Work

The Importance of Pronouns

I had the tremendous pleasure of being featured on the fab writer da-AL’s website/podcast Happiness Between Tails last week. My guest post was a short history of pronouns, and why people should stop worrying about what pronouns other people choose to use. You can read it, or listen to it, here: https://happinessbetweentails.com/2022/10/27/pronouns-suzanne-craig-whytock-podcast-henna-artist-alka-joshi/

There’s also a lovely intro by my friend da-AL and a very large picture of my face, and if you recall last week’s post, you can decide for yourself if I look like I qualify for the seniors’ discount.

A Senior Moment

As you may recall, Ken and I recently set up a booth in the antique shop where I currently work part-time. The space I have now is twice as large as the booth I used to have, which means I have to do a lot more buying if I want to keep up with sales. Not that it’s a problem—I love to shop. But where do I buy things cheap enough that I can resell them? Thrift stores, of course (or what some of you would call charity shops). It’s amazing how many cool things you can find at second-hand places that can be refinished, refreshed, or refurbished. So I’ve been regularly haunting Goodwill, Value Village and a couple of other places where I’ve found some great stuff—well, great if you’re willing to put in a little elbow grease. For example, the other day, I got a couple of old sewing machine drawers for 6 bucks each—a little chalk paint and new knobs, and they’re ready for resale. Or check out below the coatrack that I made out of a single footboard, a couple of old shoe forms, and some fancy hooks.

But I have to keep my overhead low, which is why the other day, I had an experience that was both amazing and troubling.

I’d been at my hairdresser’s and she mentioned a thrift store in another town called Talize, which I’d never heard of, but apparently they have a ton of locations in Ontario. I needed to visit my Lancôme lady anyway, and this Talize store was just down the street. I had been astonished to discover that my tiny, perfect, and young-looking Lancôme lady Rosina had a twenty-seven-year-old son, since she looks about twenty-seven herself, but then I remembered that we’d known each other for over fifteen years, so she must be older than I thought. At any rate, she told ME that I didn’t look old enough to have a twenty-four-year-old daughter, and I know that’s just to keep me buying serum, but still, I walked away with a bit of a glow.

The glow continued on into Talize, where I discovered a fancy plate stand, a wicker suitcase, an old washboard, and a couple of wine goblets. Then I got to the cash register. “That’ll be 18.35,” the cashier said. “Unless you qualify for one of our discounts.”

“Which discount?” I asked.

“Well, we have a senior’s discount. You’d qualify for that.”

The glow faded. And even though their seniors’ discount was for 55 and up, I still felt a little betrayed by Rosina, who had assured me, prior to my purchase, that I didn’t look a day over 45, and the cashier had immediately clocked me as being at least my own goddamn age. But then, the cashier recalculated the sale. “16.50. You saved 10%.”  

And I was so excited that I did what any normal person would do—I called Ken. “I’m a senior!” I said. “Do you know what that means?”

“That when you crouch down, it hurts to stand back up?”

“Also that. But it means that I get a discount at Talize. Ooh, I wonder what age you have to be to qualify for a discount at Chez VV? Let me look…what the hell? SIXTY? The nerve. How does Value Village expect us poor pensioners to afford their sh*t? Oh well, three more years to go.”

And I can’t wait.

I made this too! It’s our company name!

Emergency Room Convos

I haven’t been motivated to do much this week, because I’m still struggling with the same health issue as last week; in fact, I was at the hospital again on Friday, I’m exhausted, and I still haven’t seen the object of my disaffection. The only bright spot in the whole ordeal happened after I had seen the doctor. I was getting dressed and overheard this conversation with another patient. Apparently, half the population is having kidney issues as well, judging by this, and the two other women in the waiting room who were also there with suspected kidney stones:

Doctor: So what brings you in today?
Patient: A few days ago, I peed in a snowbank and the pee looked really dark.
Doctor: And…
Patient: I got worried so yesterday I peed in the snowbank again. This time it was red.
Doctor (completed unfazed): What shade of red? Dark red, bright red…?
Patient: Pretty dark. At least it looked pretty dark against the white snow.
Doctor: OK, I think we’ll need a sample.

I just hope the guy wasn’t freaked out by having to go in a cup instead of on his favourite snowbank.

I’m Porn Again

So it was my birthday last week. I’ve never been one of those people who bats their eyes and says demurely, “Oh, don’t get me anything—it’s just another day after all.” It’s NOT just another day. It’s an awesome day, a day on which I get presents, and I LOVE getting presents which is why I could never be a Jehovah’s Witness. Well, one of the reasons anyway, because they aren’t supposed to drink unless it’s in ‘moderation’ and if you know me at all, you know I never do ANYTHING in moderation. But the presents are a dealbreaker—I mean, even Jesus got presents and also, he never showed up to a party without wine, and if he ever did, he would just wave his hand like a messianic Jedi, and make wine appear, because Jesus understood both hospitality and the importance of refreshing beverages at a party. I myself had several refreshing beverages on the evening of my birthday, starting during the Zoom call I had with my former colleagues where I was the only one drinking, but then again, I’m the only one retired so I guess that’s my prerogative. It was lovely to see them and it reminded me of the old saying, “The more things change, the more they stay the same” because in my former workplace, we had a porn floor, and once again, in my part-time job, I’m having to deal with the world of adult wonders yet again.

Now, to refresh your memory, the 16th floor in my former office building was commonly known as “the porn floor”. There were two production companies on the 16th floor: Bump N Grind Media and Pink Lady Productions. Whenever we were in the elevator and someone got on and pushed the button for the 16th floor, we all gave each other knowing glances, and later we speculated about what the person’s “role” might be. Sometimes, it was obviously an “actress” or “pizza delivery boy”, but occasionally it would be a short, balding man that we dubbed “the producer”. There was also a guy in the building that we called “Vaping Elvis”, although to be honest, he looked more like Buddy Holly. He had dark glasses and black, slicked back hair. He was slightly paunchy, and always wore a long, black leather coat. He stood right outside the building doors vaping every day, even though the sign CLEARLY stated that you couldn’t smoke within 9 feet of the doorway. We always assumed that he worked on the porn floor as a creepy-ass director or something, but one day, he got off on 8 (that wasn’t a pun or a euphemism. He exited the elevator on the 8th floor, you perv).

And now, my workplace is once again rife with porn-y things. Last week, I was walking by a booth in the antique market that sells wooden letters, and as I passed, I realized that someone had rearranged them so that they spelled out the word ‘BOOBIES’. And while you may remember the joy with which I posted about my digital car odometer finally landing on 80085, it WASN’T me who rearranged the letters in such a naughty way (although I DID do this to a moveable hand when I was out shopping with a friend on Saturday because I’m 56 now and that’s how I roll, and also since I took the picture and the copyright is mine, I hereby authorize any of you to use it as needed:)

Then further down the aisle, in a booth that sells comic books and action figures, I was shocked to discover that someone had posed Ironman and Superman into an extremely compromising position. After re-randomizing the letters and getting Ironman up off his knees, I went back to the front counter, only to be engaged in conversation by a vendor who regaled me with stories about how he has to put brassieres on the mannequins in his booth because he ordered them sight unseen and they turned out to have come from an adult novelty store, resulting in them being VERY well-endowed which, in turn, regularly causes the local high school kids to unbutton the mannequins’ blouses and take pictures of them when they think no one is looking.

So it occurs to me that if my new job is as porn-y as the last, then maybe we need to rename the company, and here are some suggestions:

1) He Shoots, He Scores Inc.

Canada IS a hockey nation, so what better moniker for a porn store than this one?

2) The Blue Pages

If you’re an educator where I live, you regularly get a magazine where all the teachers who’ve done naughty things are featured at the back on blue pages, so this name is bizarrely apropos.

3) Pour Some Syrup On Me-dia

The guys who run the place where I work are pretty ambitious, so I could totally see them branching out into films as well. Also, in my last novel, I had a minor character who was a Canadian drag queen and I named her Mabel Syrup, and if that isn’t the best name for a Canadian drag queen ever, I don’t know what is.

4) My Little Pony Productions

Every film features a miniature horse just standing in the background somewhere. Don’t ask me why.

5) Existential Butt Films

Motto: “Dirty and Full of Dread”.

Bom chicka wow wow.

How Much Is Too Much Information?

As you know, quite often I buy and sell things on Facebook Marketplace, particularly if it’s something large that I don’t have room for in my booth at the antique market. I wouldn’t mind expanding, and there are spaces available at the market where I just started working, but I’m not sure about that because last week I had a really weird dream. When I left the secret agency, they threw me an amazing retirement party, with a Kudo board and a slide show, a Kahoot game where people had to prove how well they knew me by answering multiple choice questions for points (apparently when I’m concentrating and looking for a file on my computer for someone, I sing “doo di-doo, doo di-doo”, which was something I had no idea I did until it was pointed out to me, and then I realized I, in fact, do this, and that revelation was both hilarious and embarrassing). They also got a pipe band to play for me virtually, and wow, did I cry. And then I started my new part-time job and I hadn’t even been there for a week when I dreamed that they were throwing me a retirement party as well, but nowhere near as good as the first one I had. I was in the lunch break room and there was a large Bristol board poster that said Happy Retirement, and a bunch of signatures that I didn’t recognize, because I’ve only worked there for 6 days in total. There were photographs on the board but I wasn’t in any of them because again, I’ve only worked there for 6 days. And in the middle, in large letters, there was the heading “Famous Quote”, which was presumably something I was renowned for saying, and under it were the words, “I’M LEAVING.” Because I hadn’t worked there long enough to be famous for saying anything else, I guess. I woke up laughing hysterically and thought “At least no one noticed that I say doo di-doo.” So maybe it’s an omen, who knows?

 At any rate, last week, I talked about the set of silver that I found. It was filthy and tarnished but I polished and under all that tarnish, it was beautiful. It’s a huge set with 12 place settings and four servings pieces—64 pieces overall, and way too big to fit in my booth, so I put an ad on Facebook Marketplace for it.

Here’s the ad copy that I used:

Gorgeous Italian Silverware

Gorgeous vintage Italian silver silverware set in wooden case, just in time for Christmas. 12 place settings plus 4 serving pieces. Freshly polished and ready to use. Located in (my town) Ontario.

It’s a very clear ad—the description is IMMEDIATELY BELOW the heading, and it’s accompanied by 5 photographs. And here are the top ten questions I got about the ad I posted, all from different people, and my responses:

1. Is it silver?

Yes, it’s silver. If you mean, is it sterling, no—it’s silver-plated.

2. Is it English?

No, it’s Italian.

3. How many place settings are there?

There are twelve plus 4 serving pieces.

4. (Follow-up) How many pieces is that altogether?

64

5. Where are you located? (I got 3 of these questions).

I’m in (my town).

6. Are you in (my town)? (I got two of these questions).

Yes.

7. Is this vintage or is it new?

It’s from the late ‘70s so it’s vintage.

8. What’s the case made out of?

Wood.

9. Is it still available? Can I have $50 for it?

You want the silver and you want me to pay you $50? No, sorry.

10. Mine where’s your place?

(I didn’t respond to this one—was she implying that I’d stolen it from her and she wanted it back? And if so, I’d already said in the ad where my ‘place’ is.)

I also got a message from a woman who liked the silver but didn’t want to buy it—she just wanted to know how I got it so shiny. She seemed nice and didn’t ask any more ridiculous questions so I sent her the recipe I got off the internet and she was really grateful. I just hope she actually reads it and doesn’t just plunge everything into sulfuric acid, as one does.

Ultimately, I sold the set to a woman who asked many of the same questions and offered a lower price, but I was exhausted so I counter-offered closer to my asking price. She accepted and e-transferred me the money to hold it for her until next Tuesday. I just hope she knows where I live.

We were both exhausted.

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!

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.

Simple Distractions

There’s a particular meeting we have every week at work. And because it happens every week, there’s a rotation schedule identifying the two co-chairs, which changes every three months. So imagine my surprise last week, having failed to look at the rotation chart in A VERY LONG TIME, that I was now one of the co-chairs. But I made a deal with my partner—he would organize the meetings, and I would take the minutes. Now, this sounded great in theory, but I had forgotten that I am literally SURROUNDED by things designed to distract me. And I’ve found that, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve become more easily distracted, not that it’s a bad thing:

Ken: No, I don’t agree.
Me: Oh, for god’s sake, Ken! Why can’t—ooh, is that a bottle of Chardonnay?
Ken: Yes. Yes, it is. Would you like a glass?
Me: I’d love one. Now what were we talking about?
Ken: Who knows.
Me: Cheers!

So anyway, there I was at the virtual meeting, cleverly taking notes by typing everything into Word and then copying and pasting into the shared document that everyone could see. That way, I could proofread first and correct any errors before the rest of the group could notice them. Also, I took a certain amount of pleasure in the thought that my colleagues, seeing the blocks of text magically appear, would now believe I could type incredibly fast, like it was my superpower or something. But then, just like a superhero, my kryptonite happened. One of the group began adlibbing about something that WASN’T EVEN ON THE AGENDA, and because I was in the shared document, I was scrambling to follow along and type as he spoke. Simultaneously, I looked up and realized that there was a GIGANTIC F*CKING INSECT on the curtain directly in front of my laptop and I didn’t know if it was a cricket or potentially a cockroach because I’ve never actually seen a cockroach except on Hoarders and it looked like it MIGHT be one and how the HELL did it get into my house, and I completely stopped listening and began frantically texting Ken for ‘Hep!!”:

And Ken, being the excellent husband he is, came charging down the stairs, cupped his hands around the giant bug and carried it outside, at which point, the person in the meeting who had gone rogue with his agenda item said, “Uh, Suzanne—that’s not what I said” and I kind of stuttered, “Oh sorry, I was just…doing something” and I’ve never been so happy that my camera was off in my life. Which it has NOT been on several occasions, including later last week when a mosquito flew into my face and it took me several attempts to kill it, much to the amusement of the other people in the meeting I was attending who had stopped speaking to watch the spectacle. “Did you get it?” asked one of the directors. I had, in fact, so at least there was that.

And so, I leave you with the profound wisdom of this saying that I saw on the side of a truck the other day as I was driving down the highway: “Geniusness is not a flavour, we claim it by our own experience.”

I have no idea what this means and I’ve been trying to think that, if it’s a literal translation from another language, what might the original be? Just like when the Chinese translate American movie titles and they come out sounding both weird and hilarious, and some of them completely spoil the plot:

Seabed General Mobilization (Finding Nemo)
Interstellar Special Ability Team (Guardians of the Galaxy)
One Night, Big Belly (Knocked Up)
Satan Female Soldier (GI Jane)
Earth And Comet Collide (Deep Impact)
He’s A Ghost! (The Sixth Sense)

There are a ton more of these you can google and they’re all stellar.

In other news, I’ve mentioned my new novel, The Seventh Devil, a couple of times so here’s an update: my publisher, Bookland Press, loved it and they currently have it available for pre-order on all the Amazons (including Brazil and Japan) with a release date of June 15th 2021. And because I’m a control freak and have an aversion to stock images, I’ve been toying around with a couple of cover ideas. Luckily Kate is really a whiz at Photoshop, so she combined photos of my cousin, the daughter of a friend of mine, and a picture that Ken took of a swamp road. I really like the first one, but the publisher said they’d prefer something more “devilish, so here are the two options. Let me know what you think!

Also, here’s the updated synopsis if you’re interested:

When nineteen-year-old runaway Verity Darkwood, flat broke and devastated by guilt, takes refuge in a bar to escape the unwanted attention of a stranger, she doesn’t expect to meet Gareth Winter, let alone become business partners with him. They discover that they each possess the ability to interact with the world “beyond the veil” and, with the help of Horace Greeley III, editor of the fantastical online journal The Echo, Verity and Gareth spend the next two years on the road, helping the earthbound spirits who haunt their clients to cross over, or exorcising the demons that plague them. But when they stumble upon a series of unsolved child abductions spanning decades which are eerily similar to the circumstances surrounding the disappearance of Verity’s younger sister, they embark on a pursuit that will take them across Canada in their quest to find The Seventh Devil, the dangerous and mysterious figure who may be behind it all.

Sensitivity Training

The other day I was having a conversation with a friend who had posted something on the Twitterverse about HSP, which stands for Hyper-Sensitive Person. We were going through the list of criteria, and I have to admit that as I’ve gotten older, I’ve developed a couple of the symptoms. For example, I hate loud noises. More specifically, I hate vacuum cleaners. Hate is maybe too mild a word. Vacuum cleaners make me want to gouge my eyes out, to the point that, a few years ago, I bought a Roomba. For those of you who don’t know what a Roomba is, it’s a very expensive robot vacuum. It’s not a badass robot with laser beam eyes and super-strength, but it WILL vacuum your carpet when you’re not at home which, at the time, SEEMED pretty badass. It was perfect for me, because that meant the rugs got cleaned but I didn’t have to suffer the torment of listening to it. Things were great for a while—I would put it in the middle of a room, turn it on, then run out the door, leaving it to its robotic devices. Then, inevitably, Ken decided that he was now in charge of the robot, like an evil robot slave master. And he insisted on running it when we were actually home. What’s the f*cking point of THAT? You might as well just use a regular, non-sentient vacuum. I would be in my bathroom, and suddenly the Roomba would grind in, like the Texas Chainsaw Massacre was about to happen. This is not an exaggeration—one time, it actually attacked my feet and I ran away from it. But then it kept coming after me, and it was like one of those horror films where, no matter how fast you run, the killer just keeps on relentlessly coming and eventually catches you. I finally resorted to kicking it away when it would cruise through the room I was in, until finally, it died. I have no regrets. It was evil and alive—it was either kill it my damn self or call in a priest. Ken was sad—he loved his robot vacuum, but that’s the way things go when you want to act like a petty despot—robots get hurt.

Aside from my bizarre hatred of vacuums, here’s another reason why I might have become more sensitive as I’ve gotten older. Apparently, people who are hyper-sensitive always remember everyone’s birthday, because they get very upset with themselves if they forget. Now, for a long time, I was NOT the kind of person who wrote down important milestones in a little diary. I have, on numerous occasions, forgotten the birthdays of my parents and siblings, forgotten my wedding anniversary, and regularly get Kate’s birth year and the year I got married mixed up. But over the last couple of years, particularly after discovering how to use my Outlook calendar, I’ve gotten much better at this, at least for work. Last year, I decided to make sure I remembered all the birthdays of the people on my team. But first, I had to find out when they actually were so that I could record them in my calendar:

Me: Hey, can you do me a favour? Can you go around the office and get the birth dates of everyone on our team?
Colleague 1: What do you want them for?
Me: So I can put them in my calendar.
Colleague 1: Why don’t you just ask them?
Me: I don’t want people to think I don’t already know when they are.
Colleague 1: I think people already know that. You always seem really surprised when there’s cake.

But now, I have them all recorded, and even though we can’t have cake because we’re all working remotely, I have a JibJab account, and I can whip up a card at a moment’s notice, as I almost had to do the other day:

Colleague 2: So, yes, I think that would be a good time to meet about–
Me (looking at Outlook calendar): Oh my god!
Colleague 2: What’s wrong?
Me: It’s Donna’s birthday today! How could I not have seen that? Why did nobody say anything? What time is it?
Colleague 2: Five to 1.
Me: I’m meeting with her and the team at 1! That gives me five minutes. I need to go—I have to make a Jibjab for her!

But then, as I was frantically looking for a JibJab card template that I hadn’t already used (I think ‘Tequila’ has run its course), I happened to look at my calendar and realized that it was set on October, so I texted my colleague, who had already texted Donna to wish her Happy Birthday, to which she had replied in confusion, “It’s not my birthday” to which my colleague then replied, “Sorry, wrong person” and I think we both recovered nicely from the situation.

Also, I’m trying to improve at writing messages in cards. Just like my poor small talk skills, I’m equally bad at card small talk. Some people are capable of writing epic messages, like “He was gone before his time—remember the best parts of him as a tribute to his memory”, or “A happy marriage is a gift from the heavens—you are truly blessed.” Me, I learned a long time ago that I am NOT epic, and I usually just resort to “So sorry for your loss”, or “Congratulations”. Once, I had to write a Thank You card but instead of “We make a good team”, I wrote “We make a good time”. Then I got worried that the person might think that it was some bizarre pick-up line, and I got totally paranoid and ended up throwing the card away, because there was no way to correct THAT, except to start over again. Which is why I like JibJab cards, because you can proofread them before you send them. Still you have to be careful:

Kate: What are you doing?
Me: Making a card for my team. Look, it’s a song called Cake By The Ocean. Nice huh?
Kate: Uh…you might want to reconsider that.
Me: Too sensitive, given the whole covid thing? Because we can’t have the birthday cake at the beach right now?
Kate: NO, because “cake by the ocean” means having SEX at the beach.
Me: ‘Tequila’, it is!

I’m nothing if not sensitive.

Smile, You’re On Candid Camera

Personally, I’m getting a little tired of always being on camera. I don’t mind meeting with my immediate team because they already know I’m wacky, but I think other people are quickly realizing that I’m more quirky than they thought. Last week, I was in a virtual meeting with our CEO and some other directors, and the CEO told us that she used to do psychological testing to determine intelligence and that the first question she would ask was “Does the sun set in the east or the west?” And if you know anything about me at all, you know that I’m directionally challenged and hold tight to my belief that North is up, South is down, and that East and West are randomly ‘out there somewhere’:

Me: How do I get to Home Depot from here?
Ken: Go west on the 401.
Me: I’m a grown ass woman, Ken, not a compass!
Ken: It’ll say right on the sign “401 West”. There will also be an ARROW.
Me: Will “the arrow” be pointing left or right?
Ken: Sigh. Do you want me to take you?
Me: Obviously, Ken.

In fact, the only direction I have ever been able to follow accurately is ‘twist cap and pour’. Anyway, we were at this meeting, and when she asked if the sun set in the east or the west, I was completely befuddled because I COULD NOT REMEMBER and did I ever really know the answer to that in the first place? I mean, I’m a wealth of trivia and regularly run numerous categories on Jeopardy except for Geography, but I thought to myself, “If this is an indication of how intelligent I am, I should know this!” so I started thinking really hard, and using my hands to track the course of the sun across the sky and doing vigorous mental calculations while the meeting continued on, and I had almost figured it out when I realized that one of my colleagues was trying not to laugh, and I don’t know if it was at ME or maybe she didn’t know the answer either. And then later that day in another meeting, I was listening intently as one should when suddenly, a fruit fly started dive-bombing my face and I did what any normal person would do—I started clapping my hands together in the air, trying to kill it but it was very quick and agile so it took several attempts and it wasn’t until it had been handily dispatched that again, I realized the same woman was silently laughing. And I will never know if it was at me or not, because when you’re in a Zoom meeting, EVERYONE seems to be looking right at you because they’re looking at their cameras, and now I think the best indicator of intelligence is whether or not you have your camera on during large meetings.

Also, my camera doesn’t add ten pounds, it adds ten YEARS and whenever I look at myself on the screen, I seem older, sadder, and much paler than I do in real life (at least I hope I don’t look that old, sad, or pale), so you can understand why I’d rather not be on screen.

(Ken just interrupted me to tell me that he caught a mouse in the live mouse trap he had put in the cupboard under the sink. We have a very old house, and every once in a while, one gets into the cupboard. I’ve named him Franklin. Ken’s taking him over to the park where he can frolic with the other field mice.)

Anyway, having to do all interactions, social or otherwise, on camera is getting a bit ridiculous. I’ve been having terrible shoulder pain, so my doctor (who called me on the phone), told me to get some physiotherapy. I called the clinic and they were only doing “virtual appointments”, which meant that I met with a physiotherapist using a type of Zoom.

Physio: Can you point to where the pain is?
Me: Here, here, and here.
Physio: Can you get a little closer to the camera? Like put your shoulder right up to it?
Me: Sure. Is this better?
Physio: A little down to the right. OK. Now, can you swing your arm like this? Hang on, let me just move further back so you can see what I’m doing.

And so it went. She was very nice and emailed me a PDF of exercises I could do, which haven’t helped at all because what I really need is acupuncture or a good massage, neither of which can be accomplished VIA ZOOM. The one thing that IS helping slightly is the new hot tub which is working quite well. The set-up was much more complicated than it needed to be though, mostly because the instructions were like the worst set of instructions I’ve ever seen, and most of them were just links to videos where you could watch a very young girl wearing a very fancy dress perform different aspects of the set-up. Here is a page from the manual that shows you all the parts in the box but doesn’t identify them by name, just by part number. And they are all the same scale, which makes it even more fun to figure out what they are:

This is my favourite page, where it explains what all the functions are the control pad are for:

Notice that they are so small that it’s almost impossible to read without a magnifying glass. In fact, the only thing you CAN read on this page is the warning, in all caps, that the use of alcohol or drugs can greatly increase the risk of fatal hyperthermia, prompting Ken to exclaim triumphantly, “Now I don’t need to build that tiki bar you wanted!” and I was like, “Just put a damn roof on the gazebo and we’ll call it a day, OK?!”

But we finally got it up and running, and it was fantastic:

Me: I love this. It’s so nice to just sit here in the warm, bubbling water and watch the sun set in the…
Ken: West.
Me: Right.

(Ken just got back from the park. He said Franklin scurried off into the high grass without so much as a backwards glance. Live long and prosper, my little rodent friend.)