Humour

Antique Like Me

Before I start, I just wanted to let you know that I had the immense pleasure of recording a reading from The Seventh Devil for the Canadian Authors Association Spooktacular Podcast. I’m first up after the intros, and you can listen to it here! And then, if you’re not too affrighted, you can continue on to the weird-ass post below:

Before

Early last week, I got my first pension cheque so I decided to calculate my new income as a pensioner minus my current expenses. When I saw the result on the calculator screen, I had a mild panic attack:

Me: I need to get a job right away!
Ken: You’ll be fine
Me: But my skin won’t be! At this rate, if we’re going to eat during the week, I’ll have to buy the cheap face cream, and everyone knows that’s just throwing away good money! No, I need a job. Print off my resume for me at once!

As you can tell, I was looking for a job with a personal assistant. However, I was also planning a trip to a particular family run antique market that afternoon, one where I’d had a booth over a decade ago, so I thought, “What the hell.” I handed in my resume to the young guy at the counter who turned out to be the son of the owners that I’d known years ago when he was just a little boy. I pointed out the tiny section on the second page of my resume where it mentioned I had a booth in another antique market and had “antique” experience, lest he become confused by all the references to the secret agency and worry that I’d been sent to spy on him.

“Thanks,” he said. “I don’t know if we have any openings right now. My dad might be in touch, probably next week if we need extra people for Christmas.”

“Cool!” I responded, and went off to shop.

A while later, I was driving home when the phone rang. I thought it might be Ken with another porch update (Slight tangent—Ken finally got the balcony railings installed after I had my seventh panic attack about either me or the dog falling to our respective deaths in a freak accident. “Why would you even be OUT there when you know there aren’t any railings?” Ken asked. “I DON’T KNOW, KEN. That’s why it’s called a ‘freak’ accident!”), but the caller said “Hi, it’s Frank. I got your resume. Can you start tomorrow? I’ll need you to train all this week then start a regular schedule of Monday to Wednesday from then on.”

I was speechless for a second—I hadn’t planned on working right away, or that much, or that regularly but what could I say? I’d literally gone in, hat in hand, and asked for a job. And there it was. So we agreed that I’d start on Wednesday. And I was TERRIFIED. I haven’t had a minimum wage customer service job since I was 18, and my new boss (since the sons are taking over the business) is 24 years old. I went in on Wednesday for “training”, which was mostly learning how to use the complicated computer sales system. But hey, I figured out the new WordPress editor so how hard could it be? And I know everyone was super impressed every time I put through a sale without any help and then jumped up and down, whispered ‘Yay!’ and clapped for myself. But aside from the fact that my feet are killing me, having sat in front of a computer all day for the last year and a half, it’s a fun job. Mostly I just walk the aisles asking people if I can carry stuff up to the front for them or open showcases or answer questions. People are very appreciative of these things and regularly apologize for taking up my time, to which I respond, “I literally get paid to do this.” And it’s true. Because there are no other distractions in a 7-hour workday aside from cleaning the bathroom, which yes, I have to do every morning. Thankfully, the men’s bathroom is on a different floor and someone else gets that pleasure. When I was much, much younger, I worked in a doughnut shop to make money for university. It wasn’t a bad job until closing time, when I had to clean the bathrooms. The women’s bathroom was usually pretty decent, but the men’s? You needed a gas mask and full hazmat suit to even go in it. I can’t accurately depict for you how disgusting cleaning a public men’s bathroom can be—suffice it to say the only way to thoroughly clean that one was to use a flamethrower. Every night, I was like, “Is it even worth cleaning it? Wouldn’t it be better to just bulldoze this entire building down and start fresh?” Overall I’m pretty happy with the new jay-oh-bee, especially since, when I finally gave Ken the financial breakdown I’d panicked over, it turns out that my math skills are as bad as ever and I’d made several errors, so I’m not as destitute as I thought I was and I can still afford the finer things in life. Like the good skin cream.

After

P.S. If you want to know how I got this silver I found so clean and shiny, I used the aluminum foil/baking soda/salt/ vinegar/boiling water recipe and it worked like a charm!

Balancing The Books

So I did the most incredibly dumb thing last week, and you’re the only one I’ve told, because it’s so embarrassing, so don’t say anything to anyone, okay?

A couple of Sundays ago, I was in a hardware store in the next town to buy some white spray paint and other odds and ends. I’d recently purchased this very cool antique wicker chair and side table, but they needed freshening up, and just like I prefer hem tape to actual sewing, I also will spray paint literally anything if it means avoiding using a paint brush. I got up to the checkout and paid for everything, then went home, but when I took my purchases out of the bag and saw the receipt, I realized that it said 2@$9.99 instead of 3. I felt a little guilty that I’d gotten a free can of spray paint, but whatevs, am I right?

But then, after the incident at the fabric store last week where I got away scot-free with the right sized foam cushion in direct defiance of the “No Foam Exchange” policy, I started to worry about the can of spray paint and maybe that I should go back to the hardware store and pay for it. And no, this wasn’t me trying to be morally superior—this was me believing very strongly that by circumventing the laws of economics and physics (you may be wondering why I said ‘physics’—here is the explanation: up until the moment that I looked at the receipt, I had a can of Schrodinger’s spray paint, in that I had simultaneously paid and not paid for it. I would have made a great physicist because I’m very good at explaining made-up sh*t.) and it occurred to me that I had just double-dipped into karma and maybe it would come back to haunt me in an unpleasant and costly way.

Anyway, I happened to be going by the hardware store in question the other day, so I decided to stop and pay for the spray paint:

Me: Hi there. A couple of weeks ago, I bought three cans of spray paint here, but I was only charged for two. I’d like to pay for the third one now.
Sales Clerk: That’s fine. Just take the third one.
Me: No, no—I GOT three but you only charged me for two. Is there a way I can pay for the third one that I DIDN’T pay for?
Sales Clerk: Take it up to the front. I’ll explain it to the cashier and she can figure it out.

Since I didn’t have the can with me, I went to the spray paint aisle but they were sold out of white so I took a can of black spray paint to the front:

Me: Hi there. A couple of weeks ago, I bought three cans of spray paint here, but I was only charged for two. I’d like to pay for the third one now.
Cashier (whispers): It’s okay, hun. You can just take it.
Me: NO, I want to pay for it. But it’s not the right colour—will that affect your inventory?
Cashier: What?
Me: I don’t have the receipt, sorry—is there another way you can get the right code?
Cashier:
Me: I don’t want THIS spray paint. I just want to pay for the one I got that you didn’t charge me for two weeks ago.
Cashier: Oh! Seriously? If it was me, I would have just kept it. No problem, here, just give it to me.
Me: But this isn’t the can I got! The one I got was white! Can I just give you the money for it?!
Cashier: Sigh. Give me a minute. I can grab the bar code off the shelf. (Leaves then comes back with tag.) OK, with tax, that comes to $11.29. Do you want a bag for the spray paint?
Me: This isn’t my spray paint.
Cashier (confused): Okay, have a nice day.

So I was finally able to restore balance in the universe, even though it was in an absurdly random, Monty Python-esque way. Or so I thought. Because two days ago, I was tidying up and saw a receipt sticking out of a bowl on one of the kitchen shelves—it was the original receipt for the spray paint. And it said 2@$9.99, just as I remembered. And further down, after the cleaning supplies and the belt I’d bought as a gift for Ken, there was a third charge. For $9.99. For the third can of spray paint. Which I had just paid for AGAIN. So now the universe owes me.

And on a lighter note:

This Facebook ad made me remember a recent conversation with Ken:

Ken: Hey, can you pass me one of those…those…tooth knives?
Me: You mean a ‘serrated knife’, such as one might use for steak?
Ken: Yeah, one of those.
Me: Okay, but you realize now that you can no longer make fun of me for referring to the hedge trimmer as ‘shrubbery scissors’, right?
Ken: Fair enough.

Isn’t It Ironic, Don’tcha Think?

On Friday afternoon, Ken went to get the mail and then retired to his office to open any envelopes addressed exclusively to him, because I have dibs on everything else—his mail is mostly bills, so all other mail has that ‘potential of excitement’ aura about it, like “Ooh, postage PAID? Someone wants to connect with me really badly!” Of course, it’s usually just home decorating magazines begging me to re-subscribe, but sometimes it can be quite unexpected and lovely, like the retirement card that Cyranny of Cyranny’s Cove and our Skypy Fridays group sent me (and if you ever want to join us for a chat on Friday night, just go to her blog and ask for the link—it’s a fun group from the U.S., Canada, and the U.K.).

Anyway, suddenly Ken reappeared, irate and waving a piece of paper at me:

Ken: Look at this! Every month when I get my new cheques, this is the first page of the chequebook and it drives me CRAZY!
Me: You get cheques every month? How many cheques do you write?!
Ken: A LOT. Not the point. Look at this thing!

He handed me a piece of paper that he had taken out of the chequebook, and which was causing such a strong reaction in a man who rarely gets upset about anything. The piece of paper said, “This page is intentionally left blank.”

Me: But…
Ken: I know, right?!
Me: I…
Ken: Because it’s NOT BLANK. Every. Single. Month.
Me: I really need to introduce you to online banking.

But we both agreed that if the bank really wanted to be accurate instead of extremely ironic (and definitely more ironic than rain on your wedding day), there would be TWO pieces of paper. One of them would be blank, and the next one would say, “The previous page has been intentionally left blank.” And I don’t even want to get into the grammatical issue of placing the adverb BEFORE the verb—suffice it to say that banks make enough money to hire their own damn grammaticians.

But it was a trying day overall, in the first place, so this was no surprise. Earlier, I had decided to go into town to get some fabric at the fabric store, and to exchange the large foam cushion I had purchased the week before for a slightly smaller one, as I’m currently restoring a Mission oak rocking chair for our neighbours, and, not being as good at math as I like to think, I mismeasured the seat.

Step One: Lug large 24×24” foam cushion into store.
Step Two: Stand in line at counter.
Step Three: Get told that I need to go to the cash register line for refunds and exchanges.
Step Four: Stand in very long line at cash register. Realize that I should have the cushion I want to exchange mine for to expedite matters.
Step Five: Get second 20X20” cushion and lug it and my original cushion back to long line-up.
Step Six: Finally reach the front of the line and see a sign taped to the cash register that says, “All foam sales are final”.
Step Seven: Entreat cashier to let me exchange cushions, a request she refuses.
Step Eight: Go to find fabric, whilst cashier holds both cushions at the front so I don’t have to lug them around the store.
Step Nine: Find fabric. Realize the roll it’s on is WAY too heavy to carry.
Step Ten: Get back in line at the counter to ask about fabric.
Step Eleven: Take the advice of the woman in front of me in line who suggests loading the roll into a shopping cart and bringing it to the counter.
Step Twelve: Go off to find a shopping cart.
Step Thirteen: Load fabric into cart and wheel it back into line at the counter.
Step Fourteen: Watch for fifteen minutes as every quilter in town ahead of me wants half a f*cking yard of 15 different fabrics and “Hallowe’en themed buttons”.
Step Fifteen: Finally get to counter. Get told that my fabric roll is too large to cut at THAT counter, and I need to go to a different counter at the back, exactly three feet away from where I originally got the fabric. Tell the clerk that I would have done that but there are only two people working in the entire store and none of them were at the back counter, which is hidden by bolts of quilt batting.
Step Sixteen: Line up at the back counter.
Step Seventeen: Get fabric cut. Take fabric, as instructed, back to the cash register line to pay for it.
Step Eighteen: Present fabric to different cashier and ask for my foam. Cashier hands me the 20×20” foam cushion and says “Is this the one?” I reply, “Do you need to see my receipt?”
Step Nineteen: Show cashier receipt for foam. Pay for fabric.
Step Twenty: Leave store with fabric, and the foam cushion in the size that I want. Isn’t it ironic, don’tcha think?

But then I felt terrible so I did what any normal person would do—I called Ken.

Me: They wouldn’t let me exchange the foam cushion but then when I went to pay, they gave me the wrong one and I didn’t tell them.
Ken: Did you lie about it?
Me: No. When he asked if it was the right one, I didn’t say yes or no—I just showed him the receipt. I didn’t even SEE the other one. Maybe they reshelved it by accident.
Ken: Well, their foam exchange policy is stupid anyway. You touched both pieces of foam, which seems like the only criteria, so it’s fair.
Me: Yes, and the first piece of foam was more expensive than the one I just got, so I’m the one taking the loss here, especially considering the hour I spent in the store that I’m never getting back.
Ken: See? You’re a good person.

And just to prove that the universe agreed with Ken, right after I hung up, I saw a huge red and gold fox walking across the road up ahead, and it was beautiful. And even though I was alone in the car, I was so excited that I said out loud, “A fox! A fox!” and then I whispered, “A fox.” And the irony here is that this blog post was intentionally left unironic at the end.

All Critters Great And Small

We live in a 115-year old home, which means occasionally, we get a critter or two in the house. They rarely come into our living area, being mostly confined to cupboards or in between the walls where they’re pretty quickly discernible and easily caught in live traps then relocated. This past week though has been a disturbing combination of visible and invisible creatures, and I place the blame fully on Kate who, reveling in the joy of her Veterinary Technician program, is like a young, female Dr. Doolittle:

Kate: I just learned how to restrain a dog using the Lateral Recumbency method. Watch. C’mere, Atlas.
Atlas: I don’t think so.
Me: Let her do it. You’ll be fine.
Atlas: Okay, but NOBODY is cutting my nails.
Me: I promise….is he restrained now?
Kate (holding him): Yes.
Me: Ken, get the nail clippers!
Atlas: Betrayed once again!!

Don’t feel sorry for him—I distracted him by feeding him treats while Kate performed the nail-ectomy. And then last Friday, she came home for the weekend super-excited and waving around a…

Me: Is that a vial of…blood?!
Kate: Horse blood. I drew it myself.
Me: I thought you hated horses.
Kate: Not any more.
Me: Well, just don’t use it for any rituals.

Just to clarify, she drew the blood as part of a practical class–the instructor asked for a volunteer so she put her hand up, determined to get over her fear of horses. And while we’re super proud of her, her enthusiasm seems to be radiating out into the animal world because we’re becoming a haven for tiny creatures. Last weekend, we invited the family over to celebrate my parents’ 60th anniversary, so I decided to get fancy and pull out a nice tablecloth. But when I went into the sideboard in the living room where I keep them, I was puzzled by the presence of what looked like red peanut skins. I dug a little deeper and found more skins, and then some peanuts. And while the old sideboard doesn’t have a back panel, it’s still pretty close to the wall, and it’s an absolute mystery to me how a squirrel could have been sitting in there eating peanuts without anyone noticing. And how long was it in my house? Was it still here, hiding somewhere? And more importantly, where the hell did it get the peanuts from? Ken had other ideas:

Ken: It was probably a chipmunk. I think we would have noticed a squirrel.
Me: And you don’t think I would have noticed a CHIPMUNK carrying a grocery bag full of peanuts into the sideboard? And where did it go?! Was it waiting behind the kitchen island for me to open the door and it rushed out when I wasn’t looking?

Then things got worse. Kate called to us from her bedroom saying that she could hear loud scrabbling sounds in her bedroom ceiling, so Ken and I went up into the attic to investigate. We didn’t find anything, but when we came back down, she told us that while we were up there, a mouse had come through the very tiny hole in her ceiling where her internet cable came in. It climbed half-way down, then saw her and hightailed it back up into the ceiling. It was hard to believe that anything could have squeezed through that hole, but Ken shoved some steel wool into the opening as a deterrent. In the meantime, I went into the guest bedroom next door to discover to my horror, a singular piece of mouse poop right in the middle of the guest bed quilt. I shook my hand at the ceiling and cried out, “This means war!”

So Ken set up the live traps, and I couldn’t wait to catch the little sh*t that shat on the bed. And when we checked the next morning, sure enough, there in the trap was…the most adorable little baby mouse I’d ever seen. It had big ears, and big eyes, and tiny little feet…

Kate: Awww…
Me (sigh): We can’t keep it.
Kate: But—
Me: Take it out to the field. Fare thee well, Peanut.

But as everyone knows, there’s never just ONE mouse, and I’ve been busy designing tiny Hallowe’en costumes, so the trap is still set up, and every day I check it, but so far, no luck. Darn.

And just to make the week even more disappointing, the church across the street is up for sale, so the local Heritage Society asked Ken to come over and take pictures when they opened the time capsule that had been in the church’s cornerstone since 1876. I was intrigued and immediately wrote a short story about a church group that opened a time capsule only to discover it contained, among other things, a severed finger that was apparently put in there to save the town from ruin. So, as you can imagine, I marched over on Tuesday, breathless with anticipation, along with Ken and a group of Heritage Society members. The local stonemason was on hand with a bunch of tools, and the cornerstone was finally pulled out and the time capsule extricated. We all crowded around to see the contents, and let me tell you that I wasn’t the only one who was let down. I mean, I wasn’t REALLY expecting a severed finger or whatnot, but the only things in it were a decayed annual report from 1876 that was falling apart, and a few old coins. And I know I wasn’t the only one who sighed, said, “Meh”, and left. Darn.

Raise A Glass

So I had my first official day of retirement last week. And it was lucky it happened when it did, because things were rapidly devolving as I got closer and closer to the date. The week before, I’d been talking to one of the bigger bosses when Atlas, having decided that he was bored in the absence of Ken, launched himself onto my lap. Which would have been ok except that one of his big, slappy paws grabbed the neckline of my sweater, pulling it and my bra down far enough that it was quite the show. Fortunately, my male colleague was looking at his other monitor, giving me time to shove Atlas away and rectify the wardrobe malfunction. And then the next day, I had to rush downstairs to meet with my direct supervisor who had called me early for a meeting. I hadn’t quite been fully dressed when she messaged to see if I was available, so I threw on a top and ran to the computer. After the meeting, I went into the kitchen:

Ken (laughing): Why are you wearing a fancy blouse, plaid flannel pajama shorts, and your slippers?
Me: Impromptu meeting.
Ken: No bra?
Me (shimmies): Obviously not.

As you can see, all the signals were there. So, you ask, was your first day of retirement as gloriously awesome as everyone says it should be? In short, NO.

The Beginning

Ken had an early morning balloon launch, so he left me to have a luxurious sleep in. But at around 7:30, I was lying there, all cuddly and warm, when I heard a sudden noise. Atlas was in the back room where he stays when Ken has to leave early, and I knew it wasn’t him. So I did what any normal person would do—I grabbed the baseball bat that I keep by the bed and snuck out of the bedroom to peer down the hallway. Nothing. I kept going, realizing that if anyone actually WAS in the house, Atlas would be going apesh*t, and when I got to the back room, sure enough, he was curled up on his chair looking sleepy. “Come on, buddy,” I encouraged him, and he followed me back upstairs where we settled back into bed. Less than 5 minutes later, his head suddenly popped up and he started to growl under his breath.

Me: What is it?
Atlas: Is noise.
Me: What kind of noise?!

And with that, he started barking and took off downstairs, leaving me alone in bed. At this point, I was more fed up than panicked, and I grabbed the bat again on the premise that, if there WAS someone in the house, I was going to beat them senseless for ruining a perfectly good first morning of retirement. When I got downstairs, Atlas was staring out the window at a squirrel. “You know I’m retired, right?!” I asked him, but he was too intent on the squirrel to care.

The Middle

I took a load of antiques to my booth, then spent some time wiping my company phone, deleting any files that didn’t need to be moved into a shared drive, and signed out of my work computer for the last time. It seemed a little anti-climactic, so I decided to make a ceremony out of it by wheeling my office chair out of the house and putting it at the side of the road. Then I realized that I was kind of boxed in, and spent the next twenty minutes rearranging furniture to maneuver the chair through the living room. By the time I’d finished the whole exercise, I was exhausted and just sat in the chair next to a hydro pole drinking Prosecco and yelling, “I’m retired!” at the neighbours.

The End

Ken was out AGAIN ballooning, so I made dinner for myself and opened a bottle of wine. I turned around to grab a stopper when the bottle hit the counter, fell out of my hand and onto the floor, sending shards of glass and white wine everywhere and freaking me completely out because I HATE broken glass. I was right in the middle of cleaning it up when Ken messaged me to see what I was doing:

(Transcript

Me: I just dropped an entire bottle of wine on the floor and it broke everywhere. Glass is everywhere (crying face emoji). I am very unhappy and also afraid of glass.
Ken: Come to pub for wings.
Me: I am cleaning up glass. Next time (smile emoji). When things aren’t so glassy.)

I finally got everything clean and dry, much to Atlas’s relief, since I’d locked him out of the kitchen.

Atlas: I come in and help clean.
Me: Not a chance. I’ve taken glass out of your mouth before, you dummy.
Atlas: But wine.
Me: But wine, indeed.

Later, we were in the kitchen when Ken yelped.

Ken: What the hell! I just stepped on a piece of glass!
Me: I did the best I could! I was all by myself, Mr. BALLOONMAN! I AM retired, you know! When is this going to get FUN??!!
Ken: Are you missing work?
Me (sighs): Yeah.

Epilogue

It’s been three days. I guess I’ll get used to it. Cheers.

Getting Rusty

I’ve been feeling a little tired lately for a variety of reasons—I’m getting older, the days are getting shorter, but mostly because I ran out of iron pills. “So why don’t you buy more?” I hear you ask, and while you’d think that would be an easy solution, it’s apparently not, because I’ve gone to three drugstores in my area and none of them sell the iron I like. No, they’re NOT gummies, unlike all my other vitamins and supplements, but they do come in a soothing green and gold bottle from a brand that I get regular grocery store points with. But for some reason, all the iron is currently behind the counter, causing me to have conversations with pharmacists who are guarding it zealously, as if the conspiracy theorists are spreading around the rumour that sticking iron pills in a blender and then giving yourself an enema with them will cure you of Covid (it won’t, and please don’t tell people that you’re doing an iron cleanse because mydangblog told you to):

Me: Where’s all the iron?
Pharmacist: Back here with the narcotics.
Me: OK, weird. But I need some.
Pharmacist: Did your doctor prescribe it?
Me: No. You don’t need a prescription for iron.
Pharmacist: Well, did he tell you to take it?
Me: No! Can I just have some iron? Here’s the kind I normally take. (shows picture on my phone)
Pharmacist: Well, I don’t have that kind. Here, this is the same.

So that night, I took the new iron pill with my glucosamine, and only AFTER did I look at the bottle:

Me: Holy sh*t. I think I’ve made a dreadful error in judgement.
Ken: What’s wrong? Did you apply to that acting job at the Hallowe’en farm?
Me: No, I just took one of those new iron pills. My old ones were 28 milligrams each and this one is 300 milligrams! Am I going to rust?! Am I magnetic now? (googles ‘What happens if you take too much iron?’) Oh my god, it says here that taking more than 40 mg of iron a day can lead to organ failure, seizures and, death! I haven’t even retired yet!!

I went to bed that night terrified, and then I couldn’t sleep because I’d taken so much iron that I wasn’t tired. So to amuse myself, I surfed Facebook Marketplace and found these weird ads:

Ad that says We don't fish anymore

Of all the public announcements you could make, this is the strangest. Apparently Werner, at the age of 65, has become a vegetarian, or has given up being a pescatarian, or just wants to give the fish a chance, and felt the need to tell the world, as one does. He doesn’t look very happy about his decision, and I wonder if the “we” was really just his wife who was like “Werner. I hate fishing. We are no longer fisherfolk,” and Werner was like “But I love fishing,” and his wife was like “Not anymore you don’t.” Still, if we’re posting random angry proclamations on FB Marketplace, look for an ad of me looking super-pissed off with the caption “I JUST TOOK TOO MUCH IRON”. But I wish poor old Werner the best of luck in his new, non-fishing life.

Ad that says Free Bees

Hard pass. I don’t care if they’re free; in fact, how would you even SELL bees? Like a nickel a piece, or 5 bucks for a…(googles ‘What is a group of bees called?’ Swarm, Cluster, Bike, Ball, Colony—there are a LOT of names for bees)…bushel? But I don’t want bees—they’re sting-y little f*ckers and I’m sure they’re just as happy as I am that we have a long-distance relationship.

Ad that says Small Child Box

How small do you think children ARE? And is that a ladybug or a face with giant polka-dotted ears? See, now that I’ve said it, you can’t unsee it. Either way, I’m not interested in it even if it’s free because that box is NOT big enough to store a child, even a small child. Now, a bushel of bees might fit…

Rendezvous With Destiny

A few years ago, Ken and I bought kayaks. I’d been watching the Canadian Tire flyers for weeks, waiting for a sale, until finally, they dropped the price on the model we wanted by $100 apiece, making them very reasonable. So I called Ken, and we agreed (after he refused to take time off work and go first thing in the morning because he’s just mean) that we would get them the next night. I was worried that they’d all be sold out, but luckily we were able to get one for each of us. Then the problems started. Our neighbour had had his kayaks stolen from behind his cottage, where they were CHAINED UP, so how were we supposed to retain possession of ours when they were just either sitting on our trailer or lying on our lawn? Ken didn’t share my fear of kayak thieves, which just made things worse, because he insisted on driving places with them, and leaving them unattended while we did stuff like grocery shopping or going to restaurants. And there they were, in the trailer, like shining green beacons of adventure-ness, secured only by a rope and a couple of knots. Here’s a sample of one of the MANY conversations we had about the kayaks:

Me: We can’t just GO into Staples. We have the kayaks on the trailer. Someone could take them.
Ken: No one’s going to take them. It’s broad daylight.
Me: Some of these people look really sketchy. Don’t park next to the guy with the pick-up truck!!
Ken: Right. Because he’s going to untie the kayaks, put them in his truck, and drive away BEFORE we come back out from buying labels.
Me: He looks like he enjoys water sports, KEN…What about those guys over there?
Ken: They have bicycles. What do you think, they’re going to tie them onto their bikes like a pontoon?
Me: It could happen. Stop mocking me.

You can replace the word “Staples” with “Zehrs”, “Canadian Tire”, the gluten-free bakery in Paris, and the Lighthouse Restaurant in Port Burwell, because we dragged that trailer around with us for a few days before we even put the kayaks into the water. Despite my worries though, no one stole off with them in the night. Or in the parking lot. Then on the weekend, we finally had the chance to try them out. We took them down to the Otter Creek and carried them to the water. Ken steadied my kayak so I could get in. It wobbled from side to side and I sat there, feeling panic rising but while Ken was getting himself sorted out, I tried a few hesitant manoeuvres, and started to feel more balanced. As I turned around to tell Ken I thought this might be OK, he stepped into his kayak. As he settled himself into the seat, the kayak wobbled one way—he tried to re-balance but overcompensated and TIPPED HIMSELF RIGHT INTO THE CREEK.

I yelled, “Oh sh*t! Ken!” but all he could do was flail around in the water, his hands on the creek bottom, trying to extricate himself from the kayak shouting, “Cold!! So cold!!” as he struggled to stand up (luckily, we were only in about two feet of water at the time). Thankfully, he had put his wallet, cell phone, and camera into a ziplock bag, but it was now floating downstream along with his paddle. “Get the bag and the paddle!” he cried, and I was like, “Me? You’re kidding, right?” I had just seen my beloved husband, who was MUCH better than me at both watersports and balancing, dump himself into a freezing creek—how was I supposed to start chasing down his stuff if it meant having to lean over the side of the kayak to get them?

But then my desire to get a picture of all this chaos outweighed my fear, and I needed his camera to do that, and that doesn’t make me mercenary, just practical. Anyway, he managed to get upright, and pulled his kayak out of the water. Then there was the problem of DRAINING the kayak, which was full of water. Well, I guess people must capsize this particular brand of kayak A LOT because we discovered that there was a plug in the prow, specifically designed for draining. But there was a silver lining to all of this, because while I was waiting for Ken to recover, and get all the water out of his kayak, I had a chance to paddle around and get more comfortable.

And now I’m having déjà vu because last weekend, we went kayaking, again on the Otter Creek. Now that we’re both kayak pros, it was a beautiful trip, but then the unbelievable happened when we pulled the kayaks out of the water:

Ken: My camera!
Me: What?
Ken: The ziplock bag fell out of my pocket! Quick, get me a paddle!
Me: I TOLD you to wear your fanny pack!

But it was too late. The ziplock bag, and in it, the exact camera he had almost lost a few years ago, bobbed downstream with the quick current, then disappeared. Almost like it was meant to be, like we had unfinished business with the Otter Creek. It wasn’t one of his good cameras, and he’d cleared the SD card out the week before, so all we were missing was pictures of me in the kayak and some trees and clouds. Luckily, we already have lots of those.

Alternatively Speaking

On Friday night, Kate and I were watching a show called What If, the premise of which is that Marvel has pretty much exhausted the ubiquitous iterations of its universe and in order to keep generating income, has resorted to a fantasy-like series that asks things like, “What if the dude from Black Panther was the dude from Guardians of the Galaxy instead?” or “What if Groot was a raccoon and instead of saying ‘I am Groot’, all he said was ‘I am Raccoon”?

Me: I have one. What about “What if Spiderman was bit by a badger instead, and then he would be Badgerman?
Kate: That’s ridiculous.
Me: No it’s not—think about it. Badgers can climb and they’re lightning quick. I bet they could catch thieves better than a spider could. Ooh, it says on google that their favourite food is earthworms. Badgerman, Badgerman, catches thieves just like worms, look out! Here comes the Badgerman.
Kate: Is his wife named Honey?
Me: Obviously, KATE.

And here’s another one: what if Batman and Robin were a couple?

Robin: Where are you going?
Batman: The bat signal is all lit up and whatnot.
Robin: Always with the damn bat signal. What about me?!
Batman: Here’s fifty dollars. Go buy yourself something pretty and I’ll take you out for dinner after I kill Superman.
Robin (under his breath): Like that’s going to happen.

Or…what if Aquaman couldn’t breathe underwater?

Aquaman: Help! (gurgles) Help!

It was a very short episode. But why have I been so bored that I’m inventing alternative superhero universes? Because Ken just got a new job. But wait, I hear you ask. Didn’t he just retire? Isn’t he supposed to be devoting all his energy to rebuilding the side porch? And the answer to both those questions would be yes. However, the other night he came skipping into the kitchen, very pleased with himself, because the local hot air balloon company—yes, THE LOCAL HOT AIR BALLOON COMPANY—had seen his application for ‘ground crew’ and he had a trial run the next morning at 6 am.

Me: Ok, but promise me you won’t get your foot tangled in the rope and then get dragged halfway across the countryside dangling in the air before falling into a pond.
Ken: I think maybe you saw that in a movie. But there are other people to untangle me if that happens.
Me: IF? You mean WHEN!

So the next morning, he left for his new job, and I lay in bed stressing that he might float away, or that the other balloon guys might be mean to him, or that he would get lost taking one of his ‘shortcuts’, or any number of other worst case scenarios. Of course, none of that happened, and he came home excited because the owner had given him the balloon handbook and now he was an official member of the crew, which meant twice a day, weather permitting, he helps set up the balloon, chases it in the crew van, then packs it away. And while he’s enjoying his new-found employment, I’m feeling the pressure to get a cool new job too when I retire in 3 weeks, especially since I reached out to James Gunn about my idea for a Suicide Squad sequel featuring my superhero Heavy Metal, and he has yet to respond. Alternatively, maybe something where I get to drive a forklift…


It’s All Filler

(Ken: It takes a while for this post to get funny.
Me: But it DOES get funny. Do you think I need to add a warning or something?
Ken: Maybe. Also, you need a transition between the story and the Facebook ad.
Me: Oh stop.)

On Friday, I went to see my orthopedic surgeon. It was the first time I’d actually met him in person or even gone to his office, thanks to covid lockdown. But he seemed nice on the phone, and when I’d called recently, the very pleasant receptionist gave me an appointment within the month. And since things have been getting progressively worse and I’m in constant pain, I was pretty relieved.

But when I walked into the office, I was a bit baffled. It was attached to a gym (for physiotherapy I presume) and the waiting room was packed with people. But there were a couple of other doctors’ names listed on the receptionist’s window, so after checking in, I sat in the last chair available. My appointment was for 12:45, but by 1:00 there was no sign of anyone, which isn’t that unusual, but my family doctor is ALWAYS on time, so I guess I’m spoiled. “Looks like they’re running behind,” I said the woman next to me. “What time is your appointment?”

Woman: 12:30.
Me: Oh dang. I guess mine might be a while.
Other woman across the room: Mine’s at 12:30 too.
Man next to me: So’s mine.

And they were ALL with the same surgeon. Around 1:15, a bunch of people came out and the surgeon came to the door and called the next three people in. 20 minutes later, they all came out, and he called my name, along with two other people. We all tromped in, and after another 5 minutes, he came into my treatment room. “So what’s going on?” he asked. I explained the situation:

Me: And I think the issue is being exacerbated by sitting in front of a computer all day. But I’m retiring at the end of September, so I was hoping you could give me a cortisone shot, just to get me through the next month.
Surgeon: Yeah sure. Go into the next room. By the way, it’ll be 30 dollars.

But I didn’t care about the money—I’d gone through more than that amount in Advil in the last couple of weeks. So I followed him into another room, where he grabbed a big-ass needle, filled it up, pulled the sleeve of my top off my shoulder and jammed the needle in as far as it would go. “It might hurt for a couple of days. See you.” And with that, he was gone to the next patient.

When I got home, I told Ken about it.

Me: And then he just jammed the collagen into my shoulder.
Ken: You mean the cortisone?
Me: What did I say?
Ken: You said collagen.

And I realized that every time I thought about it in my head, I had said ‘collagen’ to myself instead of ‘cortisone’ and then I had a horrifying feeling that maybe I actually HAD asked for collagen. I mean, the place seemed like some back alley clinic you’d hear about on that show Botched, so what are odds that he had just pumped me up with filler? I could imagine him at home later, talking to his wife during their 5-minute dinner:

Surgeon: Weirdest case today. Woman wanted collagen in her shoulder.
Wife: That IS weird. Did you do it?
Surgeon: Thirty bucks is thirty bucks. Gotta go. Thanks for dinner, dessert and the sex.

And now I’m mad at myself for wasting a valuable opportunity. I mean, I could have had my cheeks done, my lips done, gotten rid of those fine lines around my mouth, but no—I had to say ‘shoulder’. No wonder it feels so puffy and still hurts. But it looks REALLY smooth.

Me: Ooh, I really like that chair.
Seller: Yes, it’s very stylish.
Chair: Oh, that this too too solid flesh would melt, thaw, and resolve itself into a dew!
Me: What’s wrong with it?
Seller: Nothing. It’s just a little theatrical.
Me: Cool. I’ll take it.
Chair: I’ve always depended on the kindness of strangers.
Me: Awesome. Let’s go.
Chair: We can’t.
Me: Why not?
Chair: We’re waiting for Godot.
Me: Don’t be absurd.

It’s All About The Attitude

Well, it’s been an exciting week at the mydangblog household. First, I got it into my head suddenly, and I mean VERY suddenly, that it would be an amazing idea if I did a live reading for my new short story collection in August. And if you know anything at all about me, you’ll know that like most things I do (e.g. the quilt), I went into it with a lot of determination but without a single clue about how it should be done. I messaged a couple of friends (thanks Susan and Cecilia!) and got some advice, but still ended up spamming all my friends, not once but twice, with Facebook invites. I really have no idea what I’m doing and whether or not it will work, but if you’d like to join me on Wednesday, August 11 at 7 pm Eastern Time, you can access the reading by either going to the Feasting Upon The Bones Live Reading Facebook page or join via this link even if you don’t have Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/108877348159254/live_videos/

I hope some of you will come, either to see me read some stories and drink wine or watch dead air and imagine me frantically trying to figure out how to get the live stream going whilst simultaneously drinking wine. Either way, there will be wine.

And I’ve been getting great feedback on the short story collection, so again, I’d super-appreciate if anyone could leave even a short review on Amazon or Goodreads or whatnot, or even just some stars. I know a couple of you have already and it totally made my day.

In other news, we took down the old side porch on our house last week because the columns were rotting and discovered that most of the old side porch structure was also rotting, so it was extremely fortunate that we’d embarked upon this particular reno project before one of us fell through the balcony. As Ken was dismantling the roof, he found a champagne cork sliced open with a penny stuck in it tucked next to one of the rafters:

Ken: What do you think this is for?
Me: Some kind of weird superstition? A sacrifice to Dionysus?
Ken: I’ve never heard of that. Let me google…champagne cork with—oh, it autofilled. Guess it’s a thing after all.
Me: Well, we have to keep it and put it back once we’re done. Ooh, we could pop another bottle and do it with a second champagne cork for double the luck!
Ken: And drink the champagne.
Me: Obviously drink the champagne, KEN.

Photo of a cork with a penny in it.

And in honour of our rotten porch, I present to you three other inanimate objects that have attitudes of their own, according to these ads:

Photo of a very nice bird house with the description Obnoxious bird house - make an offer

1) This birdhouse looks really cute and rustic but apparently appearances can be deceiving:

Me: Ooh, I love your birdhouse. Could I offer you twenty-five dollars for it?
Birdhouse: Twenty-five dollars?! F*ck off, lady.
Owner: I’m so sorry. My birdhouse is a bit of a dick.
Birdhouse: You can f*ck right off too, JANICE.
Me: What an obnoxious bird house.
Owner: Hence the ad.

Photo of a child's bicycle with the description Huffy bike

2) In the same vein, this little bike is adorable but…

Buyer: What a lovely little bike. And only ten dollars!
Bike: Hmph.
Buyer: What’s wrong?
Seller: Oh, don’t mind the bike. He’s in one of “his moods”, that’s all.
Bike: HMPH.
Buyer: Does he get like that a lot?
Seller: He’s just a little huffy because I wouldn’t take his training wheels off for the ad.
Bike: I don’t NEED THEM, STANLEY.
Seller: Yes, but they make you MORE MARKETABLE, BRIAN.
Bike: HMPH!

Photo of a sign that says "Please inform one of our staff if this room is in need of some attention."

3) And finally—I’ve seen warehouses with self-esteem issues but this bathroom is a bit of a drama queen:

Customer: Excuse me, but I think your bathroom needs some attention.
Staff person: Good lord, what’s it doing now?
Customer: It’s a little weepy. But when I asked what was wrong, it said, “Oh, nothing. Don’t worry about ME. Obviously I’m JUST FINE”.
Staff: Sigh. Yes, it can be quite passive-aggressive when it’s unhappy. Look, I hate to pry, but were you in there for a…(whispers) poo?
Customer: I—uh—well, yes. But it was just a small one.
Staff: That explains it. Time for the lavender air freshener. That usually does the trick.