd beasts and sow seeds that beget our food, you are our Men of the Year.

Don’t fuck with Indian farmers.
Photo: Ravan Khosa/Wiki Commons

And to you Indian farmers who camped out on the Dehli border for a year and called out your government for screwing your livelihoods, you fellas transcend lists; you guys are warriors. No wonder you won.

Ice road truckers who haul millions of pounds of cargo over vast stretches of frozen lakes that could crack at moment’s notice.

Road truckers who keep economic valves pumping everywhere one earth where people consume.

Brickmasons who bake in the sun for hours while laying the foundations of our very homes.

Landmine removers who do exactly what you’re thinking.

And yes, doctors who tour the world for free, risking their lives to save others who stand no chance.

Know a roughneck who works a rig six months a year, where a fire could break out like that and burn him alive, or where a rogue wave could knock him overboard and into the icy depths below? Maybe he’s your dad. Maybe he’s your dad’s pal. Either way, that guy’s our man of the year (especially since way too many oil rig deaths go unreported).

And while we’re on rogue waves — did you know Alaskan commercial fisherman fight these monsters on the regular? That’s why catching Alaskan king crab’s one of the deadliest jobs on earth. No matter where you are out there, you’re at the mercy of one of nature’s worst hellscapes — the cold, raging Northwest Passage. And that doesn’t even count the cabin fever, possible death by drowning, hypothermia, and heavy machinery. All so that we can have our protein.

Our Man of the Year isn’t one person, but an extraordinary collective of them whose work can demoralize, maim, or plain kill him in a moment’s notice.

Yet he wakes up every day and toils anyway, hammer on unending nail, sickle through hard soil.

He works solemnly, too, quiet in the comfort of knowing his trade — that which he can fix and build with his hands — bears him true value and purpose.

We don’t celebrate these men, yet they make the backbone of our world.

We pass them on our way to “work,” yet they do the hard shit we dodge in the end.

And while our world writhes in its current strife, unbeknownst to what next year may bring, there’s no other guy we’d salute than the one of which few ever think — the everyday man.

The bullet taker. The one who stares risk in the eye and stays cool.

The man with calloused hands and life-saving skills.

Or as we like to call him, the “immortal.”

That guy is the best man of 2021.

No contest.

The Best Man of 2021