I have an intense fear of my roof being ripped off by a large bird.  It happened again last night.  I was lying in bed as a severe storm passed overhead, and my heart started to beat wildly. 

When I was growing up in Burns Lake, we had nasty electrical storms.  While incredibly beautiful from a distance, the fork lightening was known to be deadly and something to be avoided.  Of course, after each storm, the local news would profile the same guy who had been hit by lightening 14 times in a row and survived.  For some reason no one thought to fully question Reggie Stanson’s affection for playing golf in turbulent weather…nor did anyone do a suicide assessment on him. 

As a young girl, the storms were terrifying.  The house would shake.  The lightening would illuminate the whole house for long periods of time.  Tree branches would break  and fires would start wherever the fork lightening hit.  

One night, in a valiant effort to calm his scared daughter, my dad thought it would be a good idea to explain thunder and lightening – you know, to apply a more rational approach to the fear.  Did I get the traditional children’s explanation such as “Oh, don’t worry.  That is God bowling.  The lightening happens when he gets a strike!”  Or, “Oh, don’t worry.  That is Mother Nature pushing a hot and a cold front together. They are fighting over space in the atmosphere just like you and your sister fight over your play area.”  No. I got this tidbit of rarely used Scandinavian folklore.

Listen, Maggie.  Thunder and lightening are nothing to worry about.  What happens is sometimes, the Norse god Thor gets upset at the world so he opens up the sky and he sends a gigantic flying eagle down to earth and it lands on the roof of the house.  Sometimes the bird flies off with the house and takes it back to Thor as a gift.  See, nothing to worry about.  Now good night, Sunshine. 

With that jaw dropping anecdote, I was tucked into bed and left to worry about the dangers of thunder and lightening, our friend Reggie (and the fact that no one in the town thought he could survive one more lighting strike)….and now a giant eagle landing on the roof of my house and possibly taking it back to some guy with a weird name as a gift! 

To this day, I am still terrified of thunder storms.  Granted, I have a much more grown up understanding of thunder and lightening now – it is caused by space aliens who are doing a laser light show for friends - but the giant eagle thing is always in the back of my mind.   It is why I own two cats.  In the event the big bird shows up, I want to be armed with as much cat power as possible. 

As a post script, Reggie survived two more hits of lightening and to the best of my knowledge is still alive and doing well.  He has no hearing in his left ear and can pick up CBC North without a receiver.  He has given up golfing in stormy weather but has taken up skydiving.  Stay tuned.

Most people have skeletons in their closets.  My closets are full of dirty laundry.  Not dirty laundry as in juicy family secrets.  No. literally, piles of dirty laundry. 

It happened again yesterday.  The phone rang and some friend-type person wanted to “drop by” for a visit.  That simple gesture created a frenzy of cleaning that resulted in me using a snow shovel to clear the living room.  At this point in time, I have three “emergency hide it” closets whose layers look much like an archaeological dig of visits past.  To find my pink fuzzy slippers, I had to excavate down to the “2002 surprise visit from Aunt Gretchen who was passing through town on her way to the airport” layer.

Every time it happens, I swear, it is the last time I will be caught off guard.  I promise to turn over a new leaf and keep the house so pristine that even the Pope could drop by at any time and not get his white robe covered with cat hair.  But it never happens.  I get distracted by the important things in life – eating cookies, watching TV and Googling for celebrity gossip. 

As a Virgo, I am supposed to be obsessed with cleanliness….and I guess in a certain way I am.  I love a clean house but, after much analysis done one afternoon when I was supposed to be cleaning, I now see that there are barriers in my way.  If any of the following situations exist, they create the perfect storm that can very quickly take my house from neat to nasty.

Barriers that prevent me from keeping my house clean

A dishwasher that is either full of clean or dirty dishes.  Either way, this situation does not allow me to put dirty dishes in the dishwasher, thus they pile up in the sink.  And, if they pile up in the sink, it prevents me from running the dishwasher which starts its own vicious cycle.

Fruit.  I often buy fruit with the fantasy of actually eating it.  Eventually, the fruit decomposes in the bowl and attracts a colony of flies and wine makers. 

Pets.  I love ‘em, but they are furry.  And most of that fur is on the floor, couch and walls of my house.  Once I spent 15 minutes grooming the cat only to realize it was a dust bunny. 

Laundry.  This is perhaps the biggest barrier to cleaning that I have.  It has its own sub-list.

A missing laundry basket.  Without this feature, clothes seem to enjoy frolicking in their natural habitat….the floor. 

A chair to hang gently worn clothes.  Some clothes by their nature can be worn again.  If they don’t have a chair to hang on, they end up on the floor.  This then makes them dirty, mainly because my cats will have slept on them.  Now they need to be washed.  This means more laundry.

Clean laundry that needs to be hung, folded or otherwise dealt with.  Clean laundry usually ends up on the bed when it comes out of the dryer.  At the end of the night, when I need to use the bed, the pile of clean clothes gets moved onto the floor with the promise that I will hang them tomorrow.  That promise is never fulfilled and pretty soon the clean clothes start mingling with the dirty clothes and I can’t tell which is which.  This then means I need to rewash it just to be sure.

The lack of a maid.  If I had a maid, my house would be cleaner.

Empty diet coke bottles and cans.  I drink a lot of diet coke.  I once put a days worth of empty cans out in the alley for the can guys to take and one guy said it looked like I must have had a great party.  Sadly, they were all mine.  Now I can only put out a few at a time so I don’t get a lecture on diet coke dependency from the can guys.

Napping.  I am genetically predisposed to napping.  If I had to choose between cleaning the bathroom and napping, napping would win.  You can’t fight your heritage.

Guests.  While guests coming over cause me stress, I think I don’t have enough guests over on a regular basis.  If I lived in the White House, I suspect I would be motivated to keep the house clean if George Clooney and members of the UN were dropping by daily.  I would clean for George Clooney.

So, if you are dropping by, please give me at least 24 hours notice and promise not to open any closet doors.  There is no guarantee you will be able to shut them again. 

I have an affinity for mutant pets.  All the pets I have ever owned have had something horribly wrong with them.  I currently own two cats.  Puddy Puddy is an old orange cat with emotional eating problems and a serious addiction to catnip and tissue paper.  Soda Fish is a Bengal mix cat with a gimpy paw, head injury and missing tooth.  He likes to gum the couch when he thinks no one is looking.

I went to the SPCA with the intent of breaking this pattern.  I wanted a small young, healthy, well adjusted dog to add to my menagerie of Chrysalides pets at home.  When I got there, the SPCA adoption gal Anne said, “Oh no….you don’t want that type of dog.  I have the dog for you.”

She led me to his cage.  Inside, was not my dog.  This dog was old, sad, and huge. His name was Brutus and he was a Rottweiler/ lab mix.  Unfortunately for Brutus, all the cute parts of both breeds missed his gene pool.  Think big, black drooling devil dog and you have Brutus.  Anne suggested I take him for a walk.  At 85 pounds of pull power, he more or less took me for a walk.  The entire time, Brutus did not look at me or wag his tail.  This was not my dog.  I retuned Brutus to the shelter and lied to Anne that I liked him but felt we didn’t connect so he would be best in another home. 

The following week, I continued to think of Brutus.  I kept checking the SPCA website to see if he was still there and every day I was met with his sad, drooling picture.  The next Saturday, with the image of this big, devil dog haunting me, I drove back to the SPCA to take him for another walk.  By then, Anne had more information on him.  Brutus had been chained outside by previous owners and neglected.  He also had a list of other problems:  infected teeth, hypothyroidism, social anxiety, stubbornness, fear of noises and dog acne.  This was seriously not my dog! 

I took him out for a walk anyway and, for about 20 minutes, he pulled me around the area. Then we sat on the lawn near the shelter and I looked at him closely.  He avoided eye contact for the longest time.  Then, he quickly looked me in the eyes and gave me the smallest of tail wags.  Sigh.  With that, I was smitten.  This was totally my dog. 

I adopted him that day.  Since then, I have learned a lot more about Brutus. 

Things I now know about my new old dog

• He is a wimp.  He is terrified of the cats.  (Although, they do “work it” by circling him slowly when he is trying to sleep.)
• He loves bunnies and will chase them if given the chance.  If you are holding the leash when this happens, it means you will also be chasing bunnies by default.
• He likes to wedge his 85 pound body onto my tiny loveseat and pretend to look comfortable. 
• His tail wag could be declared a lethal weapon.  It can clear the coffee table with a single sweep.
• His devil dog appearance terrifies the good people of Kitsilano and they will pull their designer dogs away from him. Perhaps if he had a more hipster name like Tristan or Toby and wore a bandana scarf they would be more okay with him.  Chances of that happening is 0%
• He has a brain aneurism if you pick up a stick and look like you might throw it.  His greatest joy in life is chasing a stick.
• He whimpers when he is happy.  He whimpers when he is sad.  He whimpers.
• Finally, he is a wonderful dog with a great loving personality.  I am very proud to say “Yes. This is my big old devil dog.”

Thanks Anne and the fine folks at the SPCA.  You were totally right.  Brutus is the perfect dog for me.

Halloween is the best day on the planet.  As a very shy kid, it was so fun to be able to transform into something that I was not for a few hours.  Plus, it was the only time of the year when my parents actively encouraged my sister and I to go out and take free candy from strangers.

When I was growing up in Burns Lake, months of Halloween costume planning was always ruined by the first major blizzard of the year.  The two events coincided religiously.   When I hear kids in my Kitsilano neighbourhood whine about having to walk up and down stairs to get treats, I twinge with the impulse to tell stories about how, when I was young, I trudged through five foot snow drifts to get a single treat sized Snickers bar… but I digress…

Despite the blizzards in Burns Lake, the people handing out the candy were always so supportive and enthusiastic. 

“Hey! What a great costume,” they would say to the hordes of kids in identical snow boots, snowsuits, mittens and balaclavas that would parade to their door asking for treats.  We looked like a casting call for an episode of South Park, but in our minds we were so different.

My costumes were never cute or scary.  They were “creative”.  While all my comrades were pirates, princesses or zombies, I would be Muriel Applebottom – Bunny Hunter Extrodinaire, or My Dad’s Box of Tangled Christmas Lights or The Lost Panel of a Bazooka Joe Comic Strip.  Needless to say, most of my costumes were not met with an “OOOO…how cute” or an “Awwww…adorable”, they were met with an “Oh, and what are you again?”  Still I wore my costumes with conviction and people gave me candy anyway, so they rocked!

My mom’s expensive, guest use only, King sized silk pillow cases were the preferred treat bag of choice but it was often hard to sneak them out of the house before she noticed.  Although, one year, I did use my cousin’s hockey duffle bag until some judgemental lady ruined my fun when she called me “greedy”. Mostly, I just used a Hefty garbage bag.  Because rippage could be a problem it was important to come prepared with backup bags and maybe a sled.

Out on the hunt, it was amazing how quickly information spread on the kid treat network.  With no twitter, facebook, or texting, to link us, we mind-melded together with the singular purpose of getting as much sugar as possible.  By remaining connected to the kid treat network, you quickly knew which houses gave out two chocolate bars instead of one, which were making you sing, which were giving out raisins….and which were giving out CANS OF POP!!!  

I know kids in here in Kits stay out collecting candy until they get tired or bored, but in Burns Lake, we stayed out until medically ordered indoors due to frostbite or hypothermia.  Hard core does not accurately describe an 8 year old Burns Lake kid on a mission for candy.

Arriving home with our loot, my parents insisted on inspecting all treats for safety concerns.  Surprisingly, there was a high ratio of tainted Aero bars and Glosette raisins (my parents’ favourites) but we were too hyped up and inexperienced in the ways of the world to realize that our own parents were stealing from us. 

The next two days began the hierarchy of snacking.  We would eat through our treat bag like layers of an archaeological dig.  Chocolate bars were eaten first.  Then Tootsie rolls Then Glosette peanuts.   And then….ugh….because there was nothing else left, jaw breakers, Pez circles and gum.  It would take two to three days of concentrated effort to consume all the sugar in those king sized pillow case bags.  But we did it!!  Once it was all done, we crashed in a sugar coma for two weeks….and woke up just in time to start dreaming of all the treats coming for Christmas!! 

The following is a public service announcement for men everywhere. 

When your girl asks you to bring her home a treat because she is suffering from:

• A bad day
• Her lady time
• Manic depression

She means you should bring her any of the following:

• A Dairy Queen hot fudge sundae
• Nachos
• Pies (plural)
• Jewellery

She does not mean:

• An apple
• A low fat veggie fruit bar
• The gift of just you

Thank you.

Today, I woke up a hunchback. My hunch had been coming on slowly. Over the last few weeks, I began to notice a distinctive hunch developing on my right spinal area. At first, I just though…whoa….zit. But as it progressed well past zit and into something requiring its own area code, I realized that my denial was not a cure. It became so big that I actually had to…go to the doctor. Gasp. I am the worst Canadian in the country. We have a wonderful health care system and I never use it. It is sort of like my gym membership. I know it is there, and I intend on using it, but really, I prefer just to brag about it to my American friends at parties rather than actually go. You see if I go, the doctor may find something wrong with me. If I don’t go, then I can spend countless hours obsessing about the millions of strange things it could be while researching on the internet.

While researching my hunchback-ed-ness on Wikipedia, I came up with all sorts of possibilities. List of possible reasons for hunch:

• Unborn twin
• Space alien pod
• The C word – and, yes, I mean cyst
• New fat storage area for hot fudge sundae consumption since area in buttocks is completely full

The first two possibilities sounded scary, so I made an appointment immediately. My family doctor was shocked to see me. She made notice several times that the last time I saw her Y2K had not happened. She screamed when she saw my hunch and sent me immediately to a surgeon across the hall. Her reaction startled me. I began to think that maybe my hunch was serious. What if I can’t get rid of it and it continues to grow? What if I can no longer wear form fitting shirts? What if it begins to look like I have boobs on both sides? What if the only job I can get is in a…bell tower. I ran across the hall.

The surgeon’s name was Dr. Jenetles. I know. That is what I thought when I first saw it. It is pronounced differently though. I obediently took a seat and filled out the required medical questionnaire. Tick the following:

Do you (or anyone in your family) have:

• Heart disease
• Diabetes
• Lung Issues
• Hepatitis
• Syphilis
• Allergies
• Cancer
• Nearsightedness
• Ringworm

I ticked “yes” for each just to be safe. I had no idea what half of them meant but I made special note to research each thoroughly when I got home.

I handed in my form. After reading my paper, I noticed the receptionist whispering to the other staff. They put on masks and rubber gloves, spoke to me in soothing tones and kept a distance of 8 feet. Sigh.

I sat glumly in the waiting area. What is it with doctor’s offices? Do they all have the same decorator? All Canadian doctor waiting rooms must contain the following items:

• A pile of Readers’ Digest and Canadian Living (honestly, if doctors didn’t subscribe to these magazines, Darwin would have taken them out long ago)
• A box of children’s plastic toys including a wooden abacas. All are laden with enough germs to start their own plague
• Not enough chairs. Well, technically there are enough chairs for patients but given we are all scared to sit next to each other because we don’t know how germy the other one is, there are not enough chairs. There needs to be a good person – chair - person ratio.
• Ceiling tiles with holes in it for counting
• Patients who are pretending to read the Life’s Like That section of Readers Digest but you can tell that they aren’t because they haven’t turned a page for over 40 minutes.
• A guy on a cell phone who politely goes outside the office (when told to by the receptionist) and then proceeds to yell outside the door to his wife about how stupid their contractor is.
• A poster on the wall that says There Is No Excuse for Abuse. You wish you could email a copy of the poster to the wife of the guy on the cell phone.

When it was my turn to see Dr. Jenetles, I was happy to get out of the waiting room. He was a lovely older man from Europe who gave me a stern lecture for not visiting a doctor prior to Y2K. I suspect my family doctor had called to get him to reinforce the point. After examining the lump, he declared it was an infected cyst and with a snip, snip my hunch was gone. It is sore but will be better.

Today, I woke up a hunchback. Tonight, I can walk amongst humans again. Happy Days! Bong. Bong. Bong.

Quiz: Are You a Kitsmom?

Give yourself one point for every item that applies to you.

Your stroller is the size of a Hummer. It has off road wheels even though the roughest path you ever take is down West Broadway. You leave your stroller blocking the aisle of a store while you text on your blackberry.

You dress your baby and your dog in outfits that match, colour co-ordinate or compliment each other in some way.

You are officially a size 0 one day after giving birth. And your boobs and butt are surprisingly perky and taunt.

You have a nanny. Nothing more to it. You just have a nanny.

You spend a lot of your day in Café Artigiano breast feeding your baby, drinking lattes and wondering why your baby is awake all night.

Your baby has an androgynous hipster first name (eg. Zohar or Hollis) and a hyphenated last name (eg. Wentworth-Anderson). If your baby marries another kitsbaby they will be known as Mr and Mrs Zohar and Hollis Wentworth-Anderson-Symthe-Cooper. It will be a lot of writing to put on wedding invitations.

Your diaper bag and your purse are made by Coach.

Your baby has a social calendar that rivals the Queen. It includes amongst other things: pre-preschool prep, Sanskrit lessons and tai chi.

Your baby has his or her own You Tube channel, facebook page, twitter account, wordpress blog, and domain name.

You disinfect all playground equipment for 20 minutes prior to letting your baby play. You carry enough hand sanitizer to sterilize a medium sized hospital.

Scoring results:

If you scored 10/10, you are a full blown, real deal kitsmom. Congratulations!!

If you scored 6-9/ 10, you are on the cusp of being a kitsmom. Good work but you need to try harder. Run directly to lululemon for guidance.

If you scored 1-5/10, you are on the Westside near Kits but not quite within our boundaries. Perhaps you are more a dunbarmom or a quilchenamom? And, honestly, there is nothing wrong with that!

Last week, I was dumped. Not by a boyfriend…no, by a friend. Essentially, I was fr-umped. And you know what? It hurt just as much. 

I was friends with Steve for a few years. We shared a common bond and interests and were always a good support system for each other. But we live very far apart so our contact was infrequent but fun. Then he met Tracey….

The dumping came via email. The body of the email read something like this (roughly paraphrased):

Dear Maggie,

Joyous news, joyous news (engaged!), joyous news, interesting gossip, whoa too much information, joyous news.

Final paragraph: So I hope you will understand that we can no longer be friends. Please do not contact me and I will not contact you in the future.

Sincerely,

Steve.

Flash to Maggie with jaw on floor, hole in heart and ego profoundly pierced. Whoa!!!  Whaaaat??? What do you mean you are terminating our friendship? I had no idea you could do that.

You see, I have always held onto friends and I never think of ending relationships… unless, of course, they produce a restraining order. I mean, sure, I have let friendships slide….you know….take longer and longer to return calls, deny a friendship on Twitter or remove their name from the Christmas card list….but I have never outright told someone that I no longer wanted to be their friend. Hmmm….does that make me a coward? Don't answer that!

I find close friendships are so much harder to come by these days. It is tricky to make new friends – perhaps that is why I hold onto the ones I have so dearly. I liked how you made friends in the past. They were kind of created for you by your teachers, your parents, your brownie leader – sort of like the same random system they use in prisons to create cell mates - and yet somehow it worked..... we never questioned why we were friends – we just did stuff together and had fun.

Cheryl became my childhood best friend simply because her last name came right after mine alphabetically in the roll call in grade one. This meant we were paired up for every science project, reading project and field trip from age 6 to age 18. Cheryl and I grew so much together. It was great to have a buddy through the awkward times that come with young life. Short list of awkward times:

• cute boys (eg. Shaun Henderson) who didn’t know we existed
• white pants and our first period
• denting the family car on our very first outing to the mall after assuring our parents that we were good enough drivers to take the car out on our own

It was all good Beverly Hills 90210 style stuff…..but only if Beverly Hills 90210 was set in Burns Lake and it starred two heavier, much nerdier girls.

After we started working, Cheryl and I drifted apart. Cheryl got married, moved far away (to Maple Ridge), had kids and we lost touch. But I still think of her….fondly. The friendship never ended….it just fell into the ebe and flow of life. I think that is what I will miss with this frumping. With the finality, it will be harder to look back at the friendship with nostalgia. There will always be a sting to it. That makes me sad.

I know in this case it can be hard to be friends with the opposite gender. I saw When Harry Met Sally. (Was I the only one that found the scene in the diner with Meg Ryan to be a tad uncomfortable?) If a friend's partner is the jealous type, it is game over. That is fine. I understand.  I wish Steve only good things.

With my frumping, of course, I went through the classic seven stages of grieving in order to heal.  These stages happen in this order:

• grape popsicles
• chunky monkey ice cream
• pizza
• salt and vinegar chips
• pancakes
• Aero bar
• and, finally, cake

It made me feel better (about the situation) and worse (about the potential weight gain). And it reminded me to actively appreciate the friends that I have in my life …..I love ‘em…..I am going to send them a Christmas card right now. Hugs.

Last week, I inadvertently blinded a teacher and her kindergarten class. You see, I have uncontrollable leg glare. And so, last Thursday, when I was forced to wear a dress without enough warning to buy nylons, I took my legs out of their protective wrappers (called pants) and exposed them to the world. The teacher and her students, who were out for a nature walk, couldn’t possibly have seen it coming when I glared on by. I can still hear their screams. “Mrs. Gomez. Is that a…..AAAAAHHHHHH…..my eyes….AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!” I feel badly.

What exactly do I mean by “leg glare”?  Well, let’s just say that people staring directly at my pale legs suffer symptoms similar to snow blindness. It didn’t use to be that way. I remember when I was younger, I practically lived in the sun. If, we kids weren’t getting enough sun, my parents would yell at us to go outside. Granted, these were the same people who drove long trips with the car windows closed while chain smoking, drinking beer and ensuring we weren’t wearing our seat belts. I don’t think healthy choices were at the top of their list for us.

When I was a teenager, I remember hanging out in the back yard with the tunes cranked (sorry neighbours!) and a bottle of baby oil by my side. If I wasn’t tanning fast enough, I kept the hose close by to douse myself with water to encourage “the burn”. Pretty much the only thing I didn’t do to guarantee skin cancer was tanning on tin foil.

Then, things changed and the world began embracing sunglasses, SPF 90 and hibernation. Now, given my Swedish genetics and my Al Gore inspired fear of the sun, my legs have gotten so white that Benjamin Moore uses them as a colour sample for Colour #FFFFFFFFFFF known as You Can’t Get Any Whiter than This.

Two days ago, I vowed to change things. I went to Shopper’s Drug Mart and picked up a tube of Fake 'N Bake Self Tanning Cream. Actually, the real Fake 'N Bake cream was quite pricy, so I picked up the generic brand – it was much cheaper; I got two times the amount; and there’s a recession on for Heaven’s sake! I read the propaganda insert closely. Apparently, fake tanning is the secret that Hollywood stars like Angelina Jolie use to give them that healthy all over glow. I suspect her glow stems from the fact she is married to Brad Pitt but who am I to judge.

I began picturing myself on Kits Beach with my new found bronze-ness – of course, the cream would not only provide me with a darker glow but legs that were 8 inches longer and a butt that was 4 sizes smaller. Yes, I would be a real kitsgal golden goddess.  From this point on, people would watch me with adoration as I run in slow motion on Kits beach, my corn rows bouncing in the wind, my bikini hugging my curves without jiggling off and my Dudley Moore George Clooney waiting for me on the sand…….

I raced home, eager to start my life as Bo Derek’s body double. I tried to read the instructions but, seriously, the type was soooo tiny and hard to read. I also couldn’t find my magnifying glass.  Yes, I sometimes use a magnifying glass to read instructions. Doesn’t everybody?  Anyway, I went ahead and rubbed the cream on my legs. It wasn’t too long before I realized something had gone horribly wrong. After a standard freak out and a trip to Wikipedia, I realized I had made two fatal errors in my quest for gold. 1) I had gotten a colour too dark for my pale skin (apparently Jamaican Beauty was way out of my league) and 2) I had not put it everywhere on my legs. In fact, I missed a spot….mostly, over the entire backside of my legs.

So, at present, I have a nice healthy orangey brown glow on the front part of my legs. If you squint, it looks like I am wearing chaps. Or it looks like I have the start of leprosy. Still, even with this chemical blemish, I look so much better than the “Hey, I’m an extra on Twilight” glare I was going for earlier. It may even be okay to look in my direction when my legs are out in public.  But, just to be safe, I wouldn’t stare directly at them!

I have superhuman hearing. No. I do not have a bionic ear or fly around town in spandex. Although, that would be cool! In my world, superhuman hearing means that I have freakishly amazing hearing skills. When I was seven, I complained to my mom about a weird ringing in my ears. Since we lived in Burns Lake, we had to travel to Vancouver to see a specialist, given our one town doctor was not able to see patients for a month because of “the incident”. One twelve hour road trip later and my parents and I were in Vancouver to meet an “ear doctor” named Dr. Stanley.

After a series of tests that involved dog whistles, air movement and feather bouncing, Dr. Stanley pronounced to my mom that I had superus humaneous hearingous or in layman’s language superhuman hearing. My mom argued with Dr. Stanley, stating that this was impossible given that she felt I hadn't ever heard a word she had said. After listening to my mom for twenty minutes, Dr. Stanley explained to her the concept of selective listening and told her that he had been using it for the past 19 minutes. The ringing in my ears turned out to be the sound of my own blood flowing through my veins. Strange and mind blowing. It is best not to think about it too much.

To be honest, finding out that I had superhuman hearing was okay, but I would have preferred to have the usual female super power of invisibility, good hair or big boobs. Back in Burns Lake, my newfound super skill did nothing to endear me to my classmates. When my grade four teacher, Mrs. Carlton, demanded to know what Robert and Alex were whispering during class, I perhaps should not have answered, “Mrs. Carlton, Robert says that your pants make you look like a hippopotamus and Alex whispered back that you looked more like a saggy bottomed hippopotamus”  It was during my time in detention (Robert and Alex got in trouble for being disrespectful and I got in trouble for being disrespectful by proxy) that I learned the importance of listening rather than talking. That is when it all began. From grade four on, I began to use my power for evil and not for good.  I became an eavesdropper.

My eavesdropping habit took hold quickly.  I found myself dropping in and out of other people’s lives on a regular basis…on streets, in coffee shops, in stores – anywhere people were chatting, I was listening. And, boy, did I listen. Some juicy overheard snippets:

Come on! I don’t think he is cheating on you. He loves you. I am sure of it. He just vacations alone in Mexico so he can appreciate you more when he gets back. Did I tell you I just got back from Mexico?

So, I told the guy %&#@ you and your %&#@ing dog. I don’t %&#@ing come over and crap on your%&#@ing lawn. Don’t %&#@ing crap on mine you %&#@piece of %&#@.

Today, I had the best waxing.

Honestly, have you seen Cheryl’s baby. No. Seriously. It is the ugliest baby I have ever seen. I didn’t want to say anything but it must have had a rough journey out of the birth canal. The face looks like it was hit with a frying pan.

Oh my God. Steve came in and saw me going through his desk and he totally freaked out. He called me a sneak and a thief. Can you believe it? Who the hell does he think he is anyway? I told him how dare he accuse me of such a thing. I went straight to HR and told them that I thought Steve was manipulative and a trouble maker. For that, I got a letter of reprimand in my file. I hate that guy.

I’ve got a buddy that can totally hook you up. Putting a grow op in your house isn’t that hard. I am not sure what you can say to your parents though. Maybe you can tell them it is a big science experiment.

So, I was eating the nutella waffle and bit into something. I thought it was a bad nut or something. But it was a ring! Then he got down on his knees in the middle of IHOP and asked me to marry him. Can you believe it?

Lately, however, my ears have not been bringing me the joy that they once have. Perhaps, I am growing tired of listening and not talking. Perhaps it is because people are spending more time talking to each other on computers rather than in person. Perhaps it is because conversations are seemingly more serious in public than they used to be. The latter is especially hard - it can be difficult to focus on a movie, a dinner out or a baptism when hearing sad news or a mean spirited exchange. It seems like the world has turned from snippets of Entertainment Tonight to snippets of CBC’s W5. Sigh. As of late, I am trying to block out other people’s gossip, afraid of recreating a Miss Brill moment in my life….but it’s hard. If only people weren’t so interesting…..and so entertaining…and if only I didn’t listen so well. So remember….when you are having a conversation in Blenz and you think no one can hear you, check to see if I am there. If I am, make it juicy.