Wine

My Week 112: I’m An Enabler

Friday: I’m an enabler.

Me (spills wine on bedspread): Titus! Stop licking the covers!
 Titus: But it’s so delicious. Spill some more.
Me: No!! OMG. This is why we can’t have nice things.
Titus: What do you mean? Wine is nice.
Me: You’re such a dick. I love you.
Titus: I know. Spill some more wine.
Me: Oh for god’s sake, here. Just lick it off my finger.
Raven: For the record, I dragged my butt across the carpet and sneezed on your pillow. Can I have some wine too?
Me: Sigh.

 

My Week 108: Indecent Exposure, I Hate You Facebook

Thursday: I get flashed by a street person

Isn’t that a great hook for this entry? You’d almost think that was the worst thing that happened to me on Thursday, but wait, no it wasn’t. The week was already having issues—the night before, I’d gone to the liquor store after work and bought wine for the rest of the team, which was exhausting (I must be exhausted right now, because I spelled “liquor” wrong three times according to the squiggly red line, and if anyone knows how to spell liquor, it’s ME). I bought the wine, and the guy at the cash register offered to “make the bags fancy” for me (no, that’s got nothing to do with being flashed, although it DOES sound like something a flasher would say). He folded them origami-style then stapled them so the tops looked like little fans—this took a while, much to the dismay of the people behind me in line who were looking very impatient and also thirsty. I took all four bottles to work, and sneakily placed them onto people’s desks for a nice surprise in the morning. Then, on my way back to my condo, I realized that I’d forgotten one person, an important person, and the only option was to go back to the liquor store, but if you understand anxiety at all, you’ll know I couldn’t go back to the SAME liquor store and be like “Hi, I need you to make this one more bag fancy while everyone waits and now you’re probably worried that I have some kind of fancy bag fetish that you are enabling (wow, that sounds even more flasher-y) and I should just go to the other liquor store, etc.” Which is what I did. But then I was worried that the fifth bag would look shabby, and I was trying to remember how the guy folded it and whatnot, and how I could buy a stapler, or at least do something pretty with scotch tape and cotton balls. If you’ve followed this blog for a while, you’ll know I’m somewhat a disaster at anything requiring a lot of manual dexterity, and if I could have just shoved the wine into a gift bag with some crinkly tissue paper, which is what I do at Christmas, everything would have been fine. Except that the wine was already IN the bag, and I had no tissue paper. So I said to the guy at the checkout, “Any chance you can make a fancy top for this bag?” I wasn’t holding out much hope because, and I don’t want to sound like I’m stereotyping here, but the guy at the OTHER store was Asian, and origami is Asian, and the guy at this store was a middle-aged white guy who looked like he also just shoved gifts into bags with crumply tissue paper (THAT’S the stereotype, by the way—NOT the Asians and origami thing, which is just a coincidence). Sure enough, he said, “No, I’m no good at that kind of thing (stereotype proven), but Nancy can do it for you.” He pointed at the other cashier, and she said, “Sure, hon, I can make your bag fancy.” It was great, because she made it just like the other guy, and now all the bags looked the same, and no one would feel left out because their bag had snowflakes made out of Q-tips taped to the top instead of an origami fan. But then I had to go all the way back to the office to put the last bag in place. By the time I got back to my condo, I was ready to collapse, let me tell you. Even though my building, the two liquor stores, and my office are all within the same one block radius, it was still an arduous journey.

The next morning, everyone was extremely pleased to find a bottle of wine miraculously appear on their desks, and I don’t want to brag, but that makes me a kind of saviour if I remember the Bible correctly. But then the merriment stopped, because this was the day that we were rolling out the pilot project we’d been working on for two years. And it rolled out, all right. Then it immediately rolled back in. We were devastated, having been promised by our secondary vendor that “It’s going to be great. Greater than great. It’s going to be so great you won’t even believe how great it is.” Apparently, this company was owned by Donald Trump, so in retrospect, that fact that it crashed and burned should not have been a surprise. At least it didn’t grab anyone’s private bits on the way down.

Anyhow, we were feeling pretty gloomy, but it was the middle of the work day, so no one could drink their wine. Instead, we decided to go to the diner up the street for lunch, where we could get some “comfort food”. I ordered the most Canadian comfort food of them all, poutine, and my two co-workers ordered nachos, all day breakfast (which is the best thing ever invented), grilled cheese, and so on. When my poutine came, I was shocked—it was more poutine than any reasonable human person could, or should, ever eat. I said to the waiter, “You guys might want to rethink your portion sizes—I would have paid 8.99 for less than half of this, and I couldn’t have even eaten half. There are poor, homeless people right outside your door, and I feel terrible just throwing away this much food.” Yes, I actually said that to him, which will turn out to be both prescient and ironic shortly. Well, you can’t take poutine with you because it gets too soggy and won’t reheat well, so I left it behind. We were heading back to the office, and I was still kind of railing about the waste and poor people having to eat out of dumpsters, when we passed the alley between the diner and the next building.

“All of the hungry people on the street here, and I just—ahhhhhhgggg!!!!” I shrieked.

“What?! What’s wrong??!!” my co-workers responded, but all I could do was point into the alley and yell “Penis! Penis!!” which of course made them look too at the homeless guy whose pants were around his thighs, struggling to pull them up. We walked away quickly, eyes averted. “I only got a crotch shot,” said one, “but it was bad enough.”

“I got the whole thing,” I said. “As if today wasn’t already awful. It’s like the perfect metaphor for my relationship with the universe right now.”

When I told my parents about the incident, my mom gasped. “Did you call the police?”

“No,” I said. “It’s not like he was waving it around on purpose or anything. It was no big deal. Literally.”

And that’s the long and short of the flasher story, the story of my fancy bags and his not-so-fancy ones.

trenchcoat-flasher

Tuesday: I hate you, Facebook

The other day, it occurred to me that if I was applying for a job and a potential employer looked at my Facebook page, there might be a problem. Not because I post racist memes or porn or anything—in fact, if you look at my page, it’s mostly funny stuff as well as animal videos. But I DO make my blog public on my Facebook site, and I’ve been doing that for years, and while my blog is pretty PG 13, there is the rather liberal use of the F word among other epithets, as well as some pretty irreverent humour. So what would be easier? Changing the status of every single individual post from the last almost three years, or changing my Facebook name to something not immediately identifiable as me? Ah, silly, stupid me.

I had just been reading the most ridiculous page that Facebook was asking me to “like”, about something called “Intermittent Fasting” which is when, every once in a while, you don’t eat for a few days. According to the page, it’s supposed to be “good for your body and soul”. There was even a calendar with a countdown to the word “Fasting” complete with an excited little exclamation mark and a happy face. Are you f*cking kidding me? What kind of first world crap is this? You know, people all over the world participate in “Intermittent Fasting” but they call it “Not having enough food to eat sometimes.” And I don’t think it makes either their bodies OR their souls feel any better to know that people in North America do it BY CHOICE. FOR FUN.

Anyway, I was all distracted by this, and toying around with changing my name EXACTLY so that I could write about this in a swear-y, irreverent way without potential employers being like “We don’t want her—she’s against Intermittent Fasting and likes too many kittens”. So I decided to try a variation of my name and it sounded OK, then Facebook was like “Review your changes”, so I clicked on the button. When the screen came up, I realized that I’d spelled my own name wrong. This happens to me quite frequently because my full name is really long and has a lot of consonants and vowels in it. No worries—I’d just go back and edit it…

And then I was like “What? WHAT?! F-CK YOU FACEBOOK!” because Facebook was like “You can’t change it back, sucker—you have to wait 60 days, because we’re just random like that.” I cursed the internet so hard that I think I might have been responsible for the DDOS on Friday. But then it occurred to me that now, the only people who can find me are people who actually know me, or dyslexics. Thanks, Facebook. But you still suck.

 

Some Stories Should Never Be Told, A Mysterious Visitor

Wednesday: There are some stories you should never tell.

On Thursday afternoon, one of my coworkers came over to my department. “Do you want to hear a funny story?” he asked.

“Absolutely,” I said. “I love a good story.”

“OK,” he started. “So I had this graph—“

“I’m stopping you right there,” I said. “There is NO funny story that starts with ‘I had a graph’.”

But he persisted, and it turned out that the story WAS pretty funny, involving him and an editor who disagreed on the information in the graph to the point where my colleague removed the original of the item in question and sent it back to edit. 5 minutes later, the editor came to his desk to ask him if he knew what had happened to the first copy. When he feigned innocence and said, “No”, the editor pointed to the recycling bin under his desk and asked, “Isn’t that it right there?” because he had tossed in the blue box FACE UP. His only resort was to say, in mock surprise, “How did THAT get there?!” I don’t think the editor was fooled for a second—they’re a wily bunch.

I realize that you’re probably not laughing as hard as I was when he told me the story, mostly because there’s a lot that gets lost in translation between a story that you try to write down after someone tells it to you. My colleague DOES tell a good story, graphs notwithstanding, unlike other people I’ve known, including myself, who is renowned for being “just not that funny in person” as I am when I’m writing. It put me in mind of the end-of-year staff breakfasts we used to have in my previous workplace, where one of the VPs was always invited up to give his “Top 10 Funniest Moments” of the school year. They were always, without exception, anti-climactic and often lacking any discernible punchline.

VP: So we caught the young couple in the throes of amorous foreplay in the middle of the football field. The girl’s mother, naturally, was furious. So much so that we had to call Child and Family Services. I hope that group home they sent her to was nice…

VP: The young man was so high that he couldn’t stop laughing. At least until the police showed up. Then it was just tears, tears, tears…

tree-of-life

Yep. The guy did NOT know how to tell a story.

But it occurred to me after all the weird storytelling this week, that there are other storystarters that really can’t ever be funny. Here are my top 5 things which, from my personal experience, will never lead to a good laugh:

1) Here’s a funny story—you know the sound a cat makes right before it vomits…?

A long time ago, we had a cat named Chaucer who would puke on an almost daily basis. We had him tested for all kinds of things, but there was nothing discernible wrong with him. Yet almost every day, he would announce the upcoming projectile with an unearthly yowling. Then we had to race around the house looking for him, trying to put something under him before he ruined yet another carpet. We were having a dinner party once, and we were just in the middle of appetizers when the conversation was interrupted by “OWLLLLL, MEOWWWWWLLLLLL, MRONNNNNNGGGGGG !” Everyone looked terrified. Ken leapt up and ran out of the room with his napkin. I took another bite of salad and said, “It’s just the cat. He’s going to throw up. Sigh.” This went on for years, until our dog died (the same dog I wrote about last week who used to leave his food in his bowl all day). After a few weeks, we got another dog who ate every piece of kibble in under 10 seconds, and miraculously, the pukefest stopped. Then one day, we heard Chaucer sounding the alarm and found him next to a piece of dog kibble that had rolled under the counter. Turns out that he had been eating the dog’s food every day for years, and it made him sick every time he did it. Cats are stupid in general, but Chaucer was dumber than most.

2) Here’s a funny story—so there was no wine left…

This is always a tragedy. The only way this story will ever be funny is if it ended with you finding more wine. I was at a wedding yesterday, and there was an open bar, which sounds fantastic, but all they had was hard liquor and tropical coolers. It would have been tragic, but then I realized that there were wine glasses on the table. And at dinner, the servers all came around with multiple bottles of wine and I was overjoyed. But the white wine was a Muscat, which is supersweet and almost undrinkable, and then I was sad again. It was an emotional rollercoaster, let me tell you.

3) Here’s a funny story—it occurred to me when I was reading the Bible…

I don’t know about you, but I’ve never found anything about the Bible, New or Old Testament, remotely funny. Maybe because of all the smiting and death and sh*t. And that’s a total lie, because I can find humour in everything, but people who are very Bible-y don’t have the same light-hearted attitude. I remember once writing about how I saw a billboard that said “Take Jesus on vacation with you”, and I wrote what I thought was a very funny post about what would happen if you DID take Jesus on vacation with you, like to Great Wolf Lodge. But I had a couple of readers who were devout Catholics (like there’s any other kind, haha) who were like “That’s not funny. Jesus would never go down a waterslide.” And I was like, “But all the water would be holy”, and they were like, “Just stop.” Luckily, they unfollowed me BEFORE I wrote about the high diving Jesus on the church door across the road (see My Week 63 for reference—or irreverence).

4) Here’s a funny story—I was looking at the roof and a squirrel came out…

This is the stuff that nightmares are made of. This actually happened to me when we owned a cottage. This entitled squirrel decided that she owned the place and she was super-intimidating. I started calling her “Charles Manson” until Ken pointed out that she had two rows of squirrel boobs, so I changed her name to “Squeaky Fromme”. One day I looked up at the roof, and saw her halfway in and halfway out of a little hole under the eaves. I started screaming, and she took off. Later, Ken and I were sitting on the porch—I had my back to the driveway. Suddenly, I heard a noise, like a demon muttering, and I turned around—Squeaky was actually sneaking up on me. She had taken up residence in our attic, where she had some babies who were also little dicks. We finally live-trapped them all and drove them out to the country (this, unfortunately, is not a euphemism—Ken was all like “Oh, we can’t just kill them…” and normally I would agree, but that squirrel had devil-eyes, to borrow a phrase from the great Tracy Morgan).

I’m sure you all have story starters that will never be funny—I have a lot more but Ken wants to go shopping so I have to wrap this up. As a side note, I asked Ken to think of a story starter that would never be funny:

Ken: Ummm…
Me: You can’t say ‘death’.
Ken: Oh. OK, what about “So I was in the hospital waiting room…”
Me: What did I just say?
Ken: Right.

Thursday: Mysterious visitors in my condo

When I came back to Toronto after my extended vacation/recovery from surgery, I found a rolled up piece of tinfoil on my coffeetable. I didn’t know where it had come from, but Ken had been there with me for a couple of days in August, so I asked him if he’d left it there. “Maybe,” he said. “Did it look like a chocolate wrapper?” It kind of did, so I didn’t give it more thought. Then, a couple of weeks ago, when I went back for the week, it was really hot. I’d had the air conditioning on the night before, but I shut it off before I went to work. When I came back, the air conditioning was on full force, and I got a little worried. After searching my condo, which took about 20 seconds since it’s only 600 square feet, I was still worried. But then I realized that I was probably being ridiculous—what kind of intruder waits inside your condo all day for you to come home and at some point is like. “Gosh, it’s hot under this bed—I should turn the air conditioning on while I wait”? When I told Ken, he was like, “Come on—you probably just forgot to turn it off. Don’t worry—just keep the chain lock on when you’re home.”

But then the other night, I got ready for bed. I turned off all the lights and put the fan on. I fell asleep, but a couple of hours later, I woke up like a shot for some reason. Then I realized that the hall light was on, and the FAN WAS OFF. I freaked out and did what any reasonable person would do—I called Ken. But he didn’t answer, being that I thought the clock said 5 minutes to 11, but it really said 5 minutes after 1. I searched the condo again, even more worried because, thanks to Ken, my chain lock WAS on, which meant that I was potentially LOCKED IN with someone nefarious who hated both the dark and cool breezes. So there I was, phone to my ear, ringing and ringing, while I flung open closet doors and threw aside bed skirts. Nothing. Finally, I just went back to sleep, still a little freaked out. Ken messaged me in the morning to ask why I’d tried calling him at 1 in the morning and I answered, “Here’s a funny story—”

My Week 103: Titus and the 5 Second Rule, Star Trek Predictability

Friday: The 5 second rule

5-second-rule

Part of the job at the secret agency where I work is to research weird and interesting stories. This week was a veritable cornucopia of bizarreness, mostly thanks to the American election campaign, where this week Trump said, among the many ridiculous things he says, that he now believes Obama is a US citizen (yes, Donald, Hawaii IS a part of the United States) and also that “they” should strip Hillary Clinton’s bodyguards’ sidearms and “see what happens”. (OK, is it just me or is this seriously illegal? I’m pretty sure that, under the law in Canada at least, if I posted on Facebook “Bob’s a liar and a crook. People should try to kill him”, I would be either arrested or sued. How does Trump get away with this sh*t? Are people, and especially the media, so distracted by the bread and circuses that they don’t see this as extremely unstable, lunatic behaviour? Yet, he still has a massive following, and if you really don’t believe that many of them fall into the “basket of deplorables” category that Clinton took so much flak for, then you haven’t read the comments section of ANY article on the US election that either dares to criticize Trump or praise Clinton. My rant is done.) Anyway, there was one article that really intrigued my work partners and me:

L: Did you read this? Apparently, the ‘5 second’ rule is now dead, according to Popular Science magazine. You should NEVER eat things that you’ve dropped on the floor. Apparently, bacteria can be attached to it in less than half a second.
M: Really? Doesn’t it depend on what the food is and where it lands?
Me: The carpet in here gets cleaned regularly…
L: Yuck!
Me: I mean, I wouldn’t eat something that had just dropped ANYWHERE. Like, if I dropped something on Yonge St., I would just leave it. And I’m not just talking about food. I mean, like a mitten, or anything.
M: Hahaha—no kidding!

So while we all agreed that you would just abandon anything that fell on the sidewalk in downtown Toronto (food, clothing, money, your grandma—pretty much everything), I was concerned about the ramifications of the article. If you’ve visited this site before, you’ll know that I have, on occasion, dropped a piece of popcorn into my scarf and proceeded to pick it out and eat it. And the other day, I dropped a Corn Pop on my kitchen floor, shrugged, then tossed it into the bowl with all the other “clean” Corn Pops. Did my ‘devil may care’ attitude mean I was in danger of contracting a deadly disease?

So when I got home last night, it was still on my mind, so much so that when I dropped a Swiss Chalet French fry on the floor and Titus swooped in, I stopped him.

Me: Whoa there! You can’t eat off the floor anymore. The 5 second rule is dead.
Titus: First of all, it’s the 5 DAY rule. Second of all, who says?
Me: Studies have shown that bacteria can attach itself to food before you have a chance to eat it.
Titus: What bacteria?! I licked that damn floor clean myself!
Me: Good to know. I will NEVER eat anything that I drop on it again.
Titus: Suit yourself. Now move your foot—I’m going in for that fry.

But I never worry about Titus. This is the same dog, if you remember, who ate a pound of grapes with no ill effects, and was caught chewing a dead deer jawbone that he ‘found’ in the backyard. I doubt very much if a little salmonella would slow him down—after all, he IS a Lab. It’s been scientifically proven that Labrador Retrievers have a genetic predisposition to eat until there’s nothing left. They have no shut-off valve, unlike all the other breeds of dog who will stop eating when they’re full and NOT think, “I feel like throwing up, but there’s more food!”

Case in point: Many years ago, Ken and I had a beautiful Golden Retriever named Byron. We got him because I was terrified of dogs. Now, that might not make much sense, but I was convinced that if we got a dog, I could learn to ‘read’ its signals and know when it was happy or angry, and thereby get over my phobia. So we got Byron. He was 6 and looked like a huge teddy bear (his original name was ACTUALLY “Bear” but we changed it on the premise that I would never get over my fear of dogs if he was named after something I was even more afraid of). Byron had belonged to a family who had no time for him—they both worked, had three kids, and lived in a small semi-detached home with the woman’s elderly mother—it was a tough situation for everyone, and to their credit, they decided to give him away to people who could take better care of him. He was a wonderful, laidback dog in every way, except that he HATED other dogs. It wasn’t his fault—the people who’d owned him previously had never taken him anywhere or walked him—he just stayed in their backyard 24/7 so he’d never learned how to socialize. But that was fine with us—he loved people, so we just made sure we kept him on a leash when he came out with us. We took him all over, but his favourite trip was to the drive through at McDonald’s. We’d order him a large water and a small fry, and we’d all eat in the car. But Byron didn’t have a big appetite aside from fast food—we’d fill his bowl food every morning from a red cup that we had and he’d pick away at it all day. Sometimes he finished it; sometimes not.

img_2933Byron

Eventually, Byron passed away at the ripe old age of 15, which broke our hearts, but we’d had 9 awesome years with him, and thanks to him, I’d completely gotten over my fear of dogs. A few weeks later, we got Saxon, a 3 year-old female Yellow Lab, from a family who was moving to England and couldn’t take her with them. The first day we had her, I got out Byron’s red food cup and filled her bowl. She ate it right away, then looked at me expectantly. So I gave her another cupful. At dinner time, we gave her another, then another right before bed. After about a week of this, we realized she was getting very chunky. So I called the vet to find out exactly how much we should be feeding her. “For her size, about a cup and a half per day,” he said. “How much food fits in that cup you’re using?” So I measured it—the red cup held TWO CUPS of food. We’d been feeding her about 6 cups of kibble every day. And she was happily eating it, the same way she happily ate an entire 3 pound bag of dog food one afternoon when we were out grocery shopping and forgot to shut the cupboard door. When we got back, she was waddling around and looked pregnant, but it didn’t last for long—she couldn’t digest it all and her “food baby” made its reappearance a few hours later. And I don’t think my mother-in-law ever forgave her for eating all the tops off a dozen banana muffins that she’d made from scratch and left on the counter to cool. She was sitting only about 10 feet away and never heard a thing—Saxon was like a ninja when it came to stealth eating. Aside from the food fixation, she was an all-around amazing dog, who agreed to go out in the morning and get the newspaper for us in exchange for cookies and who loved to play hide and seek. But like all other beloved pets, she too eventually passed away at the age of 14 a couple of years ago, which brings us back to Titus, our monster dog. Just over 100 pounds, and standing 28 inches high at the shoulder, he’s goofy and sweet and completely obsessed with food. And alcohol. In fact, at this very moment, he’s staring at the spot where I just spilled some wine through the baby gate that I have up to prevent Raven from coming into my office and peeing on the rug ( and that’s a whole other story).

Titus: Um…you know there’s wine on the floor, right?
Me: Yes. You made me spill it when I was trying to climb over you AND the baby gate.
Titus: Are you going to wipe it up? Or would you like me to come in and lick the floor clean for you? I don’t mind.
Me: You’re not allowed to lick the floor. We discussed this. You’re also not allowed to have any wine. It’s bad for you.
Titus: Says the woman on her second glass of Pinot Grigio. C’mon—just a little taste.
Me: I don’t start drooling like a maniac if someone gives me “just a little taste”.
Titus: I can’t help it if I have a sensitive palate.
Me: If you really had a “sensitive palate”, you wouldn’t spend so much time trying to eat out of Raven’s litter box.
Titus: But the little kitty treats are so crunchy and good…

Bottom line is that I’ve changed my attitude and after my enlightening conversation with Titus will no longer be using the 5 second rule to determine whether or not I can still eat a carrot that I dropped on the kitchen floor. Unless I’m going to boil it first.

Saturday: Star Trek is becoming predictable.

K and I have been working our way through the Star Trek pantheon on Netflix, and we’ve made it to Star Trek: Voyager, starring the gravelly-voiced Kate Mulgrew. In this version of Star Trek, the ship and its crew has been tossed into the “Delta Quadrant” by an alien known as “Caretaker”. They’re over 77 000 light years away from the Alpha Quadrant, where Earth is, and it’s going to take them approximagely 70 years to make it back. But instead of just going to Warp 9, and hightailing it, they spend their time cruising through the Delta Quadrant at impulse speed, just looking for trouble, and delaying their return home every week. We both really enjoy watching the show, but after a while we’ve come to realize that the writers have pretty much given up, and that each episode has become a little predictable.

Scenario 1: What could it be?

Mr. Kim: Captain, I’m detecting something ten thousand kilometres off the starboard bow.
K: It’s a nebula.
Me: It’s a subspace anomaly.
K: It’s a rift in the time/space continuum.
Captain: It looks like some sort of anomaly.
K: Don’t go any closer.
Captain: Mr. Paris, take us closer.
Me: You’re going to get pulled in.
Mr. Paris: Captain, we’re getting pulled in!
All of us: Reverse thrusters!! It’s not working!!

Scenario 2: Encounters with Aliens

Mr. Tuvok: Captain, I’m detecting an alien vessel ahead.
Me: Check for life signs.
Captain: Any life signs, Mr. Tuvok?
K: Back away before hailing them. They’re probably hostile.
Mr. Tuvok: Yes, Captain—one alien life sign.
Captain: Hail them, Mr. Kim.
Me: They won’t answer. Put your damn shields up.
Mr. Kim: There’s no response, Captain.
Mr. Paris: They’re firing on us!
K: I wonder which one of the completely ineffective “evasive maneuvers” she’ll ask for? Oh—Janeway Beta 3. Good choice but it won’t work.
Me: Can’t they just transport the alien directly to the main bridge?
K: Not if his shields are up—are OUR shields up?
Mr. Paris: Captain, evasive maneuvers aren’t working!
Mr. Tuvok: Shields are down to 67%.
K: There you go.
Me: Just fire the damn photon torpedoes.
Captain: Fire the photon torpedoes!
Mr. Paris: Direct hit. His shields are down.
Captain: Transport him directly to the main bridge.
Me: He’s gonna have crazy hair and be really pissed off.
Alien: How dare you—!
K: Is that papier mache or salami on his head?

Scenario 3: Coming back from an Away Mission

Captain: Well, Mr. Chakotay, that was certainly an interesting Away Mission but I can’t wait to get back to Voyager.
K: Voyager is gone.
Mr. Chakotay: Captain, Voyager is not at the rendezvous location.
Me: Scan for a warp signature. They’re around somewhere.
Captain: Scan for a warp signature, Mr. Chakotay. They must be close by.
Mr. Chakotay: Detecting a faint warp trail, 1 million kilometres from here.
K: The ship’s been hijacked by either the Viidians or the Kazon.
Mr. Chakotay: Captain, I’m detecting alien life signs on board.
Captain: Is it the Viidians or the Kazon?
Mr. Chakotay: Neither.
Us: Oooh, this could be good.
K: Secretly transport on board and use the Jeffries tubes to sneak around and take back the ship.
Captain: Get us within transport range, Mr. Chakotay. I have a plan…

Scenario 4: Is it the end?

K: Should we believe that guy when he says he’ll help Voyager get home in exchange for trilithium crystals?
Me: No. It’s like Gilligan’s Island. Or Lost. No one goes home until the last episode of the last season, and we have 3 more seasons to go.
Captain: I can’t believe we were taken in by that dishonest Ferengi. Wait–is that a mysterious nebula I see up ahead?
Us: 3 more seasons! Yay!!

My Week 58: Hammering Serial Killers

Tuesday: Hammer Time

When I first moved into my condo last February, I almost immediately had an issue with the noise level. No, I don’t mean that I could hear someone’s TV, or their children running around, or fun party music. I mean, I had an issue with the upstairs neighbour hammering. Not “hammering”, like a metaphor for something else—actual f*cking hammering. Which wouldn’t have been a problem if the construction efforts were happening while I was at work, or making dinner. No, this hammering was taking place at 2 o’clock in the morning. The night I moved in was peaceful enough; in fact, it exceeded my expectations regarding what living in tiny, stacked houses would be like. Then came the second night. Around 11 pm, it sounded like someone was bouncing a very heavy basketball on the floor above my living room. Bouncing it once, then letting it continue on its own, as in BOUNCE, Bounce, bouncebouncebounce, if you can understand what I mean. This went on for about an hour. After an hour, I started banging on the vents—I couldn’t bang on the ceiling because it’s sprayed with that popcorn stucco, which is very sharp and will fall into your eyes if disturbed. However, because the building is SUPPOSED to be soundproof, it had little effect. Then, shortly after midnight, the hammering began. Hammering all over the place at first, then becoming localized above my bedroom. What the hell was this guy doing? Installing a floor in the middle of the night? It was insane. It would stop for brief intervals, but every time I started to doze off, the noise would begin again with renewed vigour. It was like the way the CIA tortures terrorists by playing Death Metal music non-stop. Then it occurred to me—what if it WAS a government agency, trying to determine my stamina? After all, I had just taken a government job and had sworn an oath of secrecy, as well as an oath to the Queen. Could CSIS be upstairs? By this time though, I would have given something really important, like my favourite shoes or my last bottle of wine for the Death Metal to begin. Anything but the damned hammering. Finally, at around 5 am, the noise stopped. Of course, I had to get up at 6:30, so I went in for my first official day of work feeling like a sleep-deprived prisoner.

When I went to bed that night, I wasn’t too worried, figuring that it had to be a one-off—I mean, who in their right mind spends all night, every night renovating their condo? Each unit is only around 600 square feet, so there couldn’t possibly be a single thing left to hammer. And that’s when the sawing started. Sawing. With an actual saw. Right above my bedroom. I stood in the walk-in closet, and it sounded like the person was trying to cut a hole through the floor. Then I suddenly had a terrible thought—what if my upstairs neighbour was a serial killer who was building a false wall in his condo in order to conceal the presence of his latest kidnapped victim? This may sound farfetched in retrospect, but I had just seen an episode of a crime show where a very-innocent looking record producer had done JUST THAT in his recording studio—the investigators had cleverly discovered the hidden room by looking at blueprints. The sawing finally stopped around 3 am, while I cowered in bed, praying that someone wouldn’t rappel into my closet with murderous intentions and wondering how I could get my hands on a floorplan. I was now completely fed up, so after work, I decided to talk to the night concierge. I explained what was happening but her English wasn’t very good:

Me: The person in the unit above mine is hammering in the middle of the night. It’s keeping me awake. What should I do?
 Concierge: Ammering? What is this to mean?
Me: (hammers on counter with fist) HAMMERING. Like this.
Concierge: Someone is ammering in your unit?
Me: No, in the unit upstairs! At 2 o’clock in the morning. I can’t sleep.
Concierge: Why would someone be ammering at the middle of the morning? It’s not sense.
Me: Yes, this is all pretty nonsensical. What should I do if it keeps happening?
Concierge: You call me and I go to upstairs and see what is the problem.

This sounded very promising, despite it also sounding fairly incomprehensible. Sure enough, not long after midnight, the hammering resumed. I immediately called down to the front desk, reminded the concierge about our earlier conversation, and gave her the unit number where the noise was originating from. She promised to go up and see what was going on. Unbelievably, about ten minutes later, the noise stopped completely. Blessed silence. It was like that all night, and I had my first good sleep since coming to Toronto. Over the next several weeks, there were still a lot of bizarre sounds coming from Jeffrey Dahammer upstairs, but they always stopped before 11 pm—the concierge must have reminded him about the noise bylaws. By late spring/early summer, the upstairs unit was completely silent. Then last Monday, I happened to be talking to my aunt. She asked, “Have you had any more issues with the person upstairs?”

“No,” I said. “That all seems to be in the past now.” Could I have been any more cavalier to tempt fate in such a brazen way? I know what you’re thinking, and you’re right—finally, at 1:45 am, I’d had enough. I called down to the night concierge (a different one this time, but with equally poor English skills) and explained that someone had been hammering on the floor of the unit above mine for the last two hours. “OK, no problem—I go talk to them,” he said. I had my doubts, but the noise stopped shortly after. Here’s to hoping that the renovations—or ‘victim cage’—are finally complete, knock on wood. But I have to admit, I’m burning with curiosity—what the hell is really going on up there? I’ll probably never know—and maybe it’s better that I don’t.