Dear God, it's ME! Max!

There is one thing that everyone who knows me agrees on, and that is that God hates me. Even as a kid everyone knew this. My Sunday school teachers would even change the words from "Jesus loves the little children" to "Jesus loves the little children except for Max who is going straight to hell".

Okay, perhaps I'm exaggerating a little, and maybe "hate" is the wrong word...maybe it is better to just say that God is a sadist and I am his bitch. If God had a motorcycle, I would be on his bitch seat and it would be an uncomfortable one.

I only say this because I have a lifetime of proof.

Don't believe me? Okay, one such example...

I was living on my own at Yonge and Eglinton in Toronto; it was wintertime and just a couple of weeks before Christmas. I had a very small apartment and the heater was not working which was located on the wall beside my bed. It was hot water fed and the hot water wasn’t getting through which made it extremely cold in the apartment.

The heat had been off for three days and each day the landlord, Mr. Calderon would try to fix it on his own, and when unable to do so, would tell me a plumber was on his way.

Each day, Mr. Calderon, would push out the bed, lie on his back on the floor and try to turn on the valve which I found out later had rusted shut.

He would try for a while, then give up and tell me the plumber would be here the next day…but three days later and still no plumber and still no heat. Mr. Calderon was a nice man but it was very cold and enough was enough. Finally I called him on the phone and he could tell I was upset. He apologized profusely; apparently he was having a difficult time getting a plumber and he wasn’t sure what to do.

So, up he came to my apartment once more; pulled out my bed, got on his back on the floor and tried to open the valve. After five minutes he once again came to the foregone conclusion that we needed a plumber. He apologized for the tenth time and quickly put back the bed and left assuring me that he’d try again to see if the plumber could come tomorrow.

He called a few minutes later, after apparently trying every plumber in the yellow pages, to tell me he did find one that was available to come fix my heater the next morning.

I put the phone down and said quietly, 'Thank God that is over'.

That’s exactly when the power in my building went off...honestly.

There I was, in the dark and in the cold and it was still only around 6:30pm.

I decided to go for a walk to get out of the apartment and away from my troubles. It was a good idea, the walk helped me unwind and relax; in fact it seemed warmer outside than it did inside my place.

I passed the movie theatre on the corner and 'Dogma', the Kevin Smith film was playing and just about to start a new show. I decided to kill a couple of hours by seeing the movie. It was pretty good. Although it is a comedy there is a serious religious aspect to it. Most people left the theatre thinking a little bit about our place in the universe and God in general.

It was almost 10:00pm when the movie ended and with nothing to do I decided to go back home and go to sleep. The power still had not come on in the building and my apartment of course was still freezing.

I was lying in bed, fully clothed and under the blankets for extra warmth and was still thinking about God and the movie when I heard a man’s voice say, “Hello”. It was a quiet voice and he was speaking very slowly.

I paused, not knowing where the sound was coming from; again it said, “Hello”.

It was coming from my room. I got up, answered the door but no one was there. I went around my small apartment checking all the closets and under the bed to see if someone or something was hiding but nothing was found. I got back inside the warmth of my bed; again the voice said, “Hello”.

I probably still had religion on the brain, but at this point I was getting convinced that God was trying to talk to me. When the voice again said, “Hello”, I could barely hear it from the pounding of my heart.

“My son…” the voice said. I was about to yell out, “YES FATHER! YES!” when the voice continued, “My son....gave me his walkie-talkie and I think I left it in your apartment. Are you home?”

Oh yes, I am indeed God's bitch.

I soon came to learn that Mr. Calderon would use his son’s walkie-talkie when going to someone’s apartment in the building. That way if his wife needed to get hold of him she’d just use the other walkie-talkie from their apartment. When he was last in my apartment I guess in all the frustration of the moment he left his walkie-talkie on the floor and when the bed was placed back in its position it hid it from view.

Picture me there, in the dark, in the cold and as white as a ghost, shaking and covered in sweat.

It might have been just my imagination playing games but I swear I heard another voice quietly say, “Gotcha Bitch”.