Last week, one of my colleagues asked if I wanted to pop down the street with her to look at shoes. I needed a distraction, and she needed a companion, because the store she wanted to go to was what I would diplomatically refer to as “sketchy”. There were always a lot of strange men hanging around outside, there were shirts featuring marijuana leaves in the window, and rap music was playing at full volume. But they sold a lot of popular styles of basketball shoes that she wanted to look at for her son. When we got there, it was raining a bit, so no strange men. It seemed like a good omen, and we went in. The ‘customer service representative’ was wearing a huge bomber jacket, and the place was freezing. It was already a little weird, but then I happened to comment on how much I liked camouflage pants, and the next thing I knew, the guy was going through stacks, saying, “Is this your size? Is this your size?” I told him I was a 6, and he pulled a pair out of the pile and handed them to me:

Me: Why does the tag say ‘15’? Is that some kind of foreign sizing system?
Guy: Too big, lady?
Me: A little. Like I said, size 6.
Guy: What about these?
Me: Um, maybe a little small—they say ‘3’.
Guy: You like shorts?
Me: No, not really.
Guy: These ones are ‘5’. You try them on?
Me: Uh…

So he directs me to the front of the store, where the ‘change rooms’ are. I put that in quotation marks, because it was just pipes with curtains hanging from them. When I got there, a very large teenage boy was going in at the same time, but the guy says, “There’s two rooms”, and I wanted to get it over with, so I suddenly found myself in the most gross change room I’d ever seen, with only a thin curtain separating me from a teenage boy, and only a piece of cardboard separating my half-clad self from Yonge Street behind me, because the back wall of the change room was actually a broken window that had been covered up. It was freezing cold. I could have just pretended to try on the pants, but I DO have a penchant for camouflage, and I decided that I had come this far, so I might as well try to fulfill my pants destiny. My colleague, thankfully, had decided to stand guard outside, which made me feel a little safer. Unfortunately, the pants, while they fit in the waist, required a much bigger butt than I currently possess, and they were way too baggy. I whipped them back off, handed them to the guy, and we hightailed it out of there, giggling like teenage girls all the way back to the office. When we told everyone where we had been, they were all, “You went IN there? Oh my god, you’re so brave! What was it like?!” So we regaled them with our tale, and they got to live vicariously through us, which made it seem like we had performed a valuable service instead of being scared sh*tless.

Monday: One of my worst nightmares comes true. And yes, it’s still only Monday

On Monday night, after a particularly exhausting day, as you can see from all of the above, I decided to tidy up, then have a bath, and go to bed. The sink in my condo is especially deep, and it takes a while to fill, so I started it going, then went to run a nice, hot bath. The bath was luxurious; I felt all the day’s chip and dip tension slowly slipping away, and I had a good, long soak. When I got out of the bath, around 20 minutes later, I was about to wash my face, when I looked in the mirror and saw something moving behind me on the floor. I turned around and almost literally fainted when I realized what it was. Yes, I had left the sink faucet on FULL BLAST and then had forgotten all about it. For over TWENTY F-ING MINUTES! Do you have any idea how much water can fill a 600 square foot condo in TWENTY MINUTES??!! A LOT of water, that’s how much, and it was all over the place! I splashed over to the sink as fast as I could, and turned off the tap, then I stood there, hyperventilating, not knowing what to do next. So, I did what any normal person would do—I called Ken.

Me: OH MY F-ING GOD, KEN! That nightmare I had a couple of weeks ago just came true!!
Ken: Which one?
Me: The one where I flooded my condo! Only the water isn’t anywhere near the balcony door, so I can’t open it and let the water drain out, like I did in the dream!
Ken: You actually flooded your condo? How did you DO that?
Me: I left the sink running while I had a bath. There’s water EVERYWHERE! What do I do?
Ken: (calmly) Get every towel and sheet you have, and start soaking it up.
Me: I don’t think I have enough sheets and towels. It’s gone right through to the bedrooms and the carpets are soaked too!
Ken: Then you’ll just have to keep ringing the towels out. It might take a while, but you can do it.
Me: (still hyperventilating) I’m naked and I’m standing in front of an open window.
Ken: Then get dressed first. It’ll be OK.
Me: I’ll call you when I’m finished.

Two hours later, I had a bathtub full of wet towels and bedsheets and a relatively dry condo, but any benefits I might have felt from my earlier bath had gone down the drain. Literally. When I finally called Ken, I was exhausted. After we finished talking, I looked at the clock and it was after 11 pm, which meant one wonderful thing—this day was just about done. The rest of the week could only be uphill from here–and it was.

Wednesday: Things that there should be etiquette manuals for:

This week, a new sign appeared in the elevator in my building. There are always signs—the last one was announcing the presence of a massage therapist in the “sister building” next door, which ticked me off a little, because the “sister building” also has the swimming pool and hot tub. My building has the PET SPA. I’m not really seeing any equity here. I can USE the swimming pool, but that means having to carry all my stuff either outside across the courtyard, or down through the parking garage, and then change in the change room instead of sauntering downstairs with a swimsuit and cover-up on. Although I would never do that anyway because it’s not in my nature to either saunter, or walk around in public half-naked. Anyway, the new sign said this: “Please do not throw cigarette butts off your balcony.” It went on to explain WHY cigarette butts should not be thrown off balconies—they can land on other people’s balconies and set fire to things, they disturb people’s enjoyment of their outdoor space, they could land on a pedestrian below, and it was a contravention of the Condo Act, etc. My source of amazement was that anyone should have to EXPLAIN why cigarette butts shouldn’t be thrown off balconies. And then backing that truck up just a little bit more, what kind of idiot would throw a cigarette butt off a balcony in the first place? But there must be several people doing it, because it was a professionally made sign and all, not one of those cardboard jobs handwritten with a Sharpie, like when I put a TV at the side of the road in Port Burwell (I’ve done this with a few items there actually—I have a special sign that I made out of a cereal box that says, “I’m free and I work. Take me home”. This can be applied to almost anything, and I’ve gotten rid of a lot of junk that way.) The sign continued on to ask others in the building to report it if they saw someone throwing something off a balcony. Or someone, I assume. So it occurred to me that throwing garbage on the ground is a human behaviour that I really just don’t understand. I could no more toss a coffee cup on the ground than I could bark at someone on the street. (And there are actually people who do that too, if you read this blog regularly). But Toronto is the cigarette butt capital of the known world, from what I can see as the snow continues to melt. Some businesses actually hire people to sweep up the cigarette butts and garbage off the sidewalks in front of their buildings in an effort to keep the city looking clean, but it’s a losing battle because there are way more people who litter than there are people who sweep up after them. Yesterday, outside of Shopper’s Drug Mart, a worker was sweeping garbage into a dustpan, and this guy who had just finished his cigarette said “Here you go,” and threw his still-lit butt into the dustpan, like he was doing the world a favour. Maybe it’s just the way people behave in large cities where they don’t really feel any responsibility towards other people or ownership of their shared space, but people do things in large cities that they would never do in a friend’s backyard. For example, if you were at a party at a friend’s house, would you throw a cigarette butt out the second story window onto your friends below? Well, if you did, you can pretty much guarantee you’re never getting another party invitation. But aside from the whole cigarette butt mystery here are some other things that I really feel there should be etiquette guides for.

1) Revolving doors: You all know how much I hate revolving doors. I actually agree with them in principle—they help keep in the heat in very cold weather (which apparently has become ALL YEAR in Canada) and they allow more people to go in and out of a building more easily. IN PRINCIPLE. The trouble is, there are seemingly no rules regarding their use, no common understanding of HOW one should use a revolving door. There are a lot of very self-absorbed people out there who honestly believe they are the only people who exist, and approach revolving doors as if they’ve just reached the finish line of a 100 metre dash—one more last push and there’s a medal waiting on the other side. Regardless of who else is already in the door. The other day I saw an elderly woman almost thrown to the ground when a young guy in a business suit, talking on his cell phone, pushed through like he was Usain Bolt and there was a Nike ad campaign at stake. Using a revolving door properly should be fairly straightforward: 1) Wait until it’s safe to enter. 2) Don’t push so hard that you make the people ahead of you fall down.

2) Escalators. Escalators are one of my favourite things in the world. Stairs that do the walking for you. Whoever invented this brilliant method of travel deserves the medal that people think is waiting for them on the other side of revolving doors. But again, there’s no apparent general understanding of HOW to use escalators if other people are on them. If you’re alone, do whatever the hell you want. Same goes for revolving doors, and a lot of other things too probably. But if there are other people on the escalator, don’t walk up the moving stairs until you’re right behind them and then sigh loudly and impatiently. If you want to walk on your own, TAKE THE STAIRS. The grocery store where I do a lot of shopping has an up escalator, a down escalator, and an actual staircase in the middle. It never ceases to surprise me how many people will try to push past you on the escalator instead of using the stairs, which are there expressly for people who WANT TO WALK. Leave the escalator to us slow and lazy people. I got really thrown for a loop the other day when I tried to go down the escalator at Marshall’s and it wasn’t working. I wasn’t sure how to navigate it initially and became very disoriented about halfway down. It felt kind of like when you’re on vacation and you wake up in the middle of the night not sure where you are. Except when THAT happens, there aren’t any people trying to shove past you because you’re “going too slow”. Here’s the rule for using an escalator: 1) Get on a step. 2) Stand on the step until you get to the top or the bottom. Easy peasy. It’s 10 seconds on the escalator or 11.3 seconds if you push past people to walk up the escalator while it’s already moving you towards your destination. You’re not saving time–you’re just increasing the odds of getting elbowed hard.

3) Tail-Gating: Tailgaters are jerks at the best of times, but it’s the people who tailgate in really heavy traffic that I don’t get. So we’re all on the 401. Every lane is full and creeping along at about 20 km/hr. Sure enough, there’s that one guy in the “fast lane” (which isn’t any faster right now because it’s a TRAFFIC JAM) who keeps zooming up right to your bumper, flashing his lights, and generally being an a-hole. Here’s the question—where the hell do you think I can go to make way for you? I can’t change lanes, and I can’t get the 50 million cars ahead of me to move for me either, so back off. Here’s the best way to function in heavy traffic. 1) Realize that the world will not turn any faster no matter how much you will it to. 2) Put on some great music and dance in your seat. It works for me.

I experience make-up awkwardness that is eerily like the novel Life of Pi

The other day, I was talking about the novel Life of Pi with someone, and the scene where the main character, who has joined three different religions, accidentally bumps into his priest, imam, and Buddhist pandit at the same time. None of them know that he’s a member of the other’s faith, and they all start arguing over him. Well, the exact same thing happened to me not too long ago with my 3 Lancome and Estee Lauder ladies. OK, it doesn’t exactly have the spiritual impact and importance of Pi’s experience, but it was still a humbling experience. I’ve been buying make-up from Wilma, Betty, and Veronica (no, those are not actually their real names, but wouldn’t it be awesome if they were?), for many years individually, with none of them aware of the other’s existence. I used to alternate between The Bay/Wilma and Sears/Betty, buying something from each one. Why would I do that? Because Sears and The Bay also alternate the times that they give away free gifts with the purchase of a product, and I love free stuff. Then Betty got moved to the Estee Lauder counter at Sears and Veronica took over, which made me then obligated to start buying things from Estee Lauder as well as Lancome to keep those free gifts coming. The other day I was in Sears, about to sneak past Betty to get to Veronica, when suddenly I saw Wilma standing by the Lancome counter and she saw me! What the hell was she doing in Sears?! Then the worst thing happened—Betty and Veronica both saw me at the same time and they all converged on me, each one giving the other confused looks as it became apparent that they were all headed for the same target. Clearly, they each believed that I was their exclusive client—how was I going to explain this? So I did what Pi did in the novel. I whispered “Lord, avert their eyes from me”, and then blurted out, “I just want to love make-up!” Then it was all smiles, as they immediately understood why I had been a make-up tramp. Turns out that Wilma and Betty had done their Lancome training together, and Veronica was friends with both of them. They all agreed that as long as I spread the wealth and was fair in my purchases, none of them had an issue with me buying from all of them. Make-up is so much easier than religion.

Wednesday: I make a list of things that I’ve ingested that made me feel like I was dying

I can often succumb to peer pressure, when it’s about something that’s supposed to be good for my health. For example, I haven’t eaten gluten (well, except for the occasional juicy, wheat-y pizza) for almost two years because someone told me it was better for my joints. It was hard at first—gluten-free baked goods, especially tortilla wraps, can taste a lot like cardboard. Also, everything is made of rice. To be honest, I do feel better for it, and I’ve found alternatives that are almost as good as the real thing. But the other day at work, a colleague was extolling the virtues of Oil of Oregano as a cure-all and preventive for almost everything known to humankind. It can cure the common cold, prevent Montezuma’s Revenge, and apparently turn water into wine. A bunch of us decided that, with super-busy days coming up, and it still being flu season and all, we would troop down to the health food store en masse to buy some of this miraculous elixir. Little did I know what I was in for. I like oregano—I grow it in my garden, and I sprinkle it on pizzas, and use it to season pork tenderloin, among other things. How bad could an oil made from oregano be? The man at the health food store said it was a distilled oil and could be “pretty strong”. Well, I have a hardy constitution—I’ve eaten haggis– so what the hell? The directions said to put one drop under the tongue. I did that. My immediate reaction was, “This isn’t so bad. I—OMFG!!” Then I thought I was GOING TO DIE. My tongue went numb for about 20 seconds, but then the sensation came back, and that was worse, because all I wanted to do at that point was jump up and down yelling, “Ugh! Oh God! Blech!!” Perhaps Oil of Oregano was meant to build one’s character as well as one’s immune system, you know, under that old adage “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”? I had always previous thought of that as a metaphor for dealing with nasty people, but if Oil of Oregano was a person, then it would be SATAN. Then it occurred to me that I had been here before, doing that same “Kill Me Now!” dance. So I decided to make a list of the top food type things that I had ever ingested that made me also feel like dying.

1) Gorgonzola cheese. Once, Ken and I were overseas, and the person we were staying with, a wonderful host and one of my favourite people, made us dinner. It was gnocchi tossed in melted gorgonzola cheese. I love gnocchi and the whole thing looked fantastic. Then I took a bite. Some people claim that they quite like gorgonzola—I call these people LIARS. Gorgonzola cheese tastes like mold growing on sweaty socks—the black mold that medical dramas always tell you will kill you. I didn’t know what to do because I didn’t want to be offensive, so I choked down as much as I could stomach, then claimed that jet lag had made me too tired to eat. Jet lag is a good excuse for just about anything, especially avoiding food you don’t want to eat. The other really good excuse for that is “I just had those dilating drops put in my eyes at the optometrist and I can’t see what’s on my plate.” I pulled that one out as a kid to avoid eating veal—don’t tell my mom.

2) Barium. Remember, this is about things I’ve “ingested”, not things I’ve eaten. No one in their right mind would ever willingly want to EAT barium (OK, you could say the same about gorgonzola cheese) but still, barium is like a medical thing not an actual food substance. If you ever have stomach problems, you might have to go for a procedure called a barium swallow. Notice that it’s not called “Olive Garden’s Lunch Special” because the expectation is that you will NOT enjoy it—and no one is going to treat you like family while this procedure is happening. Barium is a mineral or something, and according to Wikipedia, “has a low toxicity”, which means it has more than zero toxicity, so only SLIGHTLY poisonous. But still, if you’ve ever had a barium swallow, it feels like you’re being poisoned. I had to have this procedure done once. The nurse handed me a gigantic glass of what looked like pink chalk pureed with a little water. I looked at it dubiously, and she said, “You have to drink the whole thing. Don’t worry—it’s Strawberry Flavour.” Strawberry Flavour, my ass. Next time, flavour it with a little Drambuie—it’ll still be death in a cup, but I’ll feel better about it. After I had choked and gagged the whole thing down, and my eyes were tearing from the effort, it suddenly occurred to me that I had no idea how my body was going to get the stuff back out, and I had this horrible feeling that I would never be able to pee again—that it would sit in my bladder for decades, laughing at me.

3) Deep-fried squid. Deep-fried squid actually tastes really good. I had it once at a restaurant where we were having a “sampling” menu. I love sampling menus, because you can try something, and if you hate it, you don’t have to eat any more of it. So I tried the deep-fried squid, (one little piece because it was a French restaurant where I guess they expect you to smoke so much that you aren’t hungry enough for full portions), which came with spicy peanut sauce. It was delicious. It was also, as I found out later, a member of the mollusc family, and I’m allergic to shellfish. After about 20 minutes, my lips started to swell, and on the ride home, I was feeling dizzy and out of breath. By the next morning, I was extremely ill and the inside of my mouth felt like someone had taken a flamethrower to it. I had no idea what was going on, but Ken did some research, and we discovered that there was a good reason why I felt like I was dying–because I just might have, haha. Thank God for tasting menus with very small portions.

4) Eggs that are not scrambled. Eggs are interesting. Essentially, they’re wannabe chickens. I can never understand how people who say they’re vegetarian can eat eggs, but a lot do on the premise that “they were never fertilized”. But aren’t they still animal protein? Anyway, I love scrambled eggs and omelets, anything where the white of the egg and the yellow part are mixed together so you can’t taste either of them separately. Together, they are a heavenly component of the “All Day Breakfast”, one of my favourite meals. Separately, they are like death on a plate. The white part tastes like the sulphurous fires of hell (in other words, like eating a fart), and the yellow part is—well, I don’t know because I’ve never tried the yellow part because its simple appearance is enough to put me off. That liquid-y, slimy thing that some people love to “dip their toast in”. Why the HELL would you dip your toast in a liquid baby chicken? So gross.

5) Extremely sour candies. Isn’t that an oxymoron? What is it with people and extremely sour things? The other day, I was in a store and on the candy display were bags of “Extreme Sour Gummi Bears”. The “i” in gummi was in the shape of a lightning bolt, and the slogan was “Try to eat more than one”. The gummi bears on the bag had FANGS. Where is the pleasure here? Candy is supposed to be a treat, a reward for doing something good, like using the potty. Can you imagine how long kids would be in diapers for if you gave them rewards that made them scream in agony? Depends-Nation. Candy is not supposed to be scary. A couple of months ago, some of my students brought in ‘extreme sour candy’ and challenged me to try one. They were all grimacing and “yuck”ing, but I have more mature taste buds, so I accepted the challenge. Let me tell you, there is no taste in nature like an extreme sour watermelon candy. Within 10 seconds, my extremities went numb and I could no longer feel my face, either inside or out. Very casually though, I plucked it out of my mouth and gently put it in the garbage can. Never let them see you sweat. Or swear.

A Series of Misadventures

This past week has been fraught with incident. Nothing serious, of course, but some bizarre, and at times, embarrassing moments that continue to support my ongoing thesis that life is absurd, and that often, there is no rhyme nor reason to it. Some days, it’s Dr. Suess; other days it’s Kafka.

Saturday: I try to have lunch with a good friend.

I say “try’ because this was the first in the series of meanderings that have plagued my week. My friend and I decided on Del Dente’s in Kitchener. She had looked up the schedule and saw that the place was open at 11. When we got there, the parking lot was surprisingly empty, but I just thought it was our lucky day. We went in, and immediately the girl behind the reception counter said, “Sorry, we’re not open”. Turns out they don’t open until 3 in the afternoon on a Saturday, but don’t feel the need to put that on their website. I guess the restaurant industry must be booming if places can afford to miss the lunch crowd. I was feeling a little snarky, so I said, “If you’re closed, then why is your door open?! It’s counter-intuitive.” She explained that it was so people could come in and buy gift cards. Seriously? You won’t serve people food, but you will sell them cards so they can BUY FOOD LATER? Anyway, we decided to go down the road to Ennio’s. IT didn’t open until noon. The weather was horrible and we were starving, so as a last resort, we went to a burger place in the next plaza, and cheered when we walked in to warmth and the possibility of food. The waiter was a younger man, who was awfully pleased to see us, and treated us like long-lost friends, right down to telling us about how his “brown” roommate cooks for him all the time, so he’s used to spicy food. OK, is it just me, or does it seem a little weird that someone would refer to their “brown roommate” in this context, especially when it had to do with the taste of the food. Do waiters of colour tell customers that their “beige” roommate does all the cooking so they’re used to bland food? Plus, there are a lot of derivations that constitute being brown, and the spices which accompany them are vastly different, so I’ve decided that he was trying to be hip more than helpful. When the food came, the waiter announced grandiosely that I was getting 22 ounces of poutine. Isn’t that like 5 pounds or something? Who the hell can eat 5 pounds of poutine in one sitting? Well, not me, that’s for sure. I finished approximately 1 ounce and had to take the rest home. Ultimately though, it was the fine company that made the difference–it was lovely seeing my friend, and by the time we actually found food, we were both ready to eat.

Sunday: I waste the afternoon looking for boots

On Sunday morning, I had a horrible epiphany. I was supposed to be going on a field visit with the CEO of my new company, and I had left all my dress boots at home. While this might seem like an extremely first-world problem, and it is, I’m still a new employee and this would be my first time meeting the boss. What if he was like some fashionista who would be looking at my outfit with a critical eye and wondering why I was wearing Doc Martens? So I decided to nip over to the mall and grab some boots. Which would have been an easy task if a) my feet were a size five or b) I was willing to pay over $300. I went to every shoe store in the region, and could not find a single pair of black dress boots in my size or price range. It’s f*cking February, and all the stores are full of sandals. It makes perfect sense of course, because this is CANADA. Why WOULDN’T we want to wear sandals in February? What was I thinking, looking for boots when the temperature is a balmy -25 degrees, and the snow banks are up to my ass? After 2 and a half hours of wandering around, I gave up. I had pretty much wasted the whole afternoon on this fruitless mission. Then I got home, and discovered a perfectly good pair of black dress boots in the back of the closet. I would have cried a little bit, but I was too exhausted. Also, it turns out that my boss is the nicest man imaginable, and probably couldn’t have cared less about my footwear.

Monday: I get stared out and it freaks me out

Before I was ready to go back to Toronto on Monday, after my field visit, I had to gas up. The Diva on the corner (that’s the name of the gas station, not the guy who owns it) was superbusy, which means there was one car on each side of the pump. I sat and waited patiently, and just as the person ahead of me was leaving, a car pulled up, cut in ahead of me and stole my pump! I couldn’t believe it. I honked my horn, but the woman ignored me and kept being an asshole. So I decided to go down the street to the new Esso, where they have lots of pumps. They also have people who sit in the window and stare at you while you’re doing it. I got out of my car and put my debit card in the pump, then I realized that there were a couple of elderly people, and the owner of the gas station, all staring at me. I decided I was being paranoid, so I went back to what I was doing. When I looked up again, they were still staring at me. They weren’t even blinking. I started pumping the gas, and they were not only staring at me, but now they were talking at the same time. I got a little freaked so I waved my free hand and mouthed, “What?!” Then the owner came and opened the door.

Me: Is there a problem?
Owner: No….
Me: Then why are you all staring at me?!
Owner: Oh, sorry…

I’m never going back there again. Unless the Diva’s busy.

Tuesday: I smell toilet water. And not the good kind

On Tuesday morning, the bathroom in my condo started to smell a little strange. Yes, I know that bathrooms can do that, but this wasn’t a typical bathroom-type odour. It was more like the smell of a restaurant the sells food that doesn’t smell very good and that you don’t want to eat. I started sniffing everything up close—the new towel I’d just bought, the shower curtain, the hair dryer, the waste paper basket–until the only thing left was—you guessed it—the toilet. Well, I’m no stranger to putting my hand in a toilet, but my nose is another thing. When I finally got up the courage to stick my head in the toilet, I discovered that, sure enough, it was the toilet water. It was fresh and clean-looking, but it smelled rank. I flushed it, and the new water smelled exactly the same. Then it occurred to me that the same water was probably coming out of my tap, and that I had been making tea with it. From now on, I’m buying water. I totally understand the whole ‘landfill’ issue, but if you can’t count on your tap water’s germ-freeness, then blame the city of Toronto and not me.

Wednesday: I am so embarrassed

On Tuesday, I went for lunch with a colleague and another co-worker that I didn’t know very well. We went to a great little Korean place, and I couldn’t finish my lunch, so I took the rest back to the office in a Styrofoam container wrapped in a plastic bag. I put it in the company refrigerator, then forgot to take it home, which was OK, because then I could have it for lunch on Wednesday. So I got it out of the fridge at lunchtime, heated it up, and started eating it. It looked a little different than it had the day before, but I put that down to the kimchee sauce making the rice go a little orange-y. I was halfway done when suddenly I saw a piece of broccoli. There was no broccoli in my bulgogi. Also, apparently what I thought were crunchy pieces of cabbage were actually pieces of carrot. My blood went cold. I was eating SOMEONE ELSE’S LUNCH. And it belonged to the coworker I had just met the day before. I don’t think I’ve ever been so embarrassed as I was when I had to tell her. She was extremely nice about it, and said that she would eat my leftovers instead of her own, but I can only imagine what she was thinking. Actually I can’t imagine it, because she’s Romanian and speaks French, and I don’t know what “big loser who steals other people’s lunches” is in either language. Then I went back to my desk, pulled out my office chair, and the handle came off in my hand. I was done at that point, and just stood there in defeat, with someone else’s lunch in one hand and a chair arm in the other.

Thursday: People in Toronto are even weirder than I thought

On Thursday, I went to the grocery store across the street after work. In the space of time it took to leave the grocery store and get back to my building, these things had happened: An elderly Asian man with a long pony tail barked at me on the escalator. And he sounded exactly like a dog, which was impressive and frightening all at the same time. A man riding a racing bike, wearing full racing gear—shorts, t-shirt, and helmet in the minus 25 degree weather, rode past me yelling F- you, you bunch of a- holes at the traffic around him. Then just outside my building, another elderly man wearing a balaclava asked me several questions in a foreign language. I finally got to the safety of my condo, and I wasn’t inside for more than 5 minutes when suddenly my door began to jiggle like someone was trying to break in. I froze in a panic because I realized I didn’t have a baseball bat OR Ken to protect me. Finally, an envelope was creepily pushed through the crack in the side of my door—a piece of mail belonging to the previous tenant. I spent the rest of the night checking the deadbolt and looking under the bed, just in case.

Friday: I break the office hole punch

I put too many pieces of paper in it, and they all got stuck. I had to ask for help to dismantle it and get the papers out. Enough said. The embarrassment continues.

Saturday: Finally things go back to normal.

I got home in good time on Friday night and decided to take a chance on shopping for some mittens on Saturday. Not only did I find the ones I wanted, but they were the last pair and were on super-sale. Then I saw my favourite Lancome Lady, Olga, and she gave me an extra gift with the cream I bought. Maybe all is right with the world again.