Kinda like horse hooves, but in the mouth?

I came home today to do some laundry (Sunday is my officially unofficial laundry day) and found the laundry room in disarray once again. And just in case you guys thought I was over-reacting, I took some pictures.

This is what I see when I come in the door. Except, my clothes aren’t in the washer yet, because she had a bunch of stuff in there.

That table is about 6 feet long.

On the upside, I found plastic martini glasses when I was shopping today. I’ve been looking for those for a couple years… Now I can bring them on camping trips so when I’m drinking girlie drinks they look all fancy and stuff but without risk guarantee of breakage.

I Heart Foosball

I just wanted to put my love foosball out there. This post is, in no way, shape or form, related to foosball; this post is about painting. I recently painted this cabinet/chest thing of mine and it reminded me of my grandmother. Painting always reminds me of Granny.

Granny wasn’t exactly a Domestic Diva; as illustrated in this post when she gave me a raw hot dog for lunch. Thanks Granny. Even though she wasn’t known for cooking, or cleaning, or grocery shopping, there was one thing she did more often, and better, than most everyone else. And that thing was painting.

Nearly every year, Granny would paint her kitchen. Other rooms too, but for some odd reason she was painting kitchens more often than not. One time she was ‘house sitting’ when my mom was out of town for a week; she painted. My mom came back to a blue kitchen… hope you like the colour, Lolo.

Needless to say, it was very common to see Granny with a paint brush in her hand while we were growing up. Kids being kids, and always sticking their noses in where they don’t belong, naturally me & Danny wanted to help.

She always humoured us and let us. She’d give each of us a paint brush and we’d go to town.

Granny loved it, I swear. She would always say admiringly how we had 3 generations of painters in the family. Granny called us “The Three Painters”. Very original, I know.

I think painting appealed to Granny for the same reasons mowing the lawn appeals to me:

1) Fulfillment from a hard days’ work – you work hard, but it looks so much better afterwards, it was worth it. Granny was always talking about ‘elbow grease’ and things that build your character or put ‘hair on yer chest’

2) Instant gratification – you can see the difference as soon as you put the roller to the wall, or the mower to the lawn. You can also see where you left off, which is helpful, considering…

3) Beer breaks – you can have as many as your little heart desires, providing you still get the job done* (*neatly when painting; *safely when mowing)

After we completed enough work for the time being, Granny would announce a beer break. We’d all put down our brushes and rollers and take a break. Granny would crack a cold one and start drinking; me & Danny would… well, ask for some!

She always humoured us and let us. She’d give each of us a glass (with ‘just a wee bit’) and we’d go to town.

Eventually, we came to like the taste of beer, and even though we had a combined age of 9, we managed to figure out:

One day, she was painting and we were helping (big surprise), Granny announced it was time for a beer break, so we all gathered around the table and had a glass of beer. When we got back to work “the roller had barely touched the wall when…”

Danny declared it was time for a beer break. Granny was never one to turn down a beer, so she played along and we had two beer breaks in a row. Epic day! Danny (being the lush he is) tried to pull it again. Granny was of the “fool me once…” mindset, so she didn’t play along the second time.

Granny retold that story time and time again; I think it was her favorite memory of The Three Painters. My favorite memory of The Three Painters, doesn’t even involve The Three Painters painting. Wrap your head around that.

One year at Christmas, Granny was decorating the house; me & Danny came out from playing just as she was getting off a ladder. Granny had strung up a silver garland across the living room ceiling; she asked us how it looked, we said it looked good. I don’t think she took us very seriously though, because the next time we came out from playing:

Granny: So – how does it look?

…

Danny: Oh – we saw it already.

Me: No – it’s gold now!

Danny: Oh – you changed it.

Me: No – she painted it!!!

…

…

Granny: So – how does it look?

 

 

Big thanks to EliseArt for providing illustrations

Guilt. Is there anything you can’t do? We’ll be right back.

The following excerpt is a comment on my last post:

Guess what tomorrow is? The one month anniversary of your last post.

AAAAAaaand, if you don’t post next week, there will be no posts in March!!!

Let me show you a data point of scientific data:
April 2007 (1)
February 2007 (1)
December 2006 (3)
September 2006 (1)
May 2006 (1)
April 2006 (2)
March 2006 (1)
January 2006 (2)
December 2005 (1)
October 2005 (3)
September 2005 (1)
August 2005 (4)
July 2005 (1)
June 2005 (1)
May 2005 (2)
April 2005 (3)
March 2005 (1)
February 2005 (3)
January 2005 (6)
December 2004 (2)
November 2004 (3)
October 2004 (3)
September 2004 (8)
August 2004 (2)
July 2004 (4)
June 2004 (6)
May 2004 (7)
April 2004 (12)
March 2004 (13)
February 2004 (8)
January 2004 (7)
December 2003 (7)
November 2003 (10)
October 2003 (19)
September 2003 (12)

This blog started off healthy enough – and then there were no posts in November 2005! The following months were a write-off (if there were any posts at all) and only a few entries later, it was all over!

Even if it has no illustrations, even if its not your best work, some people need to read new blog entries and not see them head down the haunted path to non-existence.

I failed on the one-month anniversary front, however, I win with a post in March. Go me. I do, however, have one issue with this comment. Let’s face it, I likely have many, many issues with this comment, but I’ll limit it to just one. This commenter is trying to convince me to post using statistics and although it appears to have worked, my issue with it is this: You can prove anything with statistics; 14% of people know that.

So, why haven’t I been posting? Well, I got a new guitar and although she’s really pretty, she’s quite demanding of my time. If I don’t play enough attention to her, she sits in the corner and looks sad. And, I can’t have that.

Also, school. I fear that next semester (also known as the semester from hell where I’d rather curl up under a rock than deal with all the responsibilities and deadlines) will only make things worse. I’m taking three classes. To some, that may seem like a cake walk, to me, it’s a life ruiner. Literally.

I’ve also been spending a lot of time on the outside. It’s a wonderful place with fresh air and animals and stuff. I take my brother and his dog for a walk every week. (which reminds me I should have called to remind him that’s it’s doggie day today). I’m slowly but steadily moving my way up into ‘favorite aunt’ status with his dog. That makes me ridiculously happy.

What else makes me ridiculously happy? Ice-skating. It makes me feel like a cross between a child and a divorcée. Odd combination? Not if you think about it. I feel like a child because I get super giddy when I’m skating. I glide around with (what my brother calls) my shit-eating-grin on my face. I laugh pretty much constantly. High on life – OH! That’s what those after-school-specials were talking about. I wish I discovered this before I discovered drugs and alcohol. I feel like a divorcée because even though I’m living life and having fun, I’m really truly afraid of falling and getting hurt, again.

I think that’s about it. My apologies for sucking it up in the writing arena and big thanks to Gorm for giving me the kick in the pants that I needed to post something. I suppose he’s right, illustrations are not absolutely necessary and this wasn’t my best work. Thanks for that. Happy reading. Yay – new post! 🙂

Soooo…. how was your weekend!?!?! *grin*

Happy New Year! Here’s a quickie* post to tell you something extraordinary that happened to me on NYE. It was a great night!

*note – this was supposed to be quick post, without pictures (because I’m not EliseArt) but then I decided to draw pictures (I’m sorry) and it took me like 2 hours to compile this post.

First, I met up with Karen and we headed to The Keg for dinner and drinks. Mostly drinks. They have this lemon meringue martini that is absolutely delicious. They also had this super special that I ordered and Karen ordered a regular steak dinner and we split all the extras (salad, dessert, CRAB!). It was pretty much the most spectacular dinner ever. But I did regret sharing the crab with her.

After dinner, we went down to the pub to play pool and have some drinks. Mostly drinks. We used to frequent this bar on a semi-regular basis. And by semi-regular basis, I mean we went there once a week, every week, for a year. And a half. So, it’s safe to say that we know people there.

We walked in, and were expecting to see “Tom” behind the bar, but he wasn’t there. He was pretty much the one we went to see, because we knew he’d be there for sure. And then it turns out, he wasn’t. We thought it all might be a bust. But we decided to play pool anyway and see what happens.

Shortly after, Karen spotted “Joanne” on the patio. She came in and said hi and we said we’d see her on the patio in a little while. I technically* beat Karen at pool and this guy had already called winners, so I had to play him.

*note – she was kicking my ass and then accidentally sunk the 8ball. I won by default. (the two greatest words in the english language – De Fault, De Fault!)

I started off pretty good – sunk like 4 balls in a row. It almost looked like I deserved my win. I was pretty pleased. Especially when I did this super trick shot (totally not on purpose); the look on this guys face was “Oh no, I’ve been had”. Once I told him it was an accident, he looked more relieved and then proceeded to kick my ass.

At some point, Karen tells me that “Shaun” is outside with Joanne. We decided that we’d go out and say Happy New Year after I got my ass kicked. We didn’t have to wait long.

We go outside and Shaun says “Hey Girls! What’s happenin’!?”. Not much, not much… we started getting into a place at the table, Shaun says “You might know my buddy Brandon…” Just as I’m about to sit down, the guy turns and looks at me:

I dropped everything and hugged him and said “OH MY GOD – IT’S BEEN SO LONG!!!”. Meanwhile (i.e. simultaneously) he’s having the exact same conversation with Karen. Shaun is at the table, completely flabbergasted, saying “Yeah, so you may know my buddy Brandon…. I guess you might know my buddy Brandon… I guess you know my buddy Brandon…” Too funny.

So Brandon was my brother’s best friend in elementary school and we were really good friends for a lot of years. Realistically, it’s been 15 years since we’ve seen each other. To say it was a total trip to run into him, would be the understatement of the century (or at least of last year). To say that I ran into him, at a bar, that I go to pretty much all the time, seeing him with someone that I always see at this bar… well, you can’t really put that into words. I was shocked; I couldn’t believe it (I can’t believe it). Needless to say, I spent most of the night going “BRANDON! IT’S SOOOO GOOD TO SEE YOU!!”

Shaun routinely hits on me when he’s had a few… dozen, beer that is. It’s harmless; nothing ever comes of it; he works with my dad and is probably terrified. Anyway, at some point, after he reached this point of drunkenness, he said “Ah geez… I wouldn’t have brought Brandon if I knew Heather would be so into him” Or something to that effect.

My reply? “Oh Shaun. Don’t worry – he’s not competition; he’s like a brother to me!”. To make matters worse, Karen leaned over to him and said “Really? … So now what?!?”. How embarrassing; but a great night nonetheless!

P.S. Dustin: Please refer to above pictures; this is the reason I need EliseArt. I’m sure you now understand. Please forgive me for (and be patient of) the time I take out of Elise’s day/life to illustrate for me. I’m positive we now see eye-to-eye on this matter.

Your nose moves when you talk

Okay – so I went to the fishing derby. Unfortunately, the only thing I caught was a cold. Fortunately, I was fortunate enough to eat the catches of others. It’s nice when people share their fish!

This year was quite different than previous years. For one, Chris, the guy who brings us to the fishing derby, showed up sick. He ended up sleeping for 18 hours straight and missed the Friday night gong show. It wasn’t quite the same without him. During the Friday night gong show, two guys decided to play some guitar. My best friend, Karen, said I should join them, but I said no because they seemed all professional and stuff and I didn’t want any part of that.

I wasn’t prepared for what came next, and I was deeply grateful for not wanting to be a part of it. These two guys tuned guitars (unsuccessfully) for at least an hour, enduring the drunken heckles of most of the spectators. At one point, I grabbed my guitar and me and Karen played and sang, while the drunkies bitched about the guys who couldn’t tune a guitar. They didn’t really even realize someone else was in fact playing a tuned guitar. Our campfire sing-a-long just wasn’t the same.

Saturday seemed to be a bit mellow, but we decided to drink our way to a party anyway. But then, Karen up and broke her nose. It was a pee-related event and I don’t think I’m at liberty to say much more than that. Needless to say, she wasn’t feeling like ripping it up after she smashed her face in. Turns out, the party was on that night, we just missed it entirely.

Sunday was the day the derby wrapped up. I didn’t win a door-prize even though that is totally my forte, but Karen did and she chose the prize that I would have chosen, and I’m sure she’ll let me play the drinking game one day, so in a way, I did win. In a very long, convoluted way, that is.

OH AND I GOT BOOTS!!!

This place is particularly muddy down on the banks of the river and since we intended to fish we had to be prepared. On Wednesday, Karen informed me of her intention of buying some gum-boots. On Thursday, I realized that if I wore my hiking boots, I might ruin them, so I texted her during the day and asked if she could pick me up a pair as well. She searched high and low and finally found some cool ones in our sizes. She bought me a pair that she wasn’t quite sure if I would like or not, but figured if I hated them, then we could trade. Luckily, I loved them and we got comments all weekend about how cool our boots are. Mine look like this:

That took far too long to draw and yes, they actually ARE that cool! Keeping in mind I’m not exactly a pink kind of girl, you can imagine why Karen suspected she was giving up her boots. The beauty part is, when I asked her how much I owed her she said “Nothing.” and I said “What?!” and then she said “They’re a gift for being such a great friend!” and I said “Aw, really?! Thanks!!! Now you’re a great friend too!! 😀 ”

Sunday was supposed to be the day where we fished, but since Karen smashed her face in, we went home instead. Despite having not gotten fishing-derby-drunk, and having went to bed by 1am every night and slept until 9am every morning, I was surprisingly tired, so I wasn’t upset.

Monday, when I woke up I realized why I was so tired. I had caught Chris’ cold. I cursed his name and considered calling him to tell him, but I’m not sure if we’re “there” yet, so I let it go. But I’ll likely inform him of all of this the next time I see him.

Let’s see… other stuff happened… but the side story will make this post unbearably long, and no one really wants to read about vomit, so I’ll just leave it at that.

One of the guitar guys, Ken (who had successfully tuned his guitar – yay built in tuners!!), is the person who originally was the campfire sing-a-long guy. Well, we are now friends on facebook and we will be working together to add more songs to our already long set list. So maybe, if all works out, we’ll have a rip-roaring good time next year.

Also, Chris and Tony (the organizers) informed everyone that they are not organizing the derby next year. *major sigh* Our deal with Chris is, he gets us a motor home and we cook for the fisherpeople. Since he’s not organizing next year, we won’t have to cook, so we can actually fish. Bonus! Not so bonus: we’ll have to foot the bill for our own motor home cuz there’s no way in hell I’m tenting it at the fishing derby… not after three years of precedent.

Okay. I think that’s it now.

Big thanks to EliseArt for providing an illustration that has been reused and recycled numerous times. Apparently I pout a lot in my stories. So over-dramatic.

Oh… a troll bidge!

Alright… this weekend is the weekend I’ve been waiting for. It’s been a year in the making, but, finally, it’s here. It’s fishing derby time, boys and girls!!!

A bit of background: I volunteer at all the work events for my dad’s union (ILWU Local 502). So when I say the fishing derby is the event of the season, I mean it! The fishing derby is not exactly volunteer work. Chris, one of the organizers, needed some people to cook, so he asked my best friend to help out. When she found out the night time is comprised of campfire sing-a-longs she knew I had to go. To entice us even more, Chris rents an RV and lets us use it for the weekend. In return, we cook for the fisherpeople. A pretty good bargain if you ask me.

This is the third year that I’ve gone to the fishing derby and the first year where I’ll actually fish at it (what a concept!). But fishing and cooking aside, there’ll be a rip-roaring party every night we’re there. There will be many-a-story about the fishing derby, hopefully some of them are PG enough to make it into a blog. Otherwise, all the poor saps at work will have to hear about it, yet again. Sorry guys! 🙂

Quick – randomly say something random!

I am the 2%. What’s the 2%, you ask? 2% represents the fraction of the general population that have unbelievable things happen to them, things that do not happen to the other 98%. Sounds okay, right? Riiiggghhht.

The 2% has two sides, two extremes. One extreme is: unbelievably awesome things happen to me! Things like winning the lottery or never having a sunburn. The other extreme is: I can’t believe this happened… why me… wwhhhyyyy!?!

I have yet to win the lottery and I get a sunburn every summer. I’m the 2% that gets the shaft. Oh come on, I must be exaggerating… just being dramatic, right? Wrong.

One Sunday morning, I woke up on my friend’s couch with a headache. We’d polished off more than our fair share of booze the night before so I wasn’t so surprised that I was under the weather. What I did find odd was my hands. They felt…. weird.

Upon first inspection they appeared to be slightly red and felt almost numb. I was sure I slept funny and it would just take some time for the feeling to come back into my hands. I was right. But what I didn’t anticipate was that the feeling that came back ended up making my hands feel worse. That and they were swollen. And I mean, sausage fingers kind of swollen. I convinced myself that it was normal and there was nothing to worry about. Denial can be a powerful force.

A little while later, I noticed my pants were chaffing me. They really seemed to be digging into my stomach and it hurt. A lot. And they had an elastic waistband. That’s not quite right, so I inspected my stomach and it was also red. Nothing to worry about here. All is well.

A while later, after changing into some larger pants and they too became uncomfortable, I suspected something else might be happening. I, again, inspected my stomach.

Small raised bumps had appeared. The tell-tale signs of an eminent rash. I was convinced I was having an allergic reaction so I popped a couple anti-histamines and hoped for the best.

The following day I woke up, with swollen hands, a rashy belly and sore feet. But that’s what Monday’s feel like, so I went to work. After spending the day at work, I came to the conclusion that I might have more problems that I originally thought.

I still wasn’t feeling well and I certainly wasn’t hung over. I decided to go to the doctor.

I went to a walk in clinic, feeling a bit like a tool. I can’t believe I’m here just because I have a rash and I can’t make a fist because my fingers are so swollen and why do my feet hurt?… The doctor came in and asked why I was there. I think I’m having an allergic reaction. Why? Well, because I have this rash and look at my hands! He looked me over and asked some general questions: how are you feeling? have you been sick? how long ago did you have this cold? did you have a sore throat? how do your feet feel? They hurt, in fact.

He took some notes, my temperature and then looked at me and said: “I don’t think you’re having an allergic reaction. I think you have scarlet fever. Do you know what that is? I’ve heard of it… I think he realized that I had absolutely no idea what it meant because he explained it to me.

Scarlet fever is caused by the streptococcus bacteria (the one that causes strep throat). Now, certain strains of this bacteria secrete a certain toxin and certain people are sensitive to this toxin and it results in a full body rash. This occurs in roughly 2% of the population. Of people under the age of 12.

Seriously. I had a childhood disease at age 27. Fuck you, 2%.

He wrote me up a blood work order, took a swab of my throat and told me to come back in two days. Scarlet fever, left untreated, can cause kidney failure, so he was pretty concerned about it. He had also never seen anybody that picks out their own clothes get scarlet fever before. I went back in two days and he looked me over again and decided that he wanted to send me for more blood work. He wanted to test me for everything that could possibly cause a full body rash (sounds reasonable), illnesses such as mono (okay, that’s not too bad) and syphilis (what!?!?).

Oh, don’t worry, he said, I don’t think you actually have syphilis, I just want to be sure. Okay… sure… no problem… I’m clean…

I went and had the blood work done and went back to the doctor in two days time to get the results. I had to go in the middle of the day, so I had to leave work and go back after my appointment. At first, I didn’t really consider syphilis as an actual cause of my problems. But then the doctor walked out, went up to the receptionist and said “I need an infectious disease agent on the phone now.” Infectious disease agent? Syphilis is probably an ‘infectious disease’. Oh dear God, I have syphilis. How long have I had it? Can it be treated? Where did I get it from? Who gave it to me? Who have I given it to? Am I going to die?

By the time they called my name to see the doctor I was pretty much sweating bullets and had convinced myself that I was a dirty whore. I went into the examination room and waited. And waited. Oh no, he’s probably waiting to talk to the agent before he comes in here. He finally came in and said: I got your test results. Uh-huh. And it came back negative for mono. Uh-huh… And negative for everything else, but we don’t have the results for the strep tests yet. So, no syphilis? No, no syphilis, come back in three days for your strep results.

I breathed a huge sigh of relief. No syphilis, I’m not a dirty whore. No awkward telephone conversations for me – success! So I went back to work feeling pretty good about myself and I told the story to one of my work friends. I was kinda ashamed that I had to have the test done in the first place, so I was trying to keep it on the down-low. But when I got to the point where I said he tested me for syphilis, my not-so-subtle friend yelled out “YOU HAVE SYPHILLIS?!!?!?”

Everyone turned and looked. I was mortified. NO! NO SYPHILLIS!! It came back negative. But that doesn’t make it any better, does it?

So I went back to the doctor and got my results. I never had strep throat – my throat culture came back negative. My blood work, however, was positive. The doctor was slightly baffled… how can you have it in your blood if you don’t have it in your throat? Almost no one gets strep in their blood without strep throat…. Almost no one? Like 2% of the population? Sounds about right.

Big thanks to EliseArt for providing the illustrations and being so damn excited about drawing the pictures that I had to write the post.

Hey – you don’t believe in wearing sweat pants out of the house… some of us like to have a good time!!

I’m chronically honest. I am pretty much incapable of lying. Why? I don’t really know. It makes me feel like I’m deceiving people and the guilt brings me down. I’m truely honest to a fault. Luckily, that, however, is my only fault.

When I was growing up, my mom always told me that if I lied about something I would get in more trouble than if I told the truth in the first place. Because she would find out if I lied. At the time, I thought this was complete bullshit. Ya right, Mom, you’re going to ground me, regardless. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to realize that she was right (just don’t tell her I said that!). Do something wrong and admit your mistake and the other person involved will appreciate your honesty (although will still be disappointed). Lie, and they find out, well now, that’s grounds for dismissal. Or so I assume. I really haven’t found myself in that situation before. Why? Because the guilt brings me down and I always fess up before anyone has any opportunity to ‘find anything out’.

However, every so often, I decide that my guilt complex has held me back far too much in life and I throw caution to the wind and do dishonest things. So far, Karma, Murphy’s Law and/or the Spite Gods have struck me down everytime I decide this is a good idea… thrusting me back into my “honest to a fault” default. Bastards.

A few weeks ago, I was celebrating my birthday. I went to a pub and got nice and liquored up and then decided to go to a club to dance… well, the club was one skytrain stop away. I get to the station and go towards the ticket machine with the intention of paying (because not paying would be dishonest!)… and my friend says “We don’t really have to pay, do we? I mean, it’s one stop!”… and I started to say “Oh, yes, yes, we do.” But then I said “You know what, it’s my birthday and I don’t have to pay on my birthday, let’s go!!!”.

We start riding the escalator up to the platform, I felt pretty confident… and then the guilt started getting to me. Halfway up the escalator, I turned to my friend and whispered “…There’s a cop… at the top…”. Her response: “No there isn’t. You’re paranoid”. So as the escalator reached the top, I see a lady standing there, in a uniform that can only be described as cop-like. She looked me in the eye and said “Ticket, please”.

I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t tell her the truth and say I didn’t have one… so I start searching, in vain, through my empty pockets, even going so far as to open my coat and look inside…

…as if I’m one of those “street vendors” that carries watches inside the coat, but instead of watches it’s valid train passes. There weren’t any. My friend looks her straight in the eye and says “I’m drunk. I didn’t think to buy one” so the nice lady says “Okay well, go and buy one”. So we did. No harm, no foul. Things don’t always work out like that.

I go to school. I go to school in the evenings basically next door to my work. I park at work, because it’s free. But the other day, I was really running late so I decide to park at school. I mean, I was running so late, I had to eat my dinner in the car. Not too bad, everyone eats while driving right? Ya, sure. But my dinner was a pork chop. I’m serious.

Anyway, a friend of mine goes to school with me and she tells me that for the past 9 weeks she’s been parking at school and she doesn’t buy a ticket because she figures that the stall has been paid for for the day. And she hasn’t gotten a ticket so far, so she figures her logic is sound. So when I decided to park at school, that was my thought process.

However, when I parked, I realized that would be dishonest, so I should just pay for a ticket. But I had like 50 cents in cash and parking is $4. I could put it on my VISA, but that seems like an ordeal and I’m running late, so I’ll just throw caution to the wind and go to class. Afterwards, I come out and see a little something on my windshield. Dammit.

I owe $57.70 for parking illegally; $47.10 if I pay within 7 days. All that because I was running short on time (heaven forbid I’m almost late for class!) and didn’t have cash. I did go there with the intent to park illegally, but then the guilt brought me down and I was going to pay, but all those other circumstances forced me to be dishonest. Bam!! Spite-God-Powers initiated.

Moral of the story, it’s a bit easier (and cheaper) just to fricken pay. Why? Because there won’t always be a nice skytrain cop at the top that’s willing to accept “I’m drunk” as a reason for dishonesty.

Big thanks to “EliseArt” for providing illustrations

I have a no-hawk

So I went to a concert on Friday with a good friend of mine. And it seems that every concert we go to together has some amusing anecdote associated with it. This is no exception.

It started out well… we met up, went for dinner and a drink, then headed to the park for the show. Then we drank in public, stood in a very large line up and finally went in. Place was pretty full, but there was still a place for me to put a blanket down..  and have good seats! Sweet!

The opening band was already playing when we got in; I have no idea who they were but they were good. The main act went on stage and put on quite the show. All that aside, I didn’t get much face-time in with the band, because I was too busy watching Benjamin.

I don’t think that’s actually his name, but that is what I’ll call him for the rest of my life.

You see, it was an outdoor venue and Benjamin, the security guard, was behind this fence, close to the stage. He had a little walkie-talkie and every time he saw someone breaking the rules he got out his walkie-talkie and someone higher up (a manager, or perhaps someone a bit taller) came out and got the situation under control.

As far as I’m concerned, Benjamin has a couple strikes against him; namely:

1) He’s a narc

2) He has a faux-hawk

3)… well, #3 is the point of this story, so I won’t give it away…

You may be wondering why I was so busy watching a guy that tattle-tales; to be honest, it was the walkie-talkie. I always wanted one of those. Actually, I said ‘to be honest’, but then I lied. It had nothing to do with the radio. (Though I have always wanted one.)

I see two people (guy & girl) walk over to Benjamin to ask him a question. As they walk up, Benjamin looks straight at the girl’s crotch and then into her eyes as she asked the question. That’s not the worst part. The worst part is the look of disgust he had on his face when he looked at her crotch! Then, the guy talks to him and Benjamin did the exact same thing. Except the look of disgust changed to a look of intrigue. He liked what he saw…

I was pretty sure I was the only person who just witnessed this event, until my friend bursts out laughing and says “Did you see that??!?!”. For the rest of the night we watched him. Everytime we caught Benjamin violating someone we would burst out laughing, and say things like “He just Benjamin’d that guy!”, along with fist-bumping and high-fiving. Quite the spectacle.

Well, we decided that we had to be fair and give the guy the benefit of the doubt… maybe he’s not a crotch-watcher, maybe his name isn’t Benjamin. So to test our theory out, my friend (sitting on the blanket) stretches out, opens his legs and points his Benjamin at the security guard. After a few moment of Benjamin ignoring my friend’s advances, I got distracted and looked away. A second later, my friend bursts out “Did you see that??!?!?”. “No! Did he look?!”. “Yes, but keep watching he will do it again…”. “Will he now? Did he like it? huh?”. “Just keep watching….”.

Sure enough, Benjamin’s eyes dart over and look directly at my friend’s crotch. Burst out laughing. And again. Even more laughing. And again. Can’t hardly breathe at this point… I swear he looked over at least a half dozen times. By the end I was laughing so hard but managed to get out:  “He Benjamin’d you! Ha ha ha” and go for a fist bump, but he leaves me hanging, I guess it’s not as funny when it’s your crotch that is being watched. My friend feeling violated enough for one day, put a backpack between his crotch and Benjamin’s gaze.

You’re easily amused by things… have you seen my monkey?

So, I’m going to a concert tomorrow night. I’m really excited about it!!! But I didn’t want to go alone… so I managed to convince a friend of mine to go with me (yes, the same friend from a previous post… My apple tastes like parsley).

So, anyway, I convinced him to go with me and since it’s tomorrow night we’re in the planning stages of actually executing this adventure. And, yes, it will be an adventure. Planning things like when to meet, where to meet etc. So I suggest we meet around the time the gates open (6pm) and go for some dinner and drinks. Well, because, I need to eat and drinking, although not required, is highly desirable. So this is what I suggest and I don’t hear back from him.

Until this afternoon. I’m walking through the lab on the way out the door when I check my phone, I have a text from him. I read it. I burst out laughing. Everyone within 3 metres, turns, looks at me (yes, still laughing) and asks what is so funny. Nothing… Ba hahahahahaha…

I leave the lab, walk out into the hallway (yes, still laughing) and continue to get weird looks from everyone in the hallway. I get control of myself. His text, and I quote, there is no improvisation at all here… this is straight from his mouth (or hand?) to your ears (or eyes?)… this actually happened.

Text:

Umm Heather, if we go for a drink(s) should I wear quick drying pants, or bring a pair to change into????

Big thanks to “EliseArt” for providing illustrations that I can crop and use at will. 🙂