Here's "mud" in your eye!

This memory always make me laugh out loud (or LOL as the kids say).  If you ever see me just burst into laughter for no particular reason, it is safe to assume this is what I'm thinking about.  Hopefully writing it out can do the story justice, as most of the awesomeness results from knowing Jessica and having the pleasure of being there to bare witness.  Jessica is one of those unfortunate people who this kind of 'thing' always seems to happen to.  Luckily she has one of the best sense of humour that I know of, so even though she is a marked woman, she handles it with admirable grace.

The aforementioned Jessica and I were driving around Brampton in her unnecessarily large truck one afternoon, chatting away.  She had the window cracked a bit because she's a hopeless smoker.  Without warning, the windshield becomes covered in a pterodactyl-sized amount of bird crap and Jessica starts howling.  I'm laughing because the amount of shit smeared on the window really is impressive, but glancing over to share the joke with her, I see that after the load hit the windshield, it splattered around and was sucked into the open window where it met Jessica's face!  Luckily for her she was wearing sunglasses at the time, but one lens, her cheek and some hair were smeared in runny bird turd.

It was awesome.   Haha, I'm LOLing again.

My Homeless People Stories

I've lived in Toronto for the better part of a decade now (cripes I'm getting old!) and as most city-dwellers will admit, dealing with homeless people is pretty much a part of your daily activity.  Startling at first, you feel terrible for them and always hand over your "spare" change, but the unfortunate truth is that you do tend to start ignoring the requests for help.  There really are too many Shaky Lady's and Sticker Lady's out there, or the type of homeless who are only homeless on nice days during rush hour.  Every Torontonian has at least a couple stories of shocking encounters with the homeless.  Here are mine:

• Back when I was a fresh first year university student still living at home and commuting to Ryerson, I was asked outside of a Tim Horton's for spare change.  As I was (and still am) in the habit of using primarily electronic money, I didn't actually have any cash on me.  He did not take kindly to this, as demonstrated by his screaming "BITCH!" at me and scrambling to his feet.  I ran. 

• At another Ryerson street corner, a bunch of students were waiting for the light to change, and a homeless lady pushed her way into the middle of the crow, pulled up her long skirt, popped a squat and proceeded to urinate right there.  The whole crowd dispersed instantly, pushing each other onto the road to avoid the stream.

• While working near Queen and John I went for a coffee break at Second Cup across the street.  Being that I had a Second Cup card, I didn't bring my purse.  When an old homeless man asked me for money for food, I said I didn't have any money but I would get him a coffee.  "A coffee and a sandwich" he corrected me.  Fine.  Can't really tell him not to be greedy, can I?  So we walked across the street and when he realized where I was leading him, he starting screaming "No! Not there! NOOOO!" and ran like a bat out of hell, leaving me bewildered and red faced in a crowd of strangers with accusatory eyes. 

• Returning to work from lunch one afternoon, I happened upon an old homeless man who asked me for money to buy a drink.  I told him that whereas I didn't have any money, I would be happy to go get him a drink from upstairs.  He waited for me outside while I grabbed him a few cans of pop.  He was so encouraged by my thoughtfulness, that after receiving the drinks he thought he'd press his luck and ask me to make love to him.  Just remembering that hopeful offer makes me want to vomit a little.

Good Girls Do Not Pee on the Floor

Having had a recent visit to the ER, I was reminded of this one hospital visit back when I was 6  years old.

**************

I had had a couple bladder infections that the doctors were concerned about.  My mother had a kidney operation when she was about that age, so they were investigating whether there was some genetic weirdness going on with me.  An ultra sound detected that one of my kidney's was a bit larger than the other, which lead to a series of embarrassing tests. 

On this particular hospital visit, they wanted to insert a tube to fill up my bladder with some crazy fluid they could monitor on a screen.  Doctor's don't feel like kids need to be 'in the know' on such matters, so I was only told what was expected of me for each stage.  For this stage they only told me that it would be uncomfortable.  I would later agree with them that yes it was.  But it was also painful and embarrassing.  They must have forgotten to tell me that part.  Being a good little girl, I just dealt with it and did as I was told.  My mom was there, so I trusted I was in good hands.

Once that part was done, they gave me my next instructions:  The tube would be removed and they were going to monitor the screen while I peed out all the fluid.  I was full and uncomfortable and that sounded like a fine plan.

But wait.  They wanted to WATCH me pee?  All these people!?   Even worse, I was expected to just stand there and pee on a towel on the floor!!!

No.  No way.  Voyeuristic urination was my line.  Good little girls do not pee on towels on the floor.  I wasn't having any of that.

It became a battle of will.  They just stood there and waited thinking that at some point I couldn't take it anymore and had to do what they wanted. 

So we stood there.

And stood there.


Until they got bored and offered a compromise.  I could pee into a bucket.

Nope.

Nope, didn't like that either.  So we waited some more.


Another compromise:  I could sit on a wheelchair-toilet.  But they were still going to watch.

Nope.

We waited some more because they just weren't understanding my position.  Just call me a martyr for the good little girl tribe.  I was not budging, whether or not it was going to kill me.


Finally, when they were concerned that my bladder might rupture they admitted defeat and let me enjoy the privacy of a washroom. 


Later as we were preparing to leave the hospital in triumph/failure/embarrassment, one of the offending nurses found me and said she knew I had a rough day, and offered me the treat from her Burger King lunch.  It was an ALF Melmac Rock record*.  I was so thrilled to have this piece of cardboard that it made the whole experience worth while.

*Please note:  A record, not a CD.  It was 1988

Epilogue:  There turned out to be nothing wrong with my kidneys.  One is simply just bigger than the other. 

Assholes.

Stories...that I will probably regret sharing

Something happened this past weekend which drew up a couple memories for me.  Although distasteful, I find that people take great joy in hearing them.

In descending order of grossness...

It wasn't me, I swear!  I am a LADY!

This past weekend, I saw a small something on my carpet.  I wasn't sure what it was because my eyes are not terrific and I'm too lazy to bend over to get a proper look at it.  So I picked it up with my toes, as I'm apt to do, and brought it upwards to see what it was.  The object didn't make it as far as my hands however before I was able to detect what it was from its consistency.  My dear and loving feline had left a small chunk of poo for me.  And now it was between my toes.  Awesome.

Calm down, I poop in my bed too.

Years ago I had a pet iguana named Louie.  Why my parents allowed me to have an iguana, I'll never know, as they grow to nearly 2 meters tip to tail.  Louie lived in an aquarium in my room, but I often left the top of her cage open so she could stroll around as she pleased.  This was never an issue as she always returned to her heat rock and food before too long.  One evening after returning from working a late shift at the movie theatre, I got ready and climbed into bed without turning on the light.  My feet felt cold at the bottom of the bed, but I disregarded that simply assuming they'd warm up shortly.  After a little while I started questioning whether my feet were actually cold or perhaps wet instead.  It took me a while to rouse the energy to get out of bed to flip on the light to verify, but once I did, I discovered that Louie had suffered an impressive bout of diarrhea on the end of my bed, which I had been lying in for a good 15 minutes.


Lastly, and worst of all...

I'm so sweet, I poop chocolate chips

During university I had a pet guinea pig named Venus.  During the summer when I moved home we kept her cage in the kitchen where she could enjoy the most attention as well as close proximity to the vegetable bin.  One afternoon, Sarah and I were enjoying our lunch (read: PC Decadent Chocolate Chunk Cookies) and as we passed by Venus' cage my cookie crumbed a bit and fell on the floor.  Being a good Otten I don't allow cookies to go to waste so I picked up the remnants and ate them anyway.  Another step forward I see a rogue chocolate chip on the floor.  So I ate it.  And then immediately realized that it wasn't a chocolate chip at all.  It was a guinea pig poo.

Vomit Stories

Bargain Herold's
Remember "Bargain Harolds"?  I like to think I had somewhat of a role in it's eventual demise.  When I was somewhere in-and-around 10, my mom took Trevor, Sarah and my cousin Amy with her to the Rat Plaza, with Bargain Harolds at the entrance.  As soon as we entered the mall, my stomach turned and I paused to puke while my family carried on ahead of me without notice.  When I was done, I realized that I had ralphed from one end of the Bargain Harolds threshold to the other, completely carpeting their entrance way with my undigested lunch.  I ran to catch up with my mom to tell her what I had done, but didn't make it further than 20 feet before I hurled again.  When I was done my floor pizza, I realized that now I had effectively sealed all the unfortunate Bargain Harolds customer's inside the store with my vomit force field.  I definitely needed my mom to sort this mess out for me, so I caught up and told her I barfed.  Except in my family we weren't allowed to say barf (or puke, or hurl, or yak.  Not sure about vomit force field, though as I just made that one up now) so I had to say 'throw up'.  She stopped in her tracks.  I thought I was in trouble for sure.

Mom - "Where?" 
Me - "Bargain Harolds door"
Mom -"Which one?" 
Me - "Both of them"

Whereas I would have been tempted to run away and pretend that it wasn't my kid that just made a guttural (pun!) statement on the quality of products and services at the store, my mom did the honourable thing and marched back to Bargain Harolds, jumping over the chuck and informed the Manager what had happened.

Manager - "Where?" 
Mom - "Your door"
Manager -"Which one?" 
Mom - "Both of them"

As we all left, my mom and myself quite embarrassed, Trevor, Amy and Sarah all dying of laughter, the unhappy Manager threw some cardboard down on top of my refurbished lunch.

Later, while exiting the Rat Plaza, we noticed that the cardboard had been removed and stacked up next to the mall's candy machine.  That nearly caused us all to puke again.



Doorway Vomit
Here's another quick one that still makes me laugh.  When I was really young, let's say 5, I woke up suddenly in the night and couldn't make it to the bathroom in time to throw up.  My mom had super sonic hearing and always knew when one of us was awake at night.  She came out of her room to see what was wrong.

Me - "I threw up"
Mom - "Where?"
Me - (pointing at her feet) "There."

Luckily for both of us she was wearing her slippers.

Earliest Memories

Here are a few of my earliest memories, in no particular order or relation. That's what you're going to get from this blog...a spattering of nonsense that probably doesn't interest anyone but me. And potentially anyone I happen to write about. I'll try to keep the bitchy-teen-angst infused comments to a minimum this time.

We had just moved from Georgetown into our new Brampton house, which would have made me three. Our basement was unfinished, dark, and potentially full of monsters. Trevor, 6 at the time, was scared to go down there and as an act of defiance and bravery, I decided to upshow him and go down there, alone, in the dark. It was terrifying and I was pretty sure I was going to die, but well worth it in the end. This was probably the turning point in our relationship.

Again, basement story:

The neighbourhood kids were all in our basement, and as dumb kids do, we were running the circular path around the stairs for no particular reason. As I ran by, I accidentally knocked down a 2x4 into the path, but as the race was on, I didn't want to stop and pick it back up. In fact, I probably prided myself on a successful obstacle for the next runner to overcome. The next runner was unfortunately my toddler little sister, who stepped on the board and got a nail through her little shoe, into her little foot. I feel TERRIBLE!!!!!

That last story I held onto in shame until just last year, when I finally felt it was time to tell Sarah what I had done. She obviously didn't remember, as she was really young, but upon confirmation with our dad, he said that it didn't happen. Perhaps she just fell and there was no nail, or maybe there was a nail and she narrowly missed it...or maybe I dreamed the whole thing up. Don't know, but it's still a memory. So onto the blog it goes.

The day I got Blackie:

Mom had told me that I could get a kitten as soon as the fences were put up in our backyard. I was sitting in the kitchen looking out the patio doors, emphatically telling her that the fences were there, but I still didn't have a kitten. I was really angry about it and sulking my five-year-old face off.
Aunt Marg and likely Nanny opened our front door, as they came over every Wednesday for lunch. I was too sulky to go say hi, so I just sat slumped in the kitchen against the back wall. When I looked over, Aunt Marg was carrying a little black kitten and handed him to me. I vividly remember that moment, and how happy she looked to be able to give him to me. I felt nearly sick with guilt for being so angry at my mom.

Why is it that my earliest memories are charged by guilt?

Proof that I'm a thoughtless and unfeeling person:

When Grampa Les died, he and Nanny lived in Connecticut. Mom and Dad only took baby Sarah to the funeral with them and left Trevor and I with Aunt Caroline and Uncle Lambert for the weekend. I was probably about 4 if Sarah was a baby. It was the first time they'd been away from me, and it was over my birthday. I remember being very excited to spend a sleep over weekend with A Caroline and U Lambert, because they had a pinball machine in the basement and the little mushroom houses for their smurf figurines. Before Mom and Dad left us there, they gave me a birthday present to open. It was a girl-transformer, which transformed from a cat into a lipstick. It thrilled the shit out of me. Grampa Les, who?

Random, the day I became a "Big Girl":

One afternoon before I was old enough to go to school, I asked Mom to take me to the park. I decided to test her to see if she'd let me into the stroller and was really surprised when she let me. Feeling pretty pleased with my lazy ingenuity, I took the stroller ride congratulating myself the whole way. Until we passed my brother's friend Lindsay. She was 3 years older than me, and someone who I considered a "Big Girl". I was humiliated at being caught hitching a stroller ride, and never rode in one again.

Random, possibly the origin of my bathroom insecurities

More on the subject of Lindsay, she was an only child, had two cats, and super long hair. Though I wasn't aware of this word at the time, to me she seemed very bohemian. Once when all the kids were playing hide and seek, I thought she was going to go hide in the bathroom, so I followed her in there. She wasn't in there to hide, and didn't seem to mind taking a poo in front of me. Also very bohemian. She explained that when you got to go, you got to go, and once her mom didn't poo for a very long time and the doctor needed to sit his hand up her bum and take the poo out. I really wish I didn't know that story. When I went to high school and Lindsay was there, that story was all I could think about every time I ran into her, with her cropped green hair. Confirmed: Bohemian.

Short and Sweet...wallpaper:

My first room in the Brampton house had strawberry shortcake wallpaper. I was quite convinced that it was scratch and sniff, and used to sniff the different characters all the time. In fact, I remember giving it a lick, just to confirm whether it was also tasty wallpaper; it was just regular wallpaper flavour.