Tag Archives: Humour

It’s a Bird! It’s a Plane! It’s a Couch for You to Pick Up as Long as You Aren’t Picky

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This couch has seen better days, heck, this couch has seen better decades but if you want a comfortable place to rest your butt, well you’ll need to find another piece of furniture. While this sectional no longer is a good place to sit, it still has lots of life in it as long as you’re thinking outside the box.

Although this couch’s cushions lost most of their padding near the end of the Obama years, you’ll never find a better or more ingenious way to prevent teenage pregnancy. Got a daughter but you aren’t liberal enough to give her birth control pills? Use this couch. The jute upholstery will scratch the back off a teenager faster than a power sander. A short session of chesterfield rugby will leave all participants looking like they were dragged behind a car over a gravel road.

Teach your children tenacity using this couch. One of the recliners stopped working years ago but will still fold out if you yank on the right bottom corner. Another benefit is you can teach your children left from right as you watch them sweat from the effort of yanking on the bottom left corner.

This couch also doubles as emergency rations. After six years of living in a house with young children, it’s absorbed enough yogurt, applesauce and Goldfish crumbs to sustain the country of Estonia for three months. Making it the ideal piece of furniture to pack if you ever plan to be stranded on a desert island or the lone survivor of a mountaintop plane crash.

Though it’s about as comfortable as an unplugged chainsaw to sit on, this couch still has plenty of uses. With the cushions off, the base makes an excellent trampoline. Put the mouthy kid from next door on the spot where the metal wire sticks out. I doubt they’ll come around anymore.

Having trouble convincing your friends that you’re cultured? Proudly display the artistic petroglyphs made from Babybel cheese wax on the back of the couch. In theory the drawings could be washed out but at this point, dirt and a couple lone stitches are all that’s holding this thing together.

This formerly fine piece of furniture would be a great asset to any home with preschool age kids. Not only do the cushions make a better fort than padding for your rear, but the stuffing makes great impromptu snow storms. Plus there’s no concern of wrecking the cushions because this couch is a cat that used up all of its nine lives then went and borrowed from the bank.

This much abused, former beauty can be all yours providing you show up with two large men and a truck. It’s free but let’s be clear here- no refunds or returns.

Life at Crisis Point During a Pandemic – As Written For High School Students Studying Canadian History in 2084

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Dearest Highschooler,

I am so sorry that you have to read my ancient blog post. I’m not sure what the internet looks like now but I imagine my words to be projected directly into your brain. My sincerest condolences; sometimes I don’t want my own words in my brain either if it makes you feel any better.

Please also allow me to apologize for the fact that you are not making out with the hottie who sits behind you in English. Again, I too would rather that the 2020 pandemic had not happened thus freeing up your time and your tongue for more attractive activities, but since it did, let’s get down to business.

As of today we are eight months into the pandemic here. The last ‘normal’ day was St. Patrick’s Day. I don’t know whether you still have that, it’s a day for binge drinking and making bad decisions under the guise of celebrating part of Europe. Even then, St. Patrick’s Day wasn’t normal. Everyone sat perched on a sharp edge, as though waiting for catastrophe to arrive.

It never did.

Manitoba – it’s a province, we cut Canada into pieces and then claimed that everyone needed different things; Alberta needed oil, B.C. needed hippies to eat organic produce, Manitoba needed winter coats, and Toronto, or as some might call it, Ontario, needed tiny, expensive condos to bankrupt their residents, there were other provinces too but they weren’t important – my home shut down early and hard. Kids were out of school for six months including the summer. People were fearful and stayed home. As a province, Manitoba did really well, our case numbers were very low – there was even a period of two weeks when there were no new cases of COVID.

Then the fall came.

People started gathering inside. We still weren’t sure of how the virus was spread. Initially in the pandemic people were crazy for disinfectant. Wipes were sold out everywhere. If you saw them, you grabbed them, even if like me, you didn’t use wipes. My still untouched canister of wipes is probably in a museum somewhere – “From the COVID era, wipes were a popular tool to combat coronavirus”. People were bonkers, they were disinfecting everything in sight. I even read an account of a man who froze his morning paper to kill the virus because he couldn’t wipe it down.

Finally people started wearing masks. This should have been a turning point in our pandemic fight but it wasn’t. Unfortunately the pandemic came hot on the heels of Trump’s presidency. That man stood for ‘Me, me, me and especially ME!’ What this meant is all of North America was well versed in getting riled up about having their rights violated while trampling other’s freedoms. So not everyone wore masks.

Some idiots even staged anti-mask rallies where they gathered together and all breathed in each other’s fumes while bellowing about how they wanted to hug everyone and the virus was a sham. These same people would end up in hospital killing all the grandmas and grandpas with their negligence because case numbers kept going up and hospital beds were in short supply. Physicians had to make tough choices.

Doctors had it bad but no profession was safe. The teachers were all stressed out because they had to teach online or in person but two meters apart and no one could do any group work or have fun in the classroom. Nurses were stressed out because they were overworked to begin with and kept getting sick. Ditto for the healthcare aides.

If the minimum wage workers hadn’t been laid off then they were working the front lines and were also getting sick. Small business owners were hurting, big companies were hurting because there were shutdowns of entire industries. The only people whose lives were mostly the same were the IT guys who worked from home but even those poor dudes had their work load doubled because everyone was working online now.

And the working online. Dearest highschooler, it was bad. Like French egg bad – oeuf. Picture trying to video-brainmeld with your great aunt Lilly. People had no concept of norms; they’d show up in their pyjamas, they’d have wildly inappropriate websites open on their screens, sometimes they even used the can while their coworkers watched. The can is what we used to call the toilet. You probably have a more sophisticated method of relieving yourself now. You’d think that the virus robbed people of their common sense rather than their smell and taste.

Weeks turned into months, then more and more months ticked over. People got tired of the restrictions. But the case numbers kept going up and hospitals continued to be overwhelmed. Even for the general population, every day felt like waking up in a lead vest – heavy, a slog. There was a kind of worried sadness that permeated every aspect of life. You’d be out in the grocery store and ask how someone was and they’d just stare in silence then shake their head.

When I was your age, I wished for an event as grandiose, life changing and romantic as a World War. This isn’t a war but people are dying and across the world, everyone’s lives have changed drastically. If I could go back in time, I would wish for more fun nights with friends and hot dates.

I’m done rambling now – tell your teacher that you read my words. Now please go make out with someone in your car while wishing for more of the same.

Flying Electronics and Other Talents of My Mother’s

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Does anyone remember Flava-flav?

Flava Flav

This man? Who has ingeniously sidestepped the issue of strangers asking for the time by wearing it around his neck? (Photo Credit : heidibenj.blogspot.com)

He’s a national treasure. Along the same lines as Trump, or that guy who tries to bankrupt rich people by selling them tickets to a nonexistent festival.

Once upon a time, Flava-flav had a reality show. My sister and I loved it. And by loved it, I mean we were university students home for the summer in a place whose night life consisted of going out to the Dairy Queen and searching nearby bushes for our indoor cat when it got out of the house. Brampton is dead sexy, what can I say?

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The place I grew up is this man in city form. Every young person’s idea of a good time. (Photo Credit Twitter)

There wasn’t a whole lot of choice when it came to entertainment.

So there we were crashed out on the couch, and we stumbled upon a Flava-flav’s “Flava Of Love” marathon. I don’t need to tell you just how awesome twenty women competing for this wizened, Viking hat and clock wearing man’s affections are. It was akin to discovering a buffet of deep fried Mars bars. A terrible idea but to a young person, 25 seems ancient so who cares if your bad choices lead to a heart attack in four years? You should dig in. Flava-flav = great. Endless Flava-flav= the best day ever.

My mother did not agree. However my entire life, she abided by Barbara Coloroso’s advice, the former nun’s mantra is “If it’s not morally threating or life threatening: leave it be.”

During the first episode, my mother huffed at the television. In the same manner of an alligator, subtly warning its prey that they’re about to become lunch. The second episode she roared, with such primeval anger that I’m going to continue with the alligator theme – “There must be something better to watch- you change that channel now!”

It may have been the episode where one of the girls takes a laxative and poops on the floor during the Flav-a-flav equivalent of the Bachelor rose ceremony.

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Every facet of the show renders it a timeless classic. (Photo Credit Wikipedia.com)

With the same stupidity and naiveté as tourists, my sister and I ignored the danger signs and continued enjoying the low brow delights that only reality TV can provide.

The third episode is when my mother lost it, and ate the television whole like she was some sort of character out of a children’s story.

Not actually.

But my mom did step in front of the TV and bellow “If you don’t turn this garbage off now, I’m going to chuck the TV.”

Now she had our attention.

  1. Because in addition to being extremely fit, my mom was and still is freakishly strong. I joke about her bench pressing the neighbour’s sedan, but until she proves she can’t, the Grumans park carefully. It was unclear where she was going to chuck the TV; out the window or in the garbage but the fact of the matter is, in the sport of large electronics shotput, my mother is capable.
  2. My mother is a passionate person. And passionate people are unpredictable at times. Where other people jump in feet first, my mother has been known to hurtle herself backwards into life butt first. It makes for better, more interesting entrances. And good photos- as evidenced by all the pictures of my Mom throwing her backside into the ocean while surfing. In addition to being physically capable of throwing the TV out the window, my sister and I feared for the squawk box’s life and could picture our forty inch TV sailing over the deck in homage to my mother’s frustration with reality show culture. Other people might have merely unplugged the television, but my mother, who once bought her friend a live animal rather than a standard gift of perhaps socks, could be relied upon to be erratic at the best of times.
  3. My Dad would have quietly tolerated and accepted the smithereens of electronics laying on our lawn when he returned home. This was the same man who contentedly assumed his fate when in a span of less than a week, my mother, sister and I brought home a skink and two cats in succession. My Dad rocked at rolling with the punches of living with three weirdos.

Consequently, off went the TV. My mother stopped snapping her jaws and ceased bicep curling our couch in preparation for setting the Guinness Record for World’s Longest Television Throw. My sister and I still watched Flava-flav that summer but never when my mom was home.

Happy Mother’s Day Mom. I love you. And all of your quirks. Especially the ones that make for good blog posts. I’m allowed to watch Flav-a-flav type television now, but you’ll be happy to note that my husband sends me to a far corner of the house and forces me to wear head phones.

Also, if you curse me with your standard dastardly spell of “I hope you have a child just like you” please note that you will be called upon to hurl our television out the window and onto the patio when my children watch bad television. My pipe cleaner arms are not designed for shot put of any type.

Please Inscribe “She Did Actually Sleep With Tom Hanks” On My Headstone

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I’m going to die. This house will kill me. Or rather my own decisions will finally catch up to me and I will perish.

There are no less than forty stairs from the entrance to our fourth floor walkup. I know because for the first two weeks that we lived here, I counted every time, wheezing “thirty-one, thirty-two, thirty-three…” because I was certain there were actually 400 stairs. I’ve stopped counting, which means that the house is secretly expanding and I’m actually climbing 372 steps each time to reach our apartment. I swear to you this house is like something out of Coraline.

Beldam

Did I fail to mention this demon lives in our closet? (Photo Credit : coraline.wikia.com)

It may actually only be forty stairs still. Only it’s actually double that number of steps because two year olds turn into a puddle of skin and fish crackers when told they have to exercise. Not unlike myself. So I have to first transport the groceries, or the laundry up the stairs then go back to retrieve Mini-Tex.

 

Halfway through this eighty step process, I start a running commentary: “The Great Unwashed now takes on the biggest challenge of her life- scaling Everest without oxygen. Will she collapse? Will her nose freeze from frostbite and fall off? Will she give up and demand that her two year old return the favor and carry her? The tension is incredible.”

 

For serious, this rental unit should come with a Sherpa. Because did I mention that the laundry is in the basement? Down an additional fifteen stairs? It’s like the universe is taunting me, trying to lure me over to the completely unwashed side, where laundry is cleaned but once a month, if that. Were it not for Tex’s insistence that clothing should not smell like a wild bear that’s rolled in a dead skunk, the diapers wouldn’t have even been washed- I would have just set them by the window to dry.

Please keep in mind that I climb those eighty stairs EVERY TIME I WANT TO LEAVE THE HOUSE. Ok, not every time, when Tex is home, I may collapse on the floor and insist he carry me. Once he finishes Sherpa-ing Mini-Tex back up the stairs. Regardless, on any given day, that is an absurd number of stairs.

Because let’s say for example that I want to do the laundry, go get groceries, return for Mini-Tex’s nap and then take him somewhere fun when he wakes up. That is over five hundred stairs. Unless of course I want to hang out in the basement and murdered by the dungeon goblins that live there.

Death by goblins becomes an appealing concept somewhere after the four hundredth step. Because, if I was dead, I wouldn’t have to climb anymore stairs.

Climbing five hundred stairs in a day does crazy things to a person’s brain. For example: “If I eat my child, I won’t have to carry him up anymore stairs.” Or “I wonder what would happen if I treated this jug of milk like a shotput and threw it up that flight of stairs so I didn’t have to carry it?”

For the record, Mini-Tex doesn’t have so much as a bite taken out of him and I have yet to create a UDFO (Unidentified Dairy Flying Object- because once you start hurling the milk, the yogurt and cheese quickly follows). But still, these thoughts happen.

Now if I’m discovered dead of a heart attack, you’ll know why. And you’ll also know what to write on my tombstone. Underneath in brackets please put “He was better than George.” It won’t matter that it’s not true-I’ll be dead. What will I care? But just think of all the shocked whispers from mourners passing my grave.

Addendum – We have since moved out of the sixth floor walkup celebrity closet however that doesn’t mean I have to stop writing about it. That place was a gold mine for stories and ridiculousness.

Manboobs, Herpes and All The Other Sexy Things That Happened This Week

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Two nights ago, something terrible happened. I developed a large pimple on my back and discovered two sets of bites on my chest. Now to some, a large pimple is not the end of the world. And truly it isn’t. However it’s a bit out of the ordinary for me.

You see, my mother married my father for his nicely shaped nose. It was her plan that her child would have a nice schnoz. But she kept procreating with him for his good skin, hence my sister Diana. It goes without saying that my mother is very vain. The GoFundMe page for her campaign to get a facelift can be found here.

Anyway, the pimple was upsetting, but was the least of my worries. The two sets of bug bites on the other hand brought back my PTSD. Three years ago we had bed bugs. THREE TIMES. I’m going to let the horrific nature of that statement sink in for a little bit before I go on.

The first time was when I was three months pregnant. The second time was six days after Mini-Tex was born and we realized that our apartment building was crawling with them. The third time was a day after the second heat treatment didn’t work.

(And yes, the heat treatments are the only solution that works. Anyone who tells you otherwise is riddled with bugs and living in denial. Once upon a time pest companies used powerful chemicals that caused three headed babies and made kangaroos birth eight toed porcupines in a painful abuse of nature. Those super powerful sprays worked but this hasn’t been the case since “Silent Spring” was published. Now they apply something that’s like Nix shampoo. Wholly ineffective but smells good. Also doesn’t cause babies that look like multi-limbed Hindu gods.)

It would seem that heat treatments were designed for places that aren’t -50 Celsius in the winter. Following this, my little family decided to box up our things and live out of a beat up duffel bag like the dirty, transient people that we clearly were based on the repeated infestations.

Since our third and successful heat treatment, I’ve been a little crazy. And by a little, I mean sometimes I make John Nash look sane. I freeze library books for a week. Anything that comes from secondhand stores is promptly thrown in the dryer for thirty minutes. If it’s plastic, I clean the item with all of the vigor and enthusiasm of Mr. Clean demonstrating the effectiveness of his newest product. These acts of quasi cleanliness of course shock the hell out of anyone who knows me. In the three years since having bedbugs, I’ve ripped apart more hotel rooms than Johnny Depp. The difference is; I put them back together.

The discovery of the bites threw me into a panic. Tex, of course. was on call at the hospital. That’s always where my husband is when anything important happens. During the apocalypse, try his pager; Mini-Tex and I will be sheltering underground somewhere and I of course will have forgotten my phone. So Tex was away, leaving no one to help me, or calm me in my bedbug bitten, acne ridden state.

What followed was a four hour assault on our beds, linens and washing machine. Not one to let the fact that I’m enormously fat and in no condition to be throwing mattresses over my shoulder like matchsticks, I set about stripping all of the beds. (That was my pregnancy announcement for all you readers, because nothing goes together quite like pestilence and replicating oneself. It’s like PB and J really.)

I carefully peeled back mattress covers. I hoisted box springs over my head and studied them like ancient runes. I chucked pillowcases into the drum of our washer with so much animosity that one would have thought they wronged my mother. (No doubt by insinuating that she looked a day over 38.)

At midnight I fell into an anxiety fueled stupor, reliving the horrible weeks following my son’s birth in my head. Being a reasonable person, I of course did not blame my spouse or intimate that he was lazy and awful in any way for not being there to assist me. And I definitely did not send eight texts to this effect because as we’ve established, I am both a reasonable and loving person.

The next morning, the pimple was throbbing. This was the pimple to rule them all. This was my comeuppance for having nice skin throughout high school, my karmic, dermatologic reckoning. Two years ago, I lanced a pimple for Tex. I sent him a message saying that he was to return the favor as soon as he got home.

The pain of my pimple got worse over the course of the day. In my head I pictured all of the bacteria living in the pimple copulating and partying wildly like it was spring break in Panama. During noon hour yoga, I counted down the hours until Tex would lance it. After yoga, I began counting the minutes, picturing my pimple’s demise with the same joy that oppressed people must feel about the murder of their tyrant.

Finally, I could wait no longer and biked Mini-Tex and myself to the park by the hospital to wait for my husband and his happy, stabby scalpel. Only this is what happened instead when he arrived at the playground.

Tex – That isn’t a pimple, its herpes.

Unwashed – Did you just tell me that I have herpes IN A PARK??!

Tex – It’s better known as shingles but yes, all those spots are Herpes zoster.

Unwashed – I have three pieces of bad news for you: 1. You’re wrong 2. We have bedbugs- those are bedbug bites and finally 3. You married someone who now has bad skin and you’re stuck with me and my pustules forever. Now please be a dear and lance the painful bit on my back.

Tex refused. Presumably because he had stopped loving me once he discovered I had bad skin. Next, he tried a different tactic; he got out his phone and showed me pictures of people with shingles and those with bedbug bites.

It was in that moment that I understood how my husband felt when he went to the abstract modern art exhibition with me. Upon discovering me on the verge of happy tears in front of a streaky, colourful painting depicting a garden he whispered “Are you seeing the faces in the coffee grounds?” and then left to find a coffee place.

Tex ~Holding up a picture of a person with shingles~ “Do you see the verticules?”

(Verticules may be a made up word. Whatever he said sounded a lot like that though.)

Unwashed – “No, it’s a gross picture of a person’s skin.”

Tex ~Holding up a picture of bedbug bites~ “Look at the difference in distribution.”

Unwashed – “That is also a gross picture of a person’s skin. Please put your phone away and lance my back.”

Then we decided to give it a rest until Tex wised up and realized I was right, so we headed to the mall to look at the blow up Halloween decorations. Because nothing distracts from pain better than forcing your terrified toddler to touch a vampire Minion. En route, the pain in my back which had been growing all day began to creep up my neck.

Unwashed – “For serious, you need to lance my back. The pain is in my neck now. Also we need to look up where the nearest exterminator is.”

Tex – “You need to go to emerg.”

An hour later, a doctor who works with Tex asked me why my doctor-at-home wasn’t working. Then she suggested that I try turning him off and back on again. After that, she gave me a prescription for an anti-viral to treat shingles and instructions to feed Tex better so he would be an actual doctor to me. She was super confused when I all but bear hugged her out of relief that the spots weren’t bedbug bites. Really, she could have said anything short of “cancer” and as long as it wasn’t bedbugs I would have done an end zone dance of elation.

The pharmacist gave me a joke of a prescription: two giant horse pills that I was to take three times a day for a week. My response was “Sir, do you actually expect me to do that? I couldn’t even remember my birth control pills that were once a day! There was a reason I was five months pregnant at my wedding.” In other news, I now can’t go back to the pharmacy.

Fresh off the high of discovering that we don’t have bedbugs again, I decided to look into this whole “shingles” business and Googled “Shingles in thirty year old”. This was a mistake. As poor a physician as I make, Dr. Google is worse. Apparently shingles pain can become so bad if you get it in your eyes that people commit suicide. That is possibly even scarier than vampire Minions.

I have it easy. My husband caught the infection before most people even know they’re sick. Also it’s on my back, not in my eyes. Consequently my nerve pain amounts to extreme itchiness. Rather than reaching for a gun, I want to find a grizzled oak tree to rub myself up against like a bear.

As it is, I’m going to finally retire to bed- to use Tex as a human scratching post. It’s his punishment for not letting his pregnant, shingles ridden wife turn on the air conditioning in October. For serious, it’s 74 degrees Fahrenheit in here. It’s a sauna, I half expect to hear rocks hissing in the corner and while beer-bellied, hairy men air out their manboobs on my living room couch. And there, while rubbing my husband’s shoulder blades against my rash, I will sleep the contented sleep of one who merely has nerve pain and not a bedbug infestation.

 

 

 

For those of you who actually clicked on the link to my mother’s alleged Go Fund Me facelift page, you will note there is no such site. I debated creating one in jest but decided that it was too mean and was also nervous that people might donate because unlike my mother, I like her face just the way it is. I think she looks lovely. To quote Shane Koyczan, Canada’s premier poet (meaning that no one has any clue who he is), “[Childrens’] definition of the word beauty begins with “Mom”.”

Things Travel Guides Ought To Tell You About Newfoundland

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  1. It’s always referred to as “the Rock”

This makes the place sound sexier than it is. In our extensive travels of the island, I met no former pro wrestlers. This would have been disappointing if Dwayne Johnson was my type, as it is, I’m partial to Pierce Brosnan and his squinty eyes. Also it should be called “the Cliff”, there were hills everywhere. I thanked the fates that we chose to bring an umbrella stroller because I forget to put on the safety strap when using the nice stroller and it tends to roll away on me. I would have spent the entire time speeding down hills after the Bob had we brought it. Also, at one point in Cornerbrook, I’m fairly certain we were walking perpendicular to the ocean. The city is built into the side of a cliff.

  1. It is Hawaii of the North but don’t tell the locals this- they’ll injure themselves from laughing so hard and then you’ll feel badly for harming the Newfoundlanders because they were so kind.

Mini-Tex made friends with bunch of firefighters and got to drive two of the big red trucks. While my son and I were waiting for a firefighter to return with a giant prize bag of firefighting related goodies and a personalized hat, I shared the Hawaii comment with the rest of the fire company. Once EMS finished stitching up the firemens’ sides after they busted a gut laughing, I shared that as long as one dresses for the cold, the outdoors are pleasant and that the untouched beauty of the island reminded me of Maui. They still looked at me like I had three heads. What can I say? Rugged, wild landscapes are my thing, regardless of climate.

  1. Newfoundlander is a synonym for Mother Theresa

In the same way that Canadians wear pins of the flag abroad, I feel like Newfoundlanders should have some sort of distinctive marking to let others know that they’ll give the shirt off their backs and then apologize for shivering. We encountered countless kind people, but the ones that stood out were the firemen, the Airbnb host who made us stuffed squid for dinner just so we could try local food and the park ranger who took her lunch break to drive home, get us her daughter’s toys and three pairs of snow shoes from her personal collection. The ranger lent us all of this during our stay.

  1. If given the chance, the island will kill you and swiftly bury the remains. In snow.

Tex and I are outdoorsy; we’re accustomed to signs like “No cell signal. Be self-sufficient”, or having to make a call to his parents or the ranger to say that we’ve made it out of the bush safely. Newfoundland took this, and ratcheted the difficulty and fear level up about thirty-seven thousand notches. There’s nothing quite like avalanche warnings with accompanying messages of “Do you have a pickaxe and collapsible shovel with you?” to make a person question their decision to hike with their baby on their back.

 

We were never in the avalanche areas of course- the map outlined their locations and Tex claims he understood the inscrutable instructions to skirt the danger areas. Had I been traipsing through the wildnerness with anyone else, I would have turned back. As it is, the man has two more professional degrees than I do and I take him at his word. So away we went through deep, deep snow.

 

There’s only been one other time in my life, where I’ve had to cling to various plant life to hold myself onto the mountain while hiking. And that was in Maui, where there was no snow and I didn’t have a two year old on my back. The adrenaline released by the prospect of tumbling off the cliff with your offspring sharpens your reflexes. That said, Mini-Tex loved every minute of it and talks about scaling the 800 foot waterfall.

  1. Seal tastes like wet dog fur

I suggest combining a gram of it with a pound of ketchup to render it palatable. It was Tex’s goal to eat as many forms of wildlife as he could in as many ways possible. We ate moose pie, moose soup, moose burgers, moose sausage, seal flipper pie, seal flipper stew, seal flipper sausage. The man would roast up a porcupine and declare it scrumptious. On occasion, Tex reminds me of Bart Simpson when the cartoon family visits New York City. In the episode, Bart attempts to attract sympathy and spare change from his fellow metro passengers by claiming that he was born without taste buds, then licks a subway handrail as proof. The difference being that my face after tasting seal looks like Bart’s whereas my husband wears an expression of contemplative delight.

None of this is published in the travel guides, but I thought you should know. Also don’t eat seal. It’s not an animal cruelty thing- it’s a taste thing. Even months later, I still sometimes burp the flavor.

Put Away Your Zagat Guide, This is the Country

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I grew up in the throbbing metropolis which is known for having too many people in too small a space. This leads to phenomenon such as line ups, traffic jams and general rage. The last one may just be something I have when in the throbbing metropolis but still. The upshot of this is, I line up. I am awesome at lining up. In addition, I rock at showing up early to avoid the aforementioned line ups.

The country, or the middle of nowhere, where I currently reside has lots of space and very few people. Yet instinctively, I still stick to my learned habits of showing up early and expecting a mad house to events. It’s exactly like the “Field of Dreams” where they say “If you build it, they will come” only there’s nothing built and yet I’m still standing here waiting for masses of people.

For example Santa visits. In the throbbing metropolis Santa is available all day, every day the month of December. Parents cut off their right arms to pay to meet the jolly guy and then turn sideways for the photo to hide their missing limb while underpaid youth wish them “Merry Christmas”. Families wait upwards of an hour for this privilege. This is my normal. This is what I know.

So when I found out that Santa only met twice in December, for only two hours, at what we call our local mall, I expected a madhouse. I debated the merits of the baby carrier versus the stroller in the event that we were trampled in the rush to get to Santa. I ultimately concluded that the stroller could double as an ankle battering ram as well as protection for our son. I made my husband take out fifty dollars in bills because I knew these kinds of places only accepted cash. The four of us, my husband Tex, myself, our au pair and my son had an early supper so we could be there thirty minutes before Santa arrived to line up.

Being from the middle of nowhere, my husband Tex tried to reason with me, saying the five minutes was more than enough time. But he quickly lost that argument because I’m from the throbbing metropolis- we metropolites KNOW we are right. Always.

Supper took a while. As it does with a toddler. Also I insisted on bathing our son and dressing him in a specific outfit and that everyone freshen up. Because I am unreasonable seeker of memories and a tyrant. It’s one of my best qualities. All of this prepping and unnecessary eating meant that we were only twenty five minutes early instead of thirty.

“Go, Go GO!” I shouted to our au pair as our husband dropped the three of us at the entrance so we wouldn’t waste the thirty seconds it took to park. “We’re late!” I cried. I tucked Mini-Tex under my arm like a football and sprinted for the doors slamming through them. There was no time to wait for the slow automatic door to open. We were late.

I ran past the bank and the store that sells tissue masquerading as clothing to teenagers all the way to the giant Christmas tree at the center of the mall to see… nothing. There was no one there except for the sign saying the times when Santa would appear and an empty chair.

One minute later, my husband appeared. “Excellent” he said “There’s no one here, can we go grocery shopping now?”

“NO!” I cried, “The crowds will arrive any second- we have to get into line!”

The urgency in my voice and my statement would have made a lot more sense if there had been more than you know, fifteen people in the whole mall. And by fifteen people, I mean they were all scattered either working or shopping in the stores and clearly not there to see St. Nick.

“Oooooook” said my husband in the “I’m going to leave you to this” way that he does when I get crazy. “I’m going to do our shopping and come back in twenty minutes” Then he and our au pair took off and Mini-Tex and I wandered the vacant mall for twenty minutes. Mini-Tex mauled the Christmas decorations while I was on high alert, ready to start throwing elbows and fighting the throngs of people who would inevitably appear in an enormous group to meet Santa and take up the full two hours so Mini-Tex missed out.

Just so you know, we weren’t the first ones to meet Santa. Five minutes later, at the sound of the jingle bells, a family materialized out of nowhere and rushed Father Christmas. Exactly like I predicted. Then our son had a full five minutes with Santa. I’d like to say this is because he loved Santa so much but it was actually because Santa was smitten with our au pair and tried unsuccessfully to convince her to sit on his lap. Also the whole interaction was free. Well unless you count creepiness as a price in which case Janey our au pair paid dearly.

One would have thought I learned my lesson.

But no. Last week the circus rolled into town. I was unreasonably excited the whole week. Because nothing happens here. Well not nothing, but traveling acts are few and far between. I may have shaken my son awake that morning “The circus is coming!” in an effort to make him as excited as I was.

I had the day planned down to the minute. Every moment was used to ready ourselves for the circus. I bathed. Mini-Tex had a bath. I did laundry so he would have an adorable outfit to wear. If I had owned Spanx, I would have broken those out to ensure attractive and svelte looking family photos. I took Mini-Tex to the indoor playground as soon as it opened and ran him like a tiny greyhound so he’d nap before noon.

My husband got off work early that day. As he walked in the door he shouted “I forgot my phone”. Normally this wouldn’t be a problem except that THE TICKETS WERE ON HIS PHONE. Luckily, thanks to my advance planning, my son and I were ready. So we all hopped on our bikes and cycled back across town to retrieve Tex’s phone.

This makes it sound like a gigantic, athletic debacle, but across town to the hospital where Tex works is all of two kilometers away. However the upshot of this is that we were only twenty minutes early, rather than the thirty minutes that I had planned for.

Biking back from the hospital, I resisted the urge to shout “What’s our time?” at my husband at every stop sign. I remembered the Santa Claus meet and greet. I also calmed myself by picturing a warm, sunny beach. Of course I wouldn’t be lying on it, because even in my fantasies, I realize that such a place would result in my pale skinned death. But I also imagined a giant curtained cabana that I could peek out of at said scene. In between sitting in absolute darkness.

I managed to keep my calm long enough to stop to get Mini-Tex a snack. A hotdog, because he has an obsession with the book “The Pigeon Finds A Hot Dog”. Previous to this, Mini-Tex had never shown any interest in hotdogs and I had actually thrown out two packages because my husband and I don’t eat them either. However they seem like good toddler food so I bought them.

Walking into the tent, I expected bedlam, with parents frantically throwing diapers bags and coats over the bleachers to reserve seats. Instead we were met with strobe lights, the smell of popcorn and a whole lot of empty stands. There were about ten people there.

Even with all that empty space, I was still judicious about choosing where to sit. After all, the tent could fill up at any time. We biked through the back field, so it’s possible we missed a lineup of cars all paying thirty dollars to park. I resisted the urge to walk around the entire tent in order to determine the best vantage point. Instead, I picked a side and a row a little ways up, explaining that even if people filled the rows in front; we’d still have an excellent view.

Then we waited and Mini-Tex finished his hot dog. And requested another. So Tex ran out and returned within thirty seconds with a second hotdog. Apparently not even the concession stand was busy. A handful of people trickled in. Mini-Tex demolished a second hotdog. A clown came around and took photos with all the groups. A family trooped into our section and took up the back row. I tensed up expecting a swarm of people at the last minute.

Mini-Tex requested yet another hotdog. While peering around at the empty rows, I silently vowed to write “The Pigeon Eats Kale Salad”. Then I placed the tiny Skip Hop penguin back pack on the bleacher next to me, silently cursing myself for not bringing a large bag, because no doubt when the crush of people arrived, I’d be smushed up against a large, hairy man who bathed even less often than I did. I asked Tex the time. The show was supposed to start. I scanned the entrance, expecting a stampede of people. The show did not start. Apparently the circus also expected more people.

I silently and smugly congratulated my urban self for arriving early and getting the best spot before all these late comer rural people arrived. Three more people walked in and seated themselves across the ring.

Then the show started and I conceded that I may have to stop being quite so Type A if we’re going to live here for any length of time. Well you know unless we want to be the people who show up an hour before the party starts. But nobody likes them.

Muscly CFL Footballers Drinking Egg Smoothies Make The Best Housemates. Just In Case You Were Wondering.

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I lived with a CFL footballer. Not like lived with as in passing him in the kitchen on my way to the bathroom in the middle of the night being all “Hey Craig, having your 2 AM egg smoothie? Nice. Well I have to pee”, but more like lived with in the same heritage home that had been divided into apartments. Although the egg smoothie bit is totally true, his wife wrote about it on her blog. Apparently footballers get up in the middle of the night and down a glass of a dozen raw eggs. I found this deeply upsetting because

  1. That would give me a wicked stomachache and heartburn
  2. If I’m up in the middle of the night, it had better be for the purposes of consuming something delicious, like my husband’s lunch.

Even though Craig and I were in separate apartments, it still totally counts. I lived with a footballer, that makes me 3,000% more sporty than before. Really ask me about anything athletic- I’ll know the answer as long as it’s “What colour is a football?” and “Why are there names on the back of jerseys?”

Also, I saw Craig a lot. Mostly when he would walk past my son and I while we were playing on the lawn, with me completely entombed in my sun protective gear looking like I was on my way to rob a bank that had a rule requiring people wear large hats. Craig, for his part would wave, say “Hello” and act normal, like he always lived with women vampires. I would then wave back while holding a Bubble Guppy and possibly pull down my buff so my voice wasn’t muffled to ask how he was. Regardless, Craig the footballer was super nice which was not what I was expecting.

For starters, he’s the size of a house. I’m fairly certain that once I heard him get stuck in the doorway when he forgot to turn sideways to exit his apartment. No doubt his poor wife had to call the nice European couple next door to help pull him out.

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In my mind it was exactly like this but instead of a cuddly bear, it was a giant, muscly footballer. Also his wife is significantly more comely than rabbit. Photo Credit : deviantart.com

This hunch was confirmed when Craig showed me the tennis ball that he had hung from the ceiling to remind himself to duck before entering the bathroom because he bumped his head on the doorframe so often. Heritage homes were not designed with men the size of houses in mind.

Between his physique and career choice, I half expected him to be constantly pulling the legs off of creatures as a demonstration of his strength because he LOOKED like a man that could do that. Like some Gaston come to life, who would, in addition to eating five dozen eggs, would remove the limbs of eight dozen crabs and fry them up as a snack.

Given that Craig is a celebrity who appears on national television, I also expected him to be aloof; instead, when I asked him if he would sign a ball, he offered to take it in for the whole team to sign it! I NEVER would have thought to ask for this. For starters, I thought that kind of thing only happened to people with either a terminal illness or a lot of money. While my vampire-ism is unsightly, it’s not deadly, and being a stay at home mom is not the highest paying job I’ve held.

As it was, I had already purchased a ball. A basketball, because my Dad thinks I’m funny, and likes my jokes. And while all of the Blue Bombers’ signatures would have been neat, I didn’t live with all of them. And only Craig attempted to high-five my son. So his signature seemed far cooler to me.

Hence why Craig very kindly inscribed his name and number on a basketball for me, along with the message “I hope your grandsons know more about football than your daughter.”20180627_181224

This may possibly be the only photo of Craig on the internet holding a basketball. Also, he forgot to angle himself in the doorway, so when he flexed his biceps after the picture was taken, he became lodged in the doorway again. It took a crow bar and a container of bacon grease to get him out.

Also please note how humble this man is, the message is written in tiny letters, as if he expected me to take it to all the other celebrity athletes I know to have them sign too. Happy belated Father’s day Dad, this may also be your birthday gift because I’m desperately disorganized.

Forget Locking Up Your Daughters, You Need To Lock Up Your Washers

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So a couple of weeks back, I did something bad. Not like murdering someone and tossing the body under a bridge bad, but worse than stealing Tex’s car keys so I could secretly eat Halloween candy for breakfast. (He locks our Halloween candy in the car because I’m like a devious, curly haired raccoon.) I broke our washing machine.

To be fair, Tex gave me permission to do it. Because when I held up our bathmat that had seen better, cleaner days, and asked “Can I wash this in the machine?” Tex replied “Yes”. So he’s an accomplice in the death of our washing machine. I would like you all to remember that when the Maytag police show up at my door. Yes, our son will be an orphan but at least I won’t go to appliance prison alone.

But the thing is, I’ve done this before. Not washed our bath mat, but when we were staying in the walk-in closet a couple of months ago, the place came fully furnished. Complete with a bathmat that was proving the theory of evolution every single day by spawning new and disgusting creatures for Tex and I to squish under our feet.

trash heap

(This trash heap from the The trash heap from the Fraggles was cleaner and less concerning than the walk-in closet’s bathmat. Photo Credit: youtube.com

I’m the Great Unwashed. I freely told my doctor that I only bathe once a week. I regularly let my son cover himself head to toe in dirt and then send him to daycare like a living, breathing Pig Pen. However, this bathmat was a whole different, more gag worthy version of dirty. One that I am not comfortable with.

That’s saying something.

The bathmat was so dirty that you could feel bacteria wrapping their mutant tentacle arms around your toes when you stepped on it. Like a horror movie crossed with science fiction. Had I left the bathmat as it was, it undoubtedly would have inched its way to our bed during the night and suffocated us in our sleep. It was maybe eight days away from forming intelligent life.

So I washed the walk-in closet’s bathmat. I didn’t have high expectations. In fact a part of me expected the creature to spawn in the water so that when I came back down, it would have sprouted legs and taken off with the washing machine, dryer and the random giant painting of a pear in the basement.

A better option would have been to use fire. Or even better Tex’s ray gun that he still claims doesn’t exist. Although undoubtedly Tex would deem that washing a bathmat was an inappropriate use for a ray gun. As it was, all I had was a washer. So I threw the sucker in.

It was so disgusting I may have used tongs to transport it downstairs. Then I said goodbye to the washing machine, dryer and the random painting. But forty minutes later when the cycle finished, lo and behold the washing machine was still there. And after drying- it looked like a whole new mat. Complete with a different colour! Like entirely different. I still shudder when I think about the degree of change.

The whole point of that new life form filled story was that I have successfully washed bathmats before. And also if pushed I can kill entire civilizations. But only those living on towels.

Fast forward two months when we are back at home in our house. While washing our bathmat I discovered something- bathmat washings are not like cats. Both in the way that you can’t put bathmats in the crate, spray water at them and hope for the best like my sister did once with one of our cats; more in the way that cats have nine lives and apparently a person only gets to wash a bathmat successfully once in their life.

I washed our bathmat and destroyed our washing machine.

Like completely destroyed it.

Part of me wished that I had ruined the walk-in closets washing machine because there were six other units in the building so I could have walked away and pretended it was someone else. But no, it was OUR washing machine, in OUR house and there was only one person who could take the blame.

There was water sitting in the drum. There were little bits of rubber everywhere. And I could tell that this rubber-bitty situation continued all the way through the washing machine’s innards. “Tex?” I called, inhaling deeply to mentally fortify myself before admitting my mistake, “I, um, I did something bad.”

The next three hours were my and Tex’s punishment because I had to put our son to bed by myself while Tex took apart every single piece of the washer and laid it out on our basement floor. Then he swore. And not in the normal Tex way, when he uses curse words as exclamation points. For example “It’s a &%$@ing beautiful day!”

No, this was more of an angry pirate, on a sinking ship, fighting a giant shark for his peg leg kind of swearing. I’ve never heard the word “tree” included in a curse before. Once or twice, I’d poke my head around the stairs and ask ruefully whether I could help. Then Tex would sigh, mutter another new profanity into the belly of our former washing machine and say “No, just go upstairs and never wash another bathmat again.”

It took him three hours to fix the washing machine.

Three hours.

Nothing takes my husband three hours. The man is a farm boy, engineer, doctor, black smith who knows how to pick locks. I’m not even sure his ray gun took him that long to put together. Although he swears up and down that it doesn’t exist.

And we’re getting to the worst part.

The repair didn’t work.

Well, not the first time.

Tex of course successfully ran a test load of laundry. And then I ran a load of laundry and everything was fine.

But then, oh then, my parents came to visit. Which everyone knows is a completely stress free experience for all involved, and when I washed the sheets, a little bit of water trickled out the bottom. I ignored it. Because I make bad decisions like that. Regularly. And I’ve been known to get a little splashy with the liquid soap sometimes. Also did I mention we have a two year old? I found a chunk of banana in my shoe the other day. Stuff happens. A little water can be ignored.

But then I made the mistake of doing two loads back to back. And then there was a puddle. One large enough to soak my socks if I wore socks. I brought my mother into my confidence. “You mustn’t tell Tex” and she agreed especially after I told her about the tree curse word thing.

Previously, in my life, when my butt sat much closer to my back and I didn’t have weird lines in between my boobs that may or may not be wrinkles, I didn’t do laundry often. And by “not often” I mean, I wore things three or four times until I determined that they smelled (OK, maybe five or six). I worked at many different job sites so wearing the same outfit the entire week wasn’t an issue. The point is- I am accustomed to being a little dirty. I am after all the Great Unwashed.

By contrast, Tex might as well be known as the Obsessively Cleaned. He loves washed clothes. He attacks stains with the same vigor and effort that Mr. Clean would if he showed up at your door, all bald, shiny, and grinning.  For the record it’s equally disturbing to watch.

There was only so long that I could put off doing laundry. If Tex had been away, my son and I might have gone months. I mean at some point, when the stink lines coming off my and my toddler’s body became visible, I might have sprayed some Febreeze, but then we would have been fine for another month. As it was, I got a week in before I was forced to tell Tex.

Happily, he fixed it in an hour. It’s been working since then. Now everyone knock on wood for me.

 

If This Isn’t Contraception I Don’t Know What Is

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Greetings from the center of the sun. Or as I like to call it “home”. In a fit of insanity, I chose to live in a fourth floor walk-up that’s the size of a celebrity’s walk in closet. The kicker is NOT the forty steps up to our suite, no, it’s the lack of air conditioning.

So we’ve all become nudists. Mini-Tex has stopped saying “Mommy! Your pants! Find your pants!” when I walk around now. We can all just sit on the couch in a partially-clothed, over-heated heap. The newest toddler game has segued from jumping on the couch to sticking himself to the couch. Given that he was always wearing clothing before, Mini-Tex only just discovered the joy and entertainment of peeling bare skin off vinyl. A trick he repeats over and over in the way two year olds do.

For some strange reason when Mini-Tex goes to bed, my husband and I don’t find the same glee in unsticking our bare skin from the couch.

Fun Fact– Air conditioning changed the timing of babies. Previously people didn’t want to bang-a-lang when their goolies were all sweaty, so fewer babies were born in April and May. But with the advent of central air suddenly people were bumping uglies year round and there were more spring babies. True story.

Tex and I lived this fact the other night. So it was 35 degrees Celsius outside and approximately 7,000 degrees in our apartment. Mini Tex had demanded the fan be moved to the bedroom so my husband and I were left to sweat it out in a sticky, mostly naked mess on the couch. Sounds hot right?

You better believe it was. I mean I was lying there, completely motionless and yet beads of sweat still were forming under my eyes. If that isn’t hot, I don’t know what is. The couch is small, so my legs were draped over Tex. He put a hand on my knee, then moved it to my ankle and uttered the words every woman desires to hear. “Your entire body feels like a dog’s nose- vaguely moist and clammy.”

My God, it was like the trilogy of Fifty Shade of Grey right there in one sentence.

“You know,” I responded “now would be as good a time as any to experiment with ice cubes”.

“Do we have ice?”

I snorted. “This place doesn’t have a pot with handles. Do you think there’s an ice tray?”

“There are frozen peas.”

The prospect removing a package of frozen peas to cool myself was attractive, but liable to be messy given my habit of tearing into the plastic bags like a cougar ripping into a gazelle. It makes for a lot of large and oddly shaped holes, which would make for many tiny, frozen marbles on the floor. I shot down the idea “Nope. The pork chops could defrost on my stomach though.”

In the end, we stole the fan back from a sleeping Mini-Tex and lay on the couch thinking about all the celibate couples like ourselves before the advent of air conditioning.