Imagine this was posted last Christmas, okay?

My sister dropped me off at my friend’s house much earlier than I’d planned. There was snow and slush everywhere, and I was still wearing my fancy outfit for our family picture, including skirt and non-waterproof shoes.

I knocked on the front door as my sister drove off. My hands were already cold and pink. No answer.

I knocked again, then phoned my friend’s cell. She answered, half an hour away at a Christmas tree lot.

My grandparents live one block over so I figured I’d walk over, have tea, change into my other outfit, and then come back later. No problem.

It was only a one block walk, but have you ever walked one block in sopping shoes and tights, through slushie snow, carrying a stuffed purse full of clothes you can’t wear yet, wondering how long it takes to get frostbite on your toes? It’s a long walk.

I made it to my grandparents, imagining tea and chocolate biscuits and warm carpet, and then they didn’t answer the doorbell.

So I rang again and peeked in the window. No lights, no movement.

Well, shit.

There was nowhere else to go so my wet feet and I headed around the back, through the gate, to the garden. My grandfather has a beautiful garden that was entirely covered in snow, except for the porch.

I had to get out of my clothes. I needed to get dry, and get dry now.

So in the back of my grandfather’s garden, huddled in the partially covered porch, I stripped off my tights and shoes, and changed into pants, socks and boots.

For any neighbours who may have glanced out their window at that time, I am very sorry. Very sorry.

I didn’t have a jacket but I had a light sweater so I sat on the back of the porch, overlooking the snow-covered garden and rocked back and forth while singing along to country songs on my iPod. Country songs know all about misery.

I texted my sister for some sympathy and she thought it was hysterical. Just as I was considering some form of self-cannibalism (approximately twenty minutes had past; I was desperate), I heard noise and realized my grandparents had arrived home, and got a text from my friend saying she was home too.

At the same time, I stopped myself from crying from joy, mostly because I was afraid the tears would freeze even though I know that’s not possible because they’re salty. Delirium had set in.

Then we went to a kids indoor carnival and I played with guns.

The end.

We're gonna be the greatest aunts.

My 3-month-old niece (oh hey! I’m an aunt now!) got hiccups so my sister and I brainstormed all our favourite cures and how they could be misconstrued as child abuse:

- Frighten her.
- Hold her upside down and make her swallow water. 
- Suffocate her (temporarily).

I think she’s stuck with hiccups.

"Brilliant"

I have a 4.0 GPA, have read all of Edgar Allan Poe's poetry, and have been referred to as a walking-talking-dictionary.

And it took me twenty minutes to assemble this box. 

What happens at rehearsal... (pretend this was posted 2 months ago, k?)

The men were having issues with one of their dance numbers because one guy was missing and it was throwing off the formations. There was one part in particular where two of the other men lift him. So I--in my skirt and heels--jumped in and tried to act like a man. Wide stance. Shoulders back. Be, um...manly.

(It's possible I don't know how to be manly.)

(But I tried anyway.)

Song began and choreography went much smoother till we shifted into the next half of the song, which changes a bit. I'd only seen the guys do it once so I got into place and then--oh shit.

I remember this part now. It's the part where the guy I'm filling in for gets lifted.

And the moment I realize this--on video--I very clearly swear.

Whoops...

It didn't go off though! That means it worked, right?

I set fire to a yam. Not on purpose, I mean, why would anyone try to set a yam on fire on purpose? I stuck a plate in the microwave with cut up pieces of yam on it and thirty seconds later, a corner of one of the pieces was totally black. Just a tiny little speck. Except that speck reeked of smoke that went straight to the smoke detector directly above the microwave, which made me panic.

You know in stereotypical pagan ceremonies where women dance all naked and "free" and worship the moon? I looked like that, but with clothes on and waving a towel at the smoke detector.

I have a love/hate relationship with bike helmets. I hate them because they're disgustingly ugly, but I love NOT being injured.

One time I rode smack into the back of my dad's pick-up. Another time I tried to do a one-handed maneuver and now I still have the scar on my knee. And one time I rode straight into a telephone pole and chipped my front tooth.

So now that I've been biking again, I've been reluctantly wearing the helmet.

Last week, I fell off my bike, scratched up my legs, got dirt everywhere including inside the handlebars, and broke the chains that attach to the pedals. But I'm okay because I was wearing the friggin' helmet!

This is what happens when I go unsupervised.

- Get off at the wrong bus stop because apparently there are two 148th streets.
- Spend half an hour walking through the suburbs looking for a shopping mall.
- Realize a shopping mall is unlikely to be located in suburbia.
- Find the other 148th street, find the mall, only to remember I'm a broke-ass student.
- Head back to bus stop.
- Realize student ID card (with Upass) has fallen out of pocket.
- Panic.
- Power-walk back to mall, frantically scanning the sidewalk with big bug-eyes.
- Panic some more.
- Spot student ID card on the other side of the street, at the corner of an intersection.
- Sprint towards it without checking traffic.
- Narrowly avoid getting smushed into pavement by red car.
- Snatch up student ID card.
- Skip home.

This would never have happened in a text message.

To graduate, my school makes everyone fulfill writing, quantitative (math) and breadth (other electives) requirements. An advisor finally called me back today and while I had him on the phone, I realized I didn't know if I'd completed them all.

Me: Oh, okay. And what about my...the requirements... What about my width?

Advisor: ...

Me: Not my width. I mean I know my width. I mean the... the required... writing and math and...

Advisor: Your Writing, Quantitative and Breadth requirements are fulfilled.

Me: Breadth!

Advisor: ...

Me: Sorry.

O Christmas Tree

The Christmas tree was lying on the truck bed, bristles poking out of every branch, as my sister and I stood in front of it. Sister clutched at a blue saw. I clutched at my cellphone and checked out my manicure in the yellowing  night lights.

We'd assumed that our parents would be home already and thus could help us chop off the bottom and stick the tree in water. AKA Dad would do it. Instead, it was just the two of us freezing in the driveway.

Sister wanted to get it cut now, before it could dry out anymore. She stuck the saw against the thick bark and went to town, hustling back and forth, little bits of sawdust bouncing out.

She got an inch in before the saw got stuck. Then it kept getting stuck. I kept getting colder. I helped by looking for the camera because that's what you do in awkward situations, right?

I couldn't find the camera and when I came back, I was promptly handed the saw and told it was my turn. I stared at the tree. A sawdust crust had formed around the cut.

I texted Dad to see when he'd be a home.

The saw felt light and flimsy. After twenty seconds of flailing, the weapon was taken away. Good move, Sister.

"We should flip it over." She said.

I regarded the honking, prickly bush. "...How?"

We exchanged looks. Sister went to work again, and I texted my brother.

Ten minutes later and we'd only gotten another inch in. We ended up both grabbing an end of the saw and pulling back and forth.

I'm pretty sure there was a challenge like this on Survivor. We definitely would not have won immunity.

Miraculously, the stump finally fell and we grabbed onto the tree at both ends. Well, she grabbed, I gingerly avoided spiders. We heaved it into the garage, plonked it into water, and stepped back to appreciate our feminist accomplishment.

Success!

First time my best friend of 9 years saw me cry was when Snape found Lily's body.

Did anyone else see the last Harry Potter poster, read it as "itallends," wonder why they misspelled "italians" and then quirk your head and make a funny face 'cause you thought the Italians were from Twilight?

No? Just me then?

rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb

I made Strawberry Rhubarb pie today because I was woozy on blood loss and it seemed like the right thing to do.

We have two patches of rhubarb in our garden, one of which is around the side of the house. Right in the centre was an extra long red stalk jutting out just above the rest, with a huge leaf the size of a pizza hanging off it. I grasped the stalk and pulled.

Nothing. I glanced around to make sure no one could see me and yanked as hard as I could.

Nothing. It felt like I was pulling on Excalibur.

I planted my feet firmly on the cement sidewalk, gripped both hands around the stalk, threw all my weight behind it and--

Fell. On my ass. Without the stalk.

I scrambled up, brushed off the dirt, and glared at the stupid red vegetable. Fruit. Fuck.

And that's how I got beaten up by rhubarb.

I win because I cut it.

 

Things I Never Ever Do Because I Am a PROFESSIONAL

1- lock my office keys in the office
2- jiggle the doorknob
3- frantically search the building in hopes that my keys have been teleported into a different room
4- get a headache from mentally trying to teleport my keys
5- jiggle the doorknob
6- find a telephone in the kitchen and whoop with joy!
7- realize that the telephone can't unlock the office either
8- jiggle the doorknob
9- realize that the phone number for the only other person with a key is locked in the office
10- kick off my stilettos, slump to the floor and wail at my failed teleportation attempts
11- jiggle the doorknob
12- hail the Caller ID list saved in the telephone!
13- explain to my co-worker that I'd just wanted a doorstop so I'd taken the one from the office to hold open the upstairs door and hadn't thought twice when the office door had clicked shut behind me
14- jiggle the doorknob
15- profusely thank my co-worker for coming in on her day off to unlock the office door
16- write a list of things I did not do this morning because I am a professional

because librarians are total snobs

Today, I found "Shrek: the Musical" soundtrack at the library and after I finished squealing,  I had to scramble about to find a novel decent enough to counter a singing ogre so the librarian wouldn't judge me.

Because I'm self-sacrificing like that.

I decided to make cookies to take to my guaranteed-stressful meeting tomorrow so it would be guaranteed-stressful with snacks.

My Lemon Thumbprints turned into Burnt Shortbread though. That's why I ate five of them. To be sure they weren't salvageable. Yeah.

Sigh.

You know those people who drop their 'spensive cell phones into the toilet by accident and you hear about them and laugh?

I'm one of those people now.

Super helpful, honest

Transit is very helpful. They write facts on signs like 'Unloading only; board 150m South on highway.' That would be very helpful if I knew which way is South. Or where the highway is. Or an estimate of how far 150m is.

And when you're standing next to a Tim Hortons, cars whipping past, trying to read signs that may or may not be 150m away, clutching at your backpack with frozen fingers, you start to wonder why you ever got out of bed in the morning anyway.

It didn't snow--thank god--but I was cold. You know it's cold when you can feel the metal going through your ears from your pink drop earrings. Or at least I can. That cold.

Transit was super helpful when I phoned and they said to stay put: bus will be coming any minute, and then every seven minutes after that. Thanks, Transit! Seven minutes later, as I paced up and down the corner where one highway met another highway--yeah, that's where I am in the evenings--the bus did not come. Seven minutes later, it did not come. Forty five minutes, and thirteen various buses on different routes that mocked me as they sped by, later: the bus came. I could no longer feel my face.

On the bus, the driver was surprisingly talkative but also a tad evil as she didn't turn on the inside bus lights. That means that all the people on the bus were cast in shadows as we pretended not to survey each other. Disconcerting. I think the guy behind me pet my hair. Very disconcerting.

Thanks to the directions I'd lifted from the Transit site (see, helpful!), I got off at the right stop. Then I turned around. Then I turned around again 'cause golly, I could have sworn that GoogleMaps showed this street as being a whole lot homier. It was dark enough so that the streets were lit only by streetlamps. The area was partially under construction and partially plain creepy, but I was in luck: there were no street signs. Not a one.

This is the 2011. What street doesn't have proper signs?

This irked me so much that I strode through the half-lit streets with an attitude, becoming progressively more and more lost. How can there not be street signs!

I got to my destination--nearly two hours late. But, I would have been a whole lot later if it wasn't for those super helpful signs.

Thanks, Transit!

Boiling Water: Attempt 3

I was in the office, glaring at my uncooperative photoshop layers, when they knocked on the door and asked if they could make tea. Of course, I said. Then I remembered that we don't have a kettle here. Or a stove. But we have an industrial-use-only, multi-pot, heavy duty coffee machine. That's got to be good for something right?
The machine had two buttons at the top, with little lights beside them, and a big slab of paper taped above them saying DO NOT TOUCH. I touched. I mean, I work here, I'm supposed to, right?

I attempted to make coffee without the coffee beans, 'cause that's just boiled water (right? this feels like something I should know). First it made a pot of lukewarm water. Then a massive pot of almost boiling water, which mocked me with it's almostness. Then it scalded my finger and dripped hate and anger onto the counter. Not cool, coffee machine.

To my great relief, an electric kettle was bought and delivered. But as I squeezed it out of the box and tore off the plastic wrapping, I realized that we don't have a teapot.

Sigh.

Once on a school trip, a girl plugged in an electric kettle, put it on the stove, turned the element on, and then questioned what that burnt plastic smell was.

3 Things That Scare Me At School

1) The Army guys that buy Tim Hortons in the school cafe wearing head to toe neon camoflage (way to blend in, guys!). There aren't any military classes at my school. Where do they come from??

2) Push/Pull Doors. Fuck you, push/pull doors. You make me look really dumb. I'm walking along, feeling chic and adultish in my new black boots with my Calc textbook in my arms and my cell pressed to my ear as I check my voicemail and I push on the door and--nothing.

Nothing because you are a pull door and now I am neither chic nor adult, and you mock me with your giant rectangular PULL sign. Meanwhile, in the split second of nothing, twenty students have lined up behind me and each one is judging me and my lack of chicness and adultness when clearly, it is all your fault.

3) The Science chapter in my Calculus textbook. First off, Calc Textbook, why is there a violin on your cover? That is false advertisement. There is neither a violin nor violin music in you and I'm sick of getting my hopes up.

Secondly, your subject is Calculus. Math. So why the Science chapter? You know "sodium chlorate crystals" and "escherichia coli in a nutrient-broth medium" scare and confuse me (unless a nutrient-broth is Campbell's chicken noodle soup). Now I'm hungry. Look what you've done! Not  cool, Calculus textbook, not cool.

Awwwwwkward...

When I was in high school, I went to a district-wide writing workshop and got driven home by Kelly and her mom.

I was fidgeting in the back of their little grey car. Kelly, always annoyingly chatty, was blabbering to her Mom. I stopped staring out the window long enough to zone back in.

"-- Firefly for Maggie?" Kelly said.

"Oh! I forgot." Her mom said. She squinted her eyes at me in the mirror, "Our friend loves Firefly, the TV show, and she's dying--"

--to see it, I thought. I laughed.

Two seconds later I realized, oh shit, she didn't finish the sentence. 'She's dying.' Period. End of sentence. Maggie's heading to the grave and I'd laughed.

I gaped. What could I do? I couldn't take it back--apologizing would be useless--and ohmigod I'm an awful, awful person!

The seconds stretched by; neither Kelly nor her Mom spoke.

It was a long twenty minute ride.

Does that make it healthy?

Hey, did you know carrot cake has actual carrot in it?