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It was while working at a Nuclear Generating Station in Ontario, Canada that the author met many American contractors who specialized in nuclear contract work within North America.

These men and women jokingly called themselves Nuclear Whores and the website in which they found work was called http://www.roadwhore.com/.

According to the online ‘Urban Dictionary’, a Road Whore is defined as: “A temporary worker from out of town. In engineering and construction, road whores seek out and find massive bonuses, high pay rates, hazardous duty pay, per diem, housing allowances and any form of premium remuneration”.

These new friends taught him the ways of the contractor and he soon began a life as a nuclear contract engineer, moving from project to project around Ontario.

Soon after beginning his life as a nuclear contract worker, the author met and fell in love with a news journalist while doing improvisation at Second City in Toronto.

Three years later they got married. A year after that they gave birth to a son.

Unfortunately their love was short-lived. It ended two years into their marriage while living in Kincardine, Ontario while working under contract at the Bruce Nuclear Facility and she was home with their son.

One day, she packed everything including their son and moved to Oakville leaving the author in Kincardine, all alone.


Like many parents who suddenly find themselves inthis position, the author was surprised when told he was not an equal parent of his 1 year old son, but was what his divorce lawyer referred to as a “Secondary Parent”.

As such, he was not allowed to talk to his son whenever he wanted or to see him whenever he wanted. He had to fight to see his own son, and this took time.Without his boy in his daily life, he couldn’t eat, sleep or work. He was absolutely devastated.

After a few days, he went to his family physician who was immediately concerned for the author’s well‑being. This country doctor suggested a personal remedy of his for overcoming difficult times; he told him to concentrate all his thoughts away from the negativity of the present to the funny, happy stories of his past. He suggested trying to relive these memories, by recollecting them through painting, writing, songs, etc...

So, he wrote.

Each day, he concentrated on one funny, true story from his past. He would think about it for hours at a time, sometimes all day, and then would write it down. It took 42 days for the author’s lawyer to get visitation permission to visit his son in Oakville and in that time he wrote the stories that compile this blog.




THE CHAMP

I've only been in a couple of fights in my whole life. One of these times happened when I was in my late twenties.

Four of my old roommates from university and our girlfriends had a bit of a reunion in London, Ontario one weekend during the summer of 2006. Having many good memories of our time together we were looking forward to catching up with each other and seeing our old favourite sights.

At the end of our night, after spending time in several of our old drinking hangouts, we arrived at what used to be a hot spot in town during our tenure but now just looked scary and run down. Our plan was to make this our last spot of the night, stay for one drink for old time’s sake, and then head back to the hotel.

As we drank our beers and gave a toast to the evening, we looked around the room. The place had really changed. Since our departure from university, the cliental had changed from young students dancing, drinking and celebrating life to more of a bar for out of work locals who drank to get through the day.

The smell of unwashed bodies and cigarettes filled the air. The sound of our conversation was masked by the rotating wheels of the electric wheelchair beside our table that was pressed against the wall. Its wheels continually turning but going nowhere as its disabled owner had passed out drunk against the chair's controller and it had just run into the wall and stayed there.

As my roommate's girlfriend, Mary, was walking towards the washroom these three drunken idiots who had been eyeing us since we entered left their pool table and suddenly surrounded her, touching her inappropriately as they laughed. She was obviously terrified at what was happening.

Her boyfriend was elsewhere getting drinks and the others weren't paying attention. However, I was right there witnessing this.

Although I was completely in disbelief by what was going on, I instantly ran up and punched the first guy I got to holding Mary by the arm. I punch him right in the face and out of pure fear I just kept hitting him.

Luckily for me, the bouncers had also been watching and three of them arrived almost immediately afterwards to save Mary and I. The bouncers really took care of these guys. Within a few seconds these dirt-bags were physically removed from the bar by the scruffs of their necks and told to never return.

Mary was not hurt at all and I ended up looking like a hero to our little group for coming to her rescue.

We left right afterwards and went back to the hotel. As we walked back I could feel my heart pounding in my chest. I have never been so pumped with adrenaline.

My girlfriend Sophia and I were sharing a two-bed hotel room with another of my roommates and his girlfriend. They all wanted to go to sleep right away, but I just couldn’t. I was still wired and way too excited from what had just transpired.

I tossed and turned in bed, going over every little detail of the bar fight. I was so wound up that after getting up to go to the washroom, I ended up just standing in front of the mirror where all I did for twenty minutes was look at myself and pose, flexing in different fighting stances.

Not exactly my most humble moment.

My eyes had adjusted to the light so when I left the bathroom and entered the dark hotel room I could not see a thing.

In my over-confident and hyper state I walked much too quickly from the washroom towards where I thought my bed was, and accidentally kicked the leg of the writing desk with my little toe. Instantly shuddering in pain, I grabbed my foot trying not to scream and reached out to lean on the bed.

Unfortunately, the bed wasn’t where I thought it was. I missed the bed completely, fell over and ended up hitting the corner of the bed frame with the side of my head.

It was then that I let out a scream.

The others woke up and immediately, turned on the bedside lamp to find me on the floor, in my underwear, clutching my broken toe with one hand and holding my bleeding face with the other.

Yes. I was knocked-out by a hotel room.

And this was only the start of my humiliation.

The next morning we met our other friends for breakfast. The woman that was in the scuffle with me had gone out and bought a little trophy-like trinket in the hotel gift shop and taped a piece of paper to the base of it. On the paper she wrote my name labeled with "Boxing Champ 2006"

My girlfriend Sophia said with a sarcastic smile, "Oh...didn't you hear? In the middle of the night, Max lost his title due to a knock out".

"To whom?" she asked, unsure of the joke.

"Ah, that would be Room 302", my girlfriend laughed.

I just cannot win.

1 comment:

Rick from Canada said...

I was in my first fight 3 years ago. Michelle and I had been married for about 8 months and had gone to a "Lobster Fest".

We were on a party bus on the way back and - still in love - were making out - pretty innocently.

Everybody on the bus was quite drunk - except me - I had not had too much that night as I was expecting to drive later on in the evening.

The bus pulled over at a gas station about 30km from home, and the guy who had arranged the bus rental announced to everybody "Time to get the whore off the bus." And pointed to us.

I stood up (I am 5'6 and he is about 6') and asked him, "Did you just call my wife a whore?" "Yes". And I punched him right in the face. In seconds about 5 people jumped on me and held me down.

We got off the bus and the police were called. They asked me if I had assaulted him and I admitted that I had and explained the situation.

In the end, we were left stranded at the gas station and took a cab back into town, but I think Michelle was impressed. And when her dad found out, I think he was impressed even more.

Cheers!

Rick