tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23157201921589641302024-03-13T11:38:32.702-04:00Life Stories of a Secondary Parentby M. DaigleM. Daiglehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15650839117624807817noreply@blogger.comBlogger41125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2315720192158964130.post-71533191348155278132011-02-28T05:11:00.010-05:002011-12-29T01:50:57.090-05:00<div align="center">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHBFD92VLL0xPOd8XXT3VzizdY9Ok1hdg6U85ppHf3IZhbGaC1bGd1sv2K90gQULr6uiQSnE0Dzj6-ruE8ddA5_fUjfmQ1GR_EBoL_VdyUBjKASoJLH6YZo8WLG5XLzxjvdY6E8q-zjQ/s1600/Main_Template_0005_Dye.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5689811787413434018" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHBFD92VLL0xPOd8XXT3VzizdY9Ok1hdg6U85ppHf3IZhbGaC1bGd1sv2K90gQULr6uiQSnE0Dzj6-ruE8ddA5_fUjfmQ1GR_EBoL_VdyUBjKASoJLH6YZo8WLG5XLzxjvdY6E8q-zjQ/s400/Main_Template_0005_Dye.jpg" style="cursor: hand; display: block; height: 400px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 286px;" /></a> <span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 180%;"><strong>To Dye For</strong></span> <br />
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<span style="font-family: arial;"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family: "Calibri", "sans-serif"; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: JA;">It is a few minutes before the clock hits midnight. At that time I shall turn 40 years of age. Rather than celebrating the new decade at the local bar with shot glass in hand, I find myself staring into the mirror of my washroom, counting the grey hairs on my head.<br /><br />I have come to the realization that it will be far easier for me to count the hairs that haven’t turned grey….I’m half expecting that at the stroke of midnight my hair will suddenly turn sheer white and my man-boobs will drop to the floor.<br /><br />I am 40.<br /><br />I am now old.<br /><br />Perhaps I should start to consider dyeing my hair.<br /><br />I shouldn’t fret about the thought of dyeing….it’s not like I’m a novice at colouring my hair. In fact, I have dyed my hair 5 times before…yes indeed, 5 times…of course it is important to note that all 5 times were in a 3 day period.<br /><br />I was sixteen years of age and it was the summer month of July. It was a Monday afternoon and I had the day off of work from my job as a cook in a restaurant called Bar B Que Heaven in the nearby town of Brooklin, Ontario.<br /><br />Each day at 4pm I’d find a reason, any reason, to go outside and walk to the front of my house. For across the street Kendra Martin worked at the Prince Albert Community Centre where a kid’s day-camp was held. 4pm was when Kendra got onto her bike each work day to go home and I always made every effort to catch her attention and say hi to her.<br /><br />Kendra was tall, with blonde hair, blue eyes and had the face of a goddess. A mere smile from her in my general direction would be enough to cause my legs to wobble from being weak in the knees. Whenever I saw her I would instantly hold my breath…by the time she rode her bike over to say hi my head would be a little light-headed and I’d have trouble making coherent sentences because my tongue suddenly felt as if it was too big for my mouth.<br /><br />“Heyth Kendra…whath up?”, I’d barely manage to say. A trickle of sweat slowly moved down my face…<br /><br />I first met Kendra when we were in Grade 4 and we became fast friends. But even then I knew she was way too good looking for me…I remember distinctly deciding at age 9 that I could not have a crush on Kendra for her looks made my stomach too anxious with nerves.<br /><br />Needless to say, not much had changed at sixteen.<br /><br />She stopped her bike in front of me, as she usually did and looked at me, kind of in a funny way, as if examining my face…which made me certain she somehow knew my tongue had swelled inside my mouth. After a few seconds of looking…which to me lasted years…she began, “You know, I was thinking…”<br /><br />Instantly my imagination raced…was she going to tell me she liked me? Was this the moment of which I’d dreamed? Oh my god!!!….dontfaintdontfaintdontfaint…<br /><br />“Yeah…you’d look a lot better if your hair was just a bit darker in colour” she simply said…and with that, she smiled and started peddling her bike down the street.<br /><br />“Thankth Kendra for the advith! I’ll conthider it!” I yelled to her as she drove away…my tongue still swollen and unable to form real words.<br /><br />Right there and then, on the side of the road, was when I decided that I was going to dye my hair.<br /><br />My friend Justin Miller came over about an hour later and within minutes he and I were walking to downtown Port Perry to go to the drugstore.<br /><br />“What are we doing? Where are we going?” asked Justin as we walked.<br /><br />“I told you, to the drug store!” I replied, not knowing how to tell him I was going to dye my hair.<br /><br />“Are you getting condoms? Do you NEED to get condoms?” he asked with curiosity, thinking that maybe somehow in the past 24 hours since I had last seen him I was now sexually active.<br /><br />“No. No. No. That’s not it.”<br /><br />“Are you sick?”<br /><br />“No. No. I’m not sick”<br /><br />“You have VD? And you NEED penicillin, right??”<br /><br />I had to tell him, or I was going to continue to hear things like this the entire way...“I was just thinking of maybe dyeing my hair…I think I’d look a little better if my hair was just a bit darker”. I never mentioned that my entire decision was based on Kendra’s suggestion.<br /><br />There was a bit of a pause as Justin thought about this…he had a funny look on his face as if to say “What the hell are you talking about?”…but all he did was shook his head and said, “whatever” and we continued our walk downtown.<br /><br />At the drugstore, we slowly walked back to the area on the shelves that held all the hair dye. All the boxes had women’s faces on them…making it very clear that only women dyed their hair. I took a death breath…this was for Kendra. The lady who worked at the store saw Justin and I looking at the shelves with very confused looks on our faces and came over to ask if we needed help. She was about 50 years of age, with greyish hair and had a nice smile.<br /><br />I panicked…“Just picking up some hair dye for my mom...I forget what she told me to get”<br /><br />The lady smiled, “I can help you. What colour is your mom’s hair now?”<br /><br />“Uh….pretty well the same colour as mine”<br /><br />“Okay. And would she like to change the colour?”<br /><br />“Uhm…yeah, she’s thinking about going just a touch darker…just a little bit”<br /><br />I could hear Justin snorting with laughter as he turned his back away from the lady as I gave him a dirty look.<br /><br />The lady smiled and handed me a container with the words Maybelline across the top and said, “Just tell your mom to follow the instructions inside”.<br /><br />“Ok. Thanks. Bye.”…I walked as fast as I possibly could to the cashier and paid while feeling the need to explain to the cashier that this purchase was for my mom. I was soon outside walking away as quickly as I could.<br /><br />Justin had already left the store ahead of me and was now waiting for me on the sidewalk with a big smile on his face…I don’t even remember the walk home…my only thought at the time was that I just wanted to get this over with.<br /><br />By the time we arrived at my parent’s house, their cars were in the driveway and they were in the kitchen making dinner. As I walked into the house I could hear my sister, Charlene, in her room on the main floor...Justin and I said hi quickly and ran upstairs to my parent’s room and right into their ensuite washroom.<br /><br />I tore open the hair dye package as quickly as I could.<br /><br />Looking back, I probably should have read the directions with a little more care…or at least talked to my mom about it first…but, no. At the time I thought the best way to handle this was half panic, full rushed.<br /><br />I took the plastic gloves out of the box.I wasn’t sure why I would need them and Justin laughed when I held them up…so I just chucked them in the garbage.<br /><br />The bottle of hair dye fell out of the box and I picked it up off the floor and looked at it…it seemed the right colour…With one hand, I motioned to Justin to wait outside of the washroom and with the other I closed the door…<br /><br />I poured the dye solution into my hand and started mixing it into my hair as I continued to read the instructions.<br /><br />It said to wait twenty minutes…I barely lasted 10 before my eyes began to water and my hands started to burn. The itching of my scalp was unbearable and the horrible smell started to burn my nose hairs…<br /><br />Suddenly, this didn’t seem like the great idea I had thought it was.<br /><br />I quickly washed it all out as fast as I could. I dried it with two rubs of a towel, slicked it back with my hands and took a deep breath before looking into the mirror.<br /><br />It seemed darker.<br /><br />I did a couple of poses in front of the mirror as I tried to determine whether it looked okay.<br /><br />I opened up the washroom door to Justin’s face…his mouth and eyes went wide open as he saw me… a laugh slowly built across his face.<br /><br />“You look like Roy Orbison!!”<br /><br />“No I don’t!!” as if trying to desperately convince him that I looked good…but my voice gave me away as it cracked with fear, gasping in mid-sentence.<br /><br />“It is so dark Max! You seriously look like Roy Orbison”.<br /><br />I ran to the mirror above my mom’s dresser…“Oh God! What am I going to do?” Time seemed to stand still as I looked at myself in the mirror…I did kind of look like Roy Orbison.<br /><br />That’s when I looked at my hands.<br /><br />They were black from the hair dye…it suddenly made sense why there were plastic gloves in the box.<br /><br />Justin did his best to control his laughter but it wasn’t easy for him. He did manage, “Perhaps your hair just looks darker right afterwards…by tomorrow it will probably look lighter…right?”<br /><br />“Yeah, I guess”…I didn’t sound convinced at all.<br /><br />I continued to stare at myself in the mirror…“don’t tell anyone about this, okay?” I pleaded.<br /><br />We decided the best plan was for me to call in sick to work tomorrow and stay home, out of sight. When Justin got home from work we’d walk back to the drugstore and I would wait outside while he bought some new hair dye for me to make it lighter.<br /><br />Justin left to go home as I scrubbed my hands…I grabbed a towel and wrapped it around my head and walked downstairs to my room. I yelled to my mom that I was feeling a bit sick to my stomach and was going to lie down. As she started to walk towards my room to see if I was okay, I screamed, “Don’t come into my room mom! I’m okay! I just need to sleep!”<br /><br />Somehow that worked and she didn’t open up my bedroom door. I turned off the light and quickly got into bed.<br /><br />I didn’t sleep at all that night. I just listened to the clock ticking as I stared out the window at the moon, wondering to myself what I was going to do…Oh God! I couldn’t go back to school in September looking like Roy Orbison! I couldn’t go to work looking like Roy Orbison!<br /><br />The next day was the longest day ever.<br /><br />I just stayed in bed. My mom was working and my dad was away the entire day; luckily my sister didn’t bug me so I just laid in bed with my thoughts until Justin showed up around 3pm.<br /><br />I put on a ball cap to hide as much of my hair as possible. We walked down to the drugstore; passing cars must have thought I was speed-walk training as I was going as fast as I could. Justin and I didn’t talk much; we both understood that it was just best to concentrate on our task at hand...to buy more hair dye that would fix this mistake.<br /><br />As per our plan, I waited outside of the drugstore while Justin went in and bought some new hair dye. He came out a few minutes later carrying a bag filled with a few different things. We went behind the store and he showed me what he had bought. He had another box of hair dye that was a blonde colour and he had a bottle of ‘Sun In’ which was a bleach for hair to make it lighter in colour…it made sense to me to use this one as I just needed my hair a bit lighter.<br /><br />We broke all speed walking records travelling back to my parent’s house; we walked in the door and right up the stairs to my parent’s room. My parents hadn’t arrived home yet and I had thought my sister was gone…but as we got to the top stair, she was right there in front of us. She could see the hair that was showing under my ball cap and let out a yell, “What did you do??”<br /><br />I didn’t answer her…but I didn’t need to. I ran into the washroom carrying the bag from the drug store and closed the door. I decided to go with the ‘Sun In”. My thinking was that if I just left it in a little while, the bleach would lighten the colour and it would look less black and more the colour that Kendra had suggested. Somehow, this made total sense at the time.<br /><br />The ‘Sun In’ box was quickly opened and I poured the contents directly into my hair; using my hands, which were still a little dark in places from the dye job yesterday, worked the solution into the hair. I waited 5 full minutes and then washed it all out.<br /><br />Once again, I turned to the mirror.<br /><br />Patches. My hair was now spotted in patches of a bright colour, not blonde but more of a weird green colour.<br /><br />I opened the door of the bathroom. There sitting in chairs in front of the doorway were Justin and my sister, each with a drink in their hand as if they were spectators watching a game. Their shocked faces indicated immediately that my spotted look was not what they were expecting…but much worse; or rather much more entertaining to them.<br /><br />I just sat on the lid of the toilet, not sure if I should laugh or cry so I kind of did both at once.<br /><br />After their laughter subsided a little, Justin suggested that I try the other bottle of hair dye he had bought…the one that was a blonde colour. To this day, I have no idea if he was trying to help me or if he just wanted to see if I would dye it again…but at the time, I just figured I had nothing else to lose at this point.<br /><br />So, I opened the box, made sure to put on the plastic gloves this time, poured the liquid into my covered hands and carefully rubbed it into my hair. My scalp was really starting to sting. For those that have never dyed their hair, this stuff is toxic…the smell burns your nose and it also burns the scalp as it sits there. It is not a fun process. I waited the full twenty minutes as per the instructions, which I read in full this time.<br /><br />I washed it out and once again faced the mirror, which had become my nemesis.<br /><br />It looked a little orange now and there were still some patches of the bright green colour but overall it did look better…if only a little. At this point, I’d take what positives I could get. It did look less “patchy”…which at this moment was a positive thing. Justin and Charlene seemed to agree as their laughter was not quite as loud this time as it was before.<br /><br />After conferring with Justin and Charlene, we decided the best course of action was to use the blonde hair dye again to see if it would make my hair more blonde than orange. If using it once helped a little, then using it twice should really help.<br /><br />So, I put on the gloves again, poured the solution into my hands and rubbed it into my hair. My scalp was in such pain by this point as it was completely burnt. I waited the twenty minutes sitting on the side of the bathtub. It had become a familiar routine by this point.<br /><br />Upon waiting, I washed it out fully, the water hurt my scalp as it washed over my head. I knew this wasn’t a good sign.<br /><br /><city w:st="on"><place w:st="on">Orange</place></city>…bright orange. My hair was now a fairly consistent bright orange. My scalp felt on fire.<br /><br />Apparently as I was washing my hair, my mom had arrived home and walked in the house. I hadn’t heard her with the water running. When she heard my sister yell something along the lines of, “MAX! YOUR HAIR IS BRIGHT ORANGE!” she ran upstairs to see what was going on.<br /><br />“Oh God Max! What have you done?” was her only response as she slowly sat down on the edge of her bed and just stared at me.<br /><br />After gaining back her composure she quickly told me that she was taking me downtown to the hair salon…I pleaded with her not to take me to Port Perry…I begged that we go to Oshawa, which was the nearest city to Port Perry, about 20 minutes south.<br /><br />So, off we went…leaving Justin and my sister in tears of laughter. My mom had a worried look on her face as she concentrated on driving and I held my ball cap lightly on my head, as the weight of it hurt my burnt scalp.<br /><br />We soon arrived at a salon in downtown Oshawa; the light was still on and I could see a man inside. I ran to the door and tried it…locked. The man inside turned to me and waved as if to indicate he was closed. I took off my ball cap, showing my bright orange hair and held my dark hands against the glass of the door…the man gasped in shock and quickly indicated that he was now open for business. He unlocked the door and quickly ushered us in, locking the door again behind us.<br /><br />The man was in his fifties, had a dark moustache which twirled upwards at the ends and he had dark curly hair, was slightly overweight and looked Italian. As I sat in the salon chair I could hear him on the phone behind me telling his wife that he’d be late coming home due to a “hair emergency”.<br /><br />As he mixed the hair dye, I told him of my tale. He seemed to understand and be sympathetic when I told him of Kendra Martin’s role in all of this.<br /><br />He told me he first had to strip my hair of the existing colour. He put some gel into his hands and tried to work it into my scalp…I winced in pain as a tear rolled down my cheek.<br /><br />“Oh, your scalp is bleeding!” he exclaimed. More tears ran down my face as he tried to comb it. “You might lose your hair!” The man didn’t really make me feel better with his ‘casual conversation’.<br /><br />After finishing the stripping of my hair, he was ready to put in the hair dye that he had mixed earlier. He told me it would be a brownish-red colour.<br /><br />Words can’t possibly do justice to describe the pain of the hair dye on my scalp. This was the fifth dyeing of my hair in three days.<br /><br />I swear I could feel each inch of every strand as he combed it out…and every little bit of it hurt.<br /><br />My hair didn’t end up falling out but I did get the worst case of dandruff in the history of hair. Skin came off of my scalp in large chunks. I wasn’t able to wash my hair for a week due to the pain.<br /><br />I only ended up missing one day of work. Although when they heard my tale of woe they teased me for weeks afterwards.<br /><br />As for the final colour of my hair after the five dyes…it was indeed a reddish brown, slightly darker and redder than my original hair. I intentionally kept out of sight from Kendra for two weeks, until my scalp healed and I was able to wash my hair again. When we did meet up one day on her way home from work, she stopped her bike once again in front of me and stared intently at my reddish brown hair, pondering it for a few seconds;<br /><br />“I think it looked better the way it was before”.<br /><br />Bitch<a href="http://www.blogger.com/" name="S2">.</a></span></span></div>
</div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href='http://feedpublish.com/MaxRyan-rss10046'></a></div>M. Daiglehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15650839117624807817noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2315720192158964130.post-50503096490726533412010-11-20T12:02:00.009-05:002011-12-24T16:33:01.135-05:00<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8BZs7Y5GaCXA0AkDQnMAIbIfFy4eORtV-4KzCgQ8aovjUwd5ESRrvfjKNJnTS0J9Os-FYCC2f8xw_KmjaUkVLHDi2RjVXm4AmquOtf-MIv1UJvHuwnZybKQ3Jr-VyqgLSAd9-7Stzsw/s1600/Main_Template_0013_Mother.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 286px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 400px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5689811027464970114" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8BZs7Y5GaCXA0AkDQnMAIbIfFy4eORtV-4KzCgQ8aovjUwd5ESRrvfjKNJnTS0J9Os-FYCC2f8xw_KmjaUkVLHDi2RjVXm4AmquOtf-MIv1UJvHuwnZybKQ3Jr-VyqgLSAd9-7Stzsw/s400/Main_Template_0013_Mother.jpg" /></a><br /><br /><div align="left"><span style="font-family:arial;"></span></div><br /><div align="center"><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:180%;"><strong>My Mother The Sex Worker</strong></span></div><br /><br /><div align="left"><span style="font-family:arial;"></span></div><br /><div align="left"><span style="font-family:arial;">My name is Max Ryan and I have two confessions to make...<br /><br />First of all, my mother is not, and never has been, employed as a "sex worker".<br /><br />She worked as a family planning nurse.<br /><br />I now understand that I took slight pleasure in telling naive friends that my mother worked in the sex industry when really she advised and taught people as a medical nurse about sexual health.<br /><br />I guess I found this so funny because my mother was 4o years old when I was born so by this time she was in her mid-fifties. She is a devout Christian and the most moral person I know or have ever met. So to me, she is the last person that would ever work in the sex industry and that is why I found it funny to tell people that she did.<br /><br />And in my defence, it wasn't entirely a lie...for when friends would come over to visit they would find wooden dildos and anatomically correct dolls and other crazy things lying around our kitchen.<br /><br />What I did not explain to these friends was these items were used by my mom to teach young kids and mentally challenged youth about sex education and things like putting on a condom.<br /><br />I now admit, that perhaps I spun all my answers to paint a picture that was not entirely accurate...for example, when my friends, aghast at what they were hearing gasped, "Are you being serious?" I now know I shouldn't have responded with, "Yeah! She gets a hundred bucks an hour. How do you think we can afford this house?"<br /><br />Second confession: To all young ladies who made appointments with the family health clinic at the Oshawa Centre and ended up speaking to my mother about anything sex related, she never once breathed a word to me about anything at all. Nothing whatsoever. No names. No conditions. Nothing at all.<br /><br />The reason I feel I must make this second confession, is that once or twice or at most ten or fifteen times I may have indicated to young ladies that I knew much more about their private lives than I actually did. In fact, I never knew anything.<br /><br />For the record, it was the girls themselves who told me everything. If they hadn't been so worried what I knew and what I didn't know I never would have known anything.<br /><br />Every situation started out the same way. A girl would walk up to me very nervous and say hi. She'd start up a conversation about something totally unrelated and she'd nervously laugh a couple of times before turning to leave. A few steps down the hall, she'd stop, turn to the side and quietly ask with a nervous smile that was starting to twitch, "By the way, did your mother happen to mention that I spoke to her recently?"<br /><br />What was I supposed to do? I mean really?<br /><br />How could I possibly resist, "Yes, she called you a bad girl."<br /><br />And if I got the reaction that I wanted, which I always did; a look of pure shock and fear, I kept going...and the conversation would always go something like this:<br /><br />Girl: Seriously?<br /><br />Max: It's okay. Don't worry. I'm just not supposed to shake your hand or drink from the same cup.<br /><br />Girl: What?<br /><br />Max: It's nothing. Compared to most of the girls at this school you are totally, almost innocent."<br /><br />Girl: What?<br /><br />By this time in the conversation, the girl's face would usually start to get red and twitch a little.<br /><br />Max: I do think you should follow my mom's instructions to the letter and take those pills regularly as instructed.<br /><br />Everything is about pills when you go to the family health office. They first see my mom and then the on-staff doctor who prescribes birth control pills or antibiotics or pills for whatever they came for...whether it itches or scratches or pusses I just figure there is always a pill for it. Based on their reactions, I was right.<br /><br />Girl: She told you about the pills?<br /><br />Max: Of course! She's my mother! Hello?? I'm not going to say anything...just be careful out there. Frankly, we're all more than a little worried about you."<br /><br />Girl: She told you about the pills? (Obviously in shock at this point and stuck on the same question)<br /><br />Max: Hush. We shall speak no more of this. Just for God's sakes, be safe! I'd hug you...but I'm not allowed.<br /><br />Then I would turn in the other direction and walk away...leaving the young lady standing there still shaking and uncertain about what had just transpired.<br /><br />You have to understand, I was just really bored in high school. So...again, it's not really my fault when you think about it that way.<br /><br />In hindsight though, I probably shouldn't have played that game with girls that I was close with...who were my age and those with whom we hung around the same group. This made it much worse for those girls because they naturally assumed I told everyone else in our group about their private business.<br /><br />One such friend, whom I do love to this day, and respect I might add...was a little pissed at me for a period of time in high school.<br /><br />She did come to me and ask me if my mother had spoken of her recently, and of course we had the same conversation that I did with all girls who asked that question.<br /><br />However, it stewed within her much more than with the others.<br /><br />Not for long, just a couple of days, but it must have been intense stewing for she was absolutely certain that I was telling everyone her private business. And I should have been more in tune with that, but I wasn't. I didn't notice that she was no longer sitting with us at lunch, that she was sitting by herself. I didn't notice that she would glare at me when I was laughing with friends. I didn't notice anything at all I'm afraid.<br /><br />So, one lunch hour a few days after we spoke, I was sitting at a table in the library laughing with friends and I didn't notice that she was sitting at a cubicle just watching us.<br /><br />I guess she just stared at us thinking we were laughing about her.<br /><br />So, she finally had enough. She got up and slammed her chair against the desk, stormed over to our table and just stared. Immediately I knew, based on her expression that something was wrong but I honestly had no idea she was upset at me.<br /><br />"Fine asshole!" she began, looking straight at me. "I see you guys laughing and talking about me. Fine! All of you! I had the clap! Gonorrhea! Are you happy?? Cause I sure as hell am! Thanks a lot Max! Asshole!"<br /><br />And then she walked off.<br /><br />There was a long moment of silence; and I do mean a long moment of silence.<br /><br />Finally a guy at the next table broke the silence with, "You gave her the clap?"<br /><br />Totally confused at first I responded with, "I didn't give her the.....oh!" Like a light bulb turning on in my brain, I finally understood what had happened and my role in this. Oops!<br /><br />Everything turned out okay....well, at least for me. I ran after her and explained everything. Although she was absolutely embarrassed after announcing to the library that she had gonorrhea, she has now lost all of the anger she had with me...of course, it took therapy and it's been twenty-five years now.<br /><br />The best part about a naïve person is that...well, they're naïve; and this girl was definitely naïve. Her friends at the library table, including myself, told her repeatedly that we couldn't understand a word of what she had said in the library when she was upset with us, so no one else could have possibly understood that she had gonorrhea. And she believed it.<br /><br />You might be wondering why then, am I writing about this now, to betray that lie for the sake of a good story and some cheap laughs.<br /><br />Well, much like my dates, I take what I can get.</span></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href='http://feedpublish.com/MaxRyan-rss10046'></a></div>M. Daiglehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15650839117624807817noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2315720192158964130.post-76048162118945229682010-09-01T11:27:00.018-04:002011-12-24T16:31:26.664-05:00<div align="center"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAkg6dVl6-bL9oeEhIQgJ9ckP44QUM_EiMHHnU_f337aq6ArxPAaxgSXwD0L0KC9jO3WqcqrSUWj7EGHAuzT12csULUvYnjkyDbiO9eEq54ciZeexvHuyEy5yHZqsFTfCGYw7Q09Rprg/s1600/Main_Template_0004_Comrade.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 286px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 400px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5689810540800944674" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAkg6dVl6-bL9oeEhIQgJ9ckP44QUM_EiMHHnU_f337aq6ArxPAaxgSXwD0L0KC9jO3WqcqrSUWj7EGHAuzT12csULUvYnjkyDbiO9eEq54ciZeexvHuyEy5yHZqsFTfCGYw7Q09Rprg/s400/Main_Template_0004_Comrade.jpg" /></a> <span style="font-family:arial;font-size:180%;"><strong>Comrade Max</strong></span><br /><br /><div align="left"><span style="font-family:arial;"></span></div><br /><div align="left"><span style="font-family:arial;"></span></div><br /><div align="left"><span style="font-family:arial;">When I was 5 years old my name was 'Comrade'.<br /><br />My parents still called me Max, but every other adult was calling me Comrade...other parents, teachers at school, high school kids all did.<br /><br />I guess I didn't really mind as much as I just found it confusing at that age.<br /><br />It did seem to make everyone happy as they were always laughing and smiling as they said it. But I had no idea what they were laughing at.<br /><br />The year was 1976, and I was a 5 year old boy living in Port Perry, Ontario and going to Kindergarten at Prince Albert Public School.<br /><br />My neighbour, Jay Sterling, who was my age and in my class at school, had enrolled in Beavers, which is the first level of the Boy Scouts club, and I was begging my mom to allow me to do the same.<br /><br />And she agreed.<br /><br />The next day on her way to work as a nurse in Oshawa, she drove to the Scouts headquarters, which was in downtown Oshawa and paid the enrollment fee.<br /><br />This is when she found out that she would also have to pay an additional $10 for a Beavers' uniform. This consisted of a summer shirt, a thin scarf and a ball cap.<br /><br />You see, attached to the Scouts' headquarters was a store for parents to buy all the clothes and accessories, and this how they made their money. Understand that $10 back in 1976 was a lot of money.<br /><br />My father worked as a school teacher and as I mention, my mom worked as a nurse, so while my parents didn't have an excess of funds, we never found ourselves wanting.<br /><br />For my mother though, having grown up during the depression era, it was the principle of being required to pay so much for a summer shirt and ball cap hat that made her so upset.<br /><br />She rarely got upset, so when she did, she fumed.<br /><br />My mother let it be known to whoever was working the counter that she refused to buy the clothes.<br /><br />When the Scouts representative told her that it was mandatory for me to have a uniform, she fumed even more. I can only imagine how she looked to the person working the counter as I've seen my mom really mad only a couple of times, and it is not pretty.<br /><br />When my mom sets her mind on something she sticks to it. And she was committed that she would not be buying the regular uniform for $10.<br /><br />Instead, she decided to buy me the winter Beavers' uniform instead. This way, she figured, she'd be getting more value for her money as I could wear it all year round.<br /><br />Don't be too surprised if you didn't know there was a winter Beavers' uniform. It wasn't exactly a big seller.<br /><br />The piece-de-resistance of the winter gear was the large faux-fur hat.<br /><br />It looked almost exactly like the large Russian Ushanka military fur hats, thus my new nickname of 'Comrade'. Everyone has seen these hats; of course, usually they are reserved for the bad Russian guys in old cold-war era war movies.<br /><br />I remember it well. The hat had long faux-fur flaps which hung down, covering my ears and most of the sides of my head. The whole thing seemed to weigh about five pounds, my little head pressed down into my body as I wore it.<br /><br />The accompanying winter vest was a thick brown cotton material that had a lining of the same faux-fur which poked out the sides. It was very heavy and very hot. There was also a thick scarf which had a Beavers' emblem sewn at the bottom and was wrapped a few times around my neck as it was so long.<br /><br />As dumb as I may have looked, proud was I to wear the Beavers uniform. I was 5 years old. At that age, joining Beavers felt like I was joining the war; I was just proud to serve my country.<br /><br />I was a bit surprised that I was the only kid I knew to have this uniform. I asked my mom and she quickly replied that the store had run out of the summer wear. It seemed reasonable to me.<br /><br />It was early September when I started wearing it and we still had a few very warm days left.<br /><br />I wore my uniform everywhere I went; as did the other kids wear theirs. I wore it to school, after school, everywhere. I was so proud to be in Beavers, just one of the local boys fighting the good fight.<br /><br />By wearing that outfit, the local residents above the age of 15 took to calling me Comrade.<br /><br />As far as I know they didn't all get together in a town meeting of some sort and declare that this was my new name....my guess is it just seemed an obvious choice given that I looked very much like a Russian soldier trying to survive the Siberian winter.<br /><br />"Hello Comrade".<br /><br />"Comrade! Power to the People!"<br /><br />These are the things I heard as people passed me.<br /><br />My first knowledge of the word Vodka arose from asking for a glass of water, and the reply was "Comrade, you mean Vodka, da?" in a thick, fake Russian accent.<br /><br />I had no idea what was going on.<br /><br />In 1976, they introduced an exercise program for all students at our school. Some days we began the morning with the Health Hustle, in which we did exercises to songs like 'King of the Road' and the 'Popcorn Song'. Other days we'd spend a half hour running laps around the field in the back of the school.<br /><br />On one of the days we ran laps around the field, it was late September and it was a hot, muggy day, one of the last ones of the year.<br /><br />I was absolutely exhausted as I wore my full winter Beavers uniform and tried to run. Sweat was pouring down my little face from under the giant hat. My winter vest seemed to be overheating. I was tripping on the scarf as I ran. The more I ran the more I was feeling uncomfortable and sick.<br /><br />As my head started to spin, sweat now began pouring down my face. When I reached where the teachers were standing I went to tell them I was feeling sick, but instead I just threw up at their feet.<br /><br />Then I passed out.<br /><br />Yes; apparently heat stroke.<br /><br />The Russian Comrade had fallen.<br /><br />I was quickly taken inside and my mother was called. She drove like the wind from Oshawa to come retrieve me and found me quietly lying on a bench in the secretary's room. I didn't say anything when I saw her; I just looked up at her with sad eyes, like a wounded puppy.<br /><br />It was obvious she was feeling guilt like no other. This probably wasn't alleviated when the Principal took her aside and suggested she refrain from dressing me in winter clothes during the hot days.<br /><br />Da Mom. Da.</span></div></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href='http://feedpublish.com/MaxRyan-rss10046'></a></div>M. Daiglehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15650839117624807817noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2315720192158964130.post-43297421088662841122010-08-27T21:33:00.046-04:002011-12-24T16:29:37.476-05:00<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1OG2SXN5OShGHaYy4MzUydvVvAqeQwRGRgMBTFgifmKF71fSy-gYyWgc1PYI4GpQE97oL0zGbICtaALvo35sKidCkSzCeMnelNPKB1Jgz_8DfS6o9BPt_kY0EpnmmoP90QlS7TyWcCA/s1600/Main_Template_0008_Shanty.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 286px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 400px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5689810119760948722" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1OG2SXN5OShGHaYy4MzUydvVvAqeQwRGRgMBTFgifmKF71fSy-gYyWgc1PYI4GpQE97oL0zGbICtaALvo35sKidCkSzCeMnelNPKB1Jgz_8DfS6o9BPt_kY0EpnmmoP90QlS7TyWcCA/s400/Main_Template_0008_Shanty.jpg" /></a><br /><br /><div align="left"><span style="font-family:arial;"></span></div><br /><br /><div align="center"><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:180%;"><strong>Shanty Town</strong></span></div><br /><br /><div align="left"><span style="font-family:arial;"></span></div><br /><div align="left"><span style="font-family:arial;">"Can I try out your guitar for a bit?"<br /><br />It had become a common question from strangers.<br /><br />It was May, 1993, and I was with Karen Gillis on the ferry from Vancouver, B.C. to the city of Victoria on Vancouver Island.<br /><br />Only a few weeks before I had finished my third year of engineering at the University of Western in London, Ontario and upon finishing my final exam, I made a decision to never go back. Those who know me understand how much I hated school at that point and while I did in fact finish my engineering degree at Western, at that moment in time I was very confident my engineering education was over.<br /><br />I didn't have the courage to tell my parents or let the university know. Instead, I decided to run away. I called Karen Gillis who was working at the Banff Springs Hotel in Banff, Alberta. Karen and I went to high school together and she was always the one person that would skip class with me without me ever having to twist her arm.<br /><br />And this was no different. I asked Karen if she wanted to travel around Canada for a few months and she said okay. It was as simple as that. Karen gave her notice at the hotel and I met up with her a week later.<br /><br />After spending a week in Vancouver we decided to head to Victoria. Karen and I looked like a couple of runaway hippies. First of all, we both looked 15 years old...so most people over the age of 40 thought that we were runaways. We wore ripped, dirty jeans, old ponchos and t shirts. We both had long brown hair that went down to the middle of our backs...yes, me too. Our faces were tanned and we looked a little dirty, as if we hadn't showered in a couple of days…which was probably true.<br /><br />Karen did not have any luggage; she carried everything she owned in white plastic grocery bags. I had a backpack my parents had bought for me. Karen owned a sleeping bag and I had a few blankets. We had no tent or cooking equipment...or much of anything really. We weren't so much hitchhikers as we were vagabonds, and we loved it.<br /><br />The best thing we had with us was Karen's guitar. Not only did it separate our social status from the homeless of B.C. but it was a wonderful tool to meet people. And meeting people was key to our survival that whole summer.<br /><br />Karen could play a few chords and she taught me a couple of songs. It never failed to attract people whenever we started playing. They would come by and listen or ask to play a little and would always engage us in conversation.<br /><br />And on this Friday, May 28th it was no different aboard the ferry from Vancouver to Victoria. We went up to the upper deck and sat on the bins that held the lifejackets. After soon bringing out the guitar we met a guy named Ken who told us he made his living driving a delivery truck on the island. Ken was about our age, which was 22; he wore a red ball cap and had about a week's worth of growth on his face. We talked about the last episode of Cheers which had just aired the week before. Ken also told us that we should hike the West Coast Trail which was in Port Renfrew. Ken wanted to grab some sleep before we arrived in Victoria so he gave us his phone number and told us to call him later in the week and he'd show us around Victoria.<br /><br />After Ken left, a scruffy looking guy came over and asked to play the guitar. He introduced himself as Eric. Eric looked a little weather worn in his face and while he was at least in his fifties, it was tough to know how old he was. We asked Eric about the West Coast Trail.<br /><br />But Eric just shook his head no. "Sombrio Beach is where you guys should head".<br /><br />Eric explained that when he was in his thirties he used to surf down at Sombrio Beach. He told us there were people there who lived all year round without working. "They are real life hippies!" he said with a big smile on his face, and you knew if he was a little younger that he'd head there immediately.<br /><br />"They've got goats and chickens and shacks that they live in....the kids don't have to go to school. They just hang out and surf all day. It is like heaven there! You'll absolutely love it!"<br /><br />It did sound pretty interesting, and we didn't have any plans or a schedule, so why not.<br /><br />"Just one thing", he said before he left us, "If you meet any guys around my age who are still living there, tell them 'Beer Can Eric' said hi".<br /><br />Soon after Eric left us, the ferry pulled into the port in Victoria and we were on our way.<br /><br />That night we stayed in Victoria at the downtown hostel, which was as eloquent as a hostel could be. We went to a jazz club and walked around the town, absolutely falling in love with it. There had to be a hundred large sailboats on the water which were there for an annual regatta. The atmosphere around the city was very artistic as opposed to Toronto which is business oriented. We agreed Victoria had to be one of Canada's most beautiful places to live.<br /><br />The next morning we called Ken who we had met on the ferry and asked him about driving us to Sombrio Beach. He told us that he wasn't going that far but that he'd take us for breakfast and drop us off on the outer limits of Sooke District.<br /><br />During our breakfast, Ken asked why we choose Sombrio Beach and we told him about meeting 'Beer Can Eric'. All Ken said was that he'd heard of the place and wanted us to call him when we got back to Victoria to tell him about it. It was his laugh that should have warned me of what was to come.<br /><br />Ken also laughed when we asked if we could stop by the beer store to buy a case. The thought of us hitchhiking with a case of beer seemed to amuse our new friend but we did not allow his jeers to deter us.<br /><br />Determined to start our journey. Ken dropped us off on the highway on the way to Sombrio Beach. He wished us good luck, and with another laugh and a wave he was on his way.<br /><br />Karen and I, she carrying her white plastic grocery bags and her guitar and me carrying my pack on my back and a case of beer in my arms, stood at the side of the road like a couple of kids running away from home and stuck out our thumbs to hitch a ride.<br /><br />The best thing about British Columbia is you never have to wait long to catch a ride, and it was true that day. Within minutes of Ken leaving us a blue beat up old truck pulled over to the side of the road and a couple rolled down the window and introduced themselves as Dan and Maranda.<br /><br />They mentioned they lived fairly close to where we were, but were out for an afternoon drive. We told them that we were heading to Sombrio Beach. Maranda squealed aloud and Dan put his hand over his face. We learned that Dan had been before but Maranda had never been. This was apparently a bone of contention between the two.<br /><br />"Ah what the hell, let's do it", said Dan. "Get in the back you two".<br /><br />Now what Dan meant was the back of the pickup truck, for the truck was only a two seater. We quickly got in and sat with our backs against the wall to the truck cabin. Maranda opened up the window so we could all talk with each other.<br /><br />Even with the back window open, it was difficult to communicate. This old truck of theirs put out a thick black cloud of exhaust, which had a very strong odour and judging by the deafening sound, it didn't have much of a muffler. For the most part we buried our heads into our ponchos.<br /><br />In fact, pretty well the only time we raised our heads was to pass beer from our case in to Maranda and Dan, whom we had offered our beer with.<br /><br />Although Sombrio Beach wasn't too far away from the spot that Dan and Maranda had picked us up, it was very difficult to find. Dan had been there once before so he knew the general area, but there were no signs that pointed the direction to take. Although it was called a beach, it wasn't a tourist area by any means. It sure didn't help that lining the highway every few feet was another logging road. For all we knew the road that led to Sombrio Beach could have been from any one of these logging roads.<br /><br />It took well over an hour, and we had to stop a couple of times to ask people, but eventually we found the right logging road. From the highway it looked like any other of the hundreds of logging roads, built out of necessity and not to code. Dan continued to drive his old truck, following the windy bumpy path into the woods.<br /><br />When we were really out in the middle of nowhere, we couldn't even hear the traffic on the road or see any lights or signs of civilization. That's when Dan stopped the truck and turned to us saying, "You do know that we could kill you right here and no one would ever find the bodies".<br /><br />This followed by a really scary, awkward silence while Dan just stared at us.<br /><br />The silence was probably only seconds, but it seemed to last forever. It was finally broken by Maranda's laughter, "He's just kidding! Pay no attention to him!"<br /><br />I looked over at Karen and she was obviously thinking the same thing I was, Dan was a scary guy and we needed to part ways soon.<br /><br />Another kilometer and we came to a parking lot in the middle of nowhere. Once Dan saw it, he immediately remembered which path lead down to the beach and helped us get out stuff out of the back of the truck.<br /><br />It was at this time that we learned that both Dan and Maranda were fairly wasted. They had each drank three of our beers which isn't very much, but as we got closer to them we realized they both reeked of marijuana. Karen and I didn't notice that they had been smoking pot the whole time we were in the truck. The smell of the truck's exhaust had consumed any hint of pot smoke so we really had no idea until we stopped.<br /><br />Dan was a bit taller and older than me. He had reddish hair and tanned skin with a stocky build. He was obviously a guy who didn't work behind a desk. Maranda was short with long black hair, she was overweight and liked to laugh, and did so often.<br /><br />The path from the parking lot to the beach is a full ten minute walk into the middle of nowhere. Karen was wheezing, exhausted from carrying her plastic bags and guitar and my arms felt like they were going to fall off from carrying the case of beer.<br /><br />As we walked, Dan told us that Maranda didn't work and he made a living by climbing trees and cutting the large limbs off. I didn't understand there was so much involved with cutting down trees. I just figured they'd stand at the base of the tree and fell the whole thing at once; but apparently there is a lot more to it. Dan said his job was to scale the trees and cut large sections of it down. He said the work was extremely dangerous but he'd get $100/hr for every hour he worked. He said he only needed to work a couple of hours each week. You could tell by his smile he loved what he did.<br /><br />He slurred his words as he spoke, "You got a hundred bucks and a tree? I'll climb up the fucker and cut the fucker down!" He should make commercials, I thought to myself.<br /><br />Maranda's cell phone kept ringing again and again as soon as we left the parking lot. Each time she'd have to drop what she was carrying and answer the phone. Each conversation was a quick one, her saying that she was indisposed that day and would not be able to help the caller. In those days not many people had cell phones and so it quickly became clear that Maranda did indeed work and that job was selling pot. She must have been good at it because the phone kept ringing non-stop. I was happy when she wasn't able to get a signal for the phone anymore as we walked further into the woods.<br /><br />After what seemed like forever, the path opened up to a large cobblestone beach on the Juan de Fuca strait across from Washington State. The United States was close enough here that we could just make out some of the large industrial buildings on the other side.<br /><br />By this time it was 4pm and it was still warm and bright.<br /><br />Beer Can Eric had been right about a lot of what he told us; there were indeed chickens and goats running around. But it didn't seem like how I pictured a hippy colony.<br /><br />The definition for the term 'shanty town' is a slum settlement, often illegal or unauthorized, of impoverished people who live in improvised dwellings made from scrap materials often plywood, corrugated metal and sheets of plastic. Shanty towns are not known to have proper sanitation, electricity or telephone services.<br /><br />Yes. Sombrio Beach was not a hippy colony. It was a shanty town.<br /><br />I got a bit nervous. I sure didn't want to go back with Maranda and Dan. At this point, Dan could barely walk. He mostly just kept pointing to trees, telling us how much he'd make from cutting down each one. Maranda could not stop laughing. The last thing I wanted to do was drive with them anywhere.<br /><br />But the second last thing I wanted to do was stay at Sombrio Beach in this shanty town. I was getting more and more worried as we walked down the beach.<br /><br />That is until we met Rivermouth Mike.<br /><br />Rivermouth Mike was in his fifties, with a long salt-and-pepper beard. When we came across him he was starting to build a fire near the water on the cobblestone beach. Behind him was a shanty-styled cabin with a sign in front that said, 'Surf Boards For Sale. Surf Boards Fixed'.<br /><br />He greeted us with a smile, as if he had been waiting for us. He welcomed us to the beach and asked us where we were from. Maranda and Dan grabbed a couple of more beers and went to sit on a nearby log to watch the water. Karen and I stood with Rivermouth Mike and told him of our travels to date.<br /><br />As he made the fire, he explained that the secret was to light the paper first, and then to place wood around the paper. Otherwise, he explained, if the wood was built up before the paper was lit, there wouldn't be enough oxygen to keep the flame on the paper going.<br /><br />He must have known what he was doing, because even though there was a bit of a wind coming in from the water, Rivermouth was able to build quite a large fire in a matter of minutes.<br /><br />Talking with Rivermouth seemed to alleviate both Karen's and my concerns. He remembered Beer Can Eric and laughed when we mentioned that we ran into him on the ferry.<br /><br />Dan stood up from the log to grab another beer. He was a complete wreck. Immediately upon standing he fell backwards over the log, falling on his back. Maranda laughed even louder, pulled Dan up to his feet and announced, "It's time to go!"<br /><br />Dan and Maranda walked over to the fire and asked us if we were going back to town with them. I told them that we were going to stay and camp on the beach. Karen nodded in agreement.<br /><br />Maranda's face and expressions suddenly turned from pure laughter to sadness. Her slurred words indicated that while perhaps not as far gone as Dan, she was well on her way.<br /><br />"Listen kids, I don't know what kind of trouble you've gotten yourselves into, and why you're on the run. But I know a thing or two about trouble. I got into trouble almost 20 years ago and I've been running ever since. That's why I had to come to Canada. Take my advice, please, go back home. It's not worth running your whole life."<br /><br />Karen tried to alleviate all concerns with a smile, "But Maranda, we're not running from anything. I just don't own any luggage".<br /><br />But Maranda wasn't believing a word of it, "I helped an old boyfriend rob a bank years ago and I've been on the run ever since. And I am telling you that if I had to do everything over again I would have just turned myself in then when it happened. Please listen to me."<br /><br />Karen tried again to convince Maranda that we really weren't running from anything but Maranda just kept telling us more and more details of her life on the run, stuff we really didn't want or need to hear.<br /><br />Finally I just said, "You're right Maranda. We are on the run. You've given us some good advice. Let us think about what you've said and we'll meet up with you tomorrow".<br /><br />Maranda readily agreed, writing down her cell number, her pager number, Dan's home number and address...everything. She put a folded up $20 into Karen's hand as she left and gave us both tear-soaked hugs.<br /><br />It was an emotional moment. Maranda wiped her tears and took Dan by the arm and they started to walk away, Maranda turning every few feet to wave goodbye.<br /><br />It was then we noticed that Dan had defecated in his pants, probably when he fell backwards over the log. That kind of ended the emotional moment for us...I guess it was more of an emotional movement.<br /><br />And there we were, in the middle of nowhere, in a shanty town, around the camp fire of Rivermouth Mike as we watched our ride and the only people who knew where we were, walking away, shit-pantsed and all.<br /><br />Rivermouth explained that there weren't too many tourists that came to the beach, only the die-hard surfers. He said something about this area being the best for surfing on the whole island. Rivermouth said he was able to get a few clients for his surfboard shop each summer and that allowed him to make enough money to live on. I'm guessing it didn't take much money at all for him to survive as he told us the only money he spent was for a bag of rice each month and to do his laundry.<br /><br />As Rivermouth cooked over the fire, he explained he mostly ate clams from the ocean and wild mushrooms mixed in with rice. It seemed healthy enough. He offered us some but we just couldn't. He only had one spoon that he kept licking and no plates and...well, it all seemed a bit gross.<br /><br />The three of us sat by the fire, as Rivermouth ate his dinner and the dusk slowly began to fall. The chickens had become quiet and there was just a nice silence.<br /><br />That is when we saw two others walking towards us.<br /><br />"Oh God, it's Blue", muttered Rivermouth.<br /><br />We quickly learned that it was really three people coming towards us, a man with a long white beard and dirty white hair who was least in his sixties named Blue and his 30 year old wife Wendy and their little 6 month old baby named Chelsea who was being carried in a car seat.<br /><br />Blue did all the talking for them. Wendy looked...mentally disturbed as she quietly muttered to herself. Blue saw Karen and I having a beer and asked if he and Wendy could have one too. We told them to help themselves, which they did quickly, and many times throughout the night.<br /><br />We mentioned that we had come from Victoria this morning. I shouldn't have said that as it set Blue off. At the mention of Victoria he said that was where those "sons of bitches" child-care workers came from and took their other four children away from them. Apparently Chelsea hadn't been born yet when this happened. Blue said they gave their kids to his sister who lives in Victoria and he and Wendy were not allowed to see them.<br /><br />As Blue spoke, Wendy continued to mutter to herself and fiddled with Chelsea's seat. We learned Chelsea was 6 months old and barely 15 pounds. She didn't cry much. In fact, the whole time we were there I don't think I heard Chelsea cry once. I had no experience with babies, but this didn't seem normal behaviour at all.<br /><br />"Sure I was born with schizophrenia! Everyone knows that! But I have cured myself through the study of Buddhism, and the government won't acknowledge that!"<br /><br />"Blue's a Zen-Buddhist", Wendy piped up, her first words to us. Then she went back to fiddling with the baby's seat.<br /><br />That is when Rivermouth Mike swore under his breath and said that he had to go. I yelled out to him asking when he was coming back. He replied soon and kept walking to where the huts were located, back in the forest.<br /><br />Both Karen and I were a little concerned now, but the fact that Blue was in his sixties meant that we could probably defend ourselves if he did something scary and crazy. I wished Rivermouth had stayed but obviously he had grown weary of Blue and decided enough was enough.<br /><br />We never engaged Blue in conversation, but he didn't seem to notice as he continued talking the whole time.<br /><br />And yes, Blue saw himself as a Zen-Buddhist. The more he drank our beer, the closer he became to God, at least in his own crazed mind.<br /><br />I also think the night had something to do with his behaviour because as the bright full moon rose and the sun sank, Blue's behaviour became more and more erratic.<br /><br />I went to grab a beer but saw that our whole case of twenty-four was gone by that time. And Wendy, while quiet, had surrounded herself with beer cans. Now I could start to understand what she was muttering to herself;<br /><br />"He beats me you know, he beats me; and one day I'm going to kill him. I will kill him. He is crazy you know; crazy."<br /><br />We had left shanty-town and entered crazyville.<br /><br />It was about then that Blue noticed the lights from the industrial buildings across the water in Washington State. He was convinced that the large industrial building with the lights on was a prison. At first he yelled out across the water, somehow sure that they could hear him, which was crazy in itself as we could barely even see the lights as it was so far away. He yelled out across the water that they imprisoned only poor people for the sole crime of being poor.<br /><br />The more worked up he got, the crazier he became. Suddenly he turned to face Karen and I, the first time he had done so in a couple of hours. His eyes wide and crazy looking, he yelled, "Do you see the lights from the prison? Can you see them? Look at how they reflect over the water, coming directly towards me!"<br /><br />Yes, Blue was now convinced that the lights from the prison were being sent directly to him as a sort of beacon or message.<br /><br />And Blue was not happy with this at all.<br /><br />"I am one with God and I will make sure you all suffer for this insolence!!"<br /><br />I turned to Wendy who was still muttering, "he beats me you know, he beats me. and one day I'm going to kill him. I will kill him. He is crazy you know; crazy."<br /><br />Okay, I understood Blue was an old man, but he was honestly scaring the shit out of me. I was totally frightened at this point.<br /><br />I grabbed Karen's hand and we started to walk backwards to where the forest was thick. Although the moon was full, it was pitch dark in the forest. Perhaps it seemed darker because during the time Blue had been yelling out to the prison, dense rain clouds had started to fill the sky blotting out the stars.<br /><br />When we got far enough from Blue, and close enough to the trees, we turned and ran into the woods. It was pitch dark; we maneuvered ourselves into a dense thicket and sat in it, still able to watch Blue and Wendy.<br /><br />Blue didn't notice at all that we had even left. He just continued yelling across the water. He had now started to grab stones and throw them towards the lights as if he were a god throwing a lightning bolt.<br /><br />Pretty soon Wendy passed out by the fire, as much from the beer she drank as from being tired. The baby Chelsea was still silent in her car seat as the smoke from the fire billowed around her.<br /><br />As if to touch God itself, Blue raised both of his hands into the air. That’s when it started to rain, hard.<br /><br />All of our stuff, Karen's plastic bags, her guitar, my backpack, everything, was still by the fire and was now being drenched in the rain.<br /><br />This whole time, while Karen and I sat in the thicket, we didn't say a single word. Not a peep.<br /><br />We were afraid that if we spoke, Blue would somehow hear and would find us and kill us.<br /><br />So there we sat, in the rain, and in the dark, for hours.<br /><br />The rain became too dense to see Blue or Wendy anymore. This frightened me more as if any second Blue's face would appear in the thicket ready to kill us.<br /><br />However, when the rain finally cleared, Blue, Wendy and Chelsea were nowhere to be found.<br /><br />We slowly crept out of the thicket. The sun was just starting to rise over the water and the clouds had cleared to allow the full moon to shine.<br /><br />We were drenched, and cold, and miserable; but alive...and being alive goes a long way.<br /><br />We quickly grabbed all of our stuff that had remained untouched by the fire. Everything was completely soaked. Karen got choked up at the thought of her guitar being out in the rain all night. She didn't say much though, holding everything in. We both did, still afraid of Blue and that he could somehow hear us.<br /><br />And then we walked; and walked; and walked.<br /><br />We probably walked for 4 straight hours. Back up the path to the parking lot; and then from the parking lot back up to the highway. Then we walked along the road until we finally got a ride from someone. He looked at us, dirty and soaked and wouldn't allow us into the cab of his truck but instead offered us the bed of his truck which we gladly accepted. He gave us a lift into Port Renfrew and dropped us off at a local motel. We needed a room with a bed and a bathroom...especially a bathroom. One with a really hot bath.<br /><br />The man behind the counter laughed when he saw us and exclaimed, "You hiked the West Coast Trail dressed like that?? And carrying all of that?"<br /><br />"Nope. We were at Sombrio Beach".<br /><br />He paused, his expression becoming suddenly serious, "You know they are all crazy down there on Sombrio, don't you?"<br /><br />"Yup", was all I could muster.</span></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href='http://feedpublish.com/MaxRyan-rss10046'></a></div>M. Daiglehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15650839117624807817noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2315720192158964130.post-19584111848129333692010-08-25T17:01:00.017-04:002011-12-24T16:27:56.804-05:00<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfoRPFkjSGH7y-XDpqfHyqDbtIb2lNu2uzIUlATq23igPqzGwr-lvyRlV7Fxb8gVHkL0ywJoUomA5fW2Qps80oTDilGXdPayZc0x8dGXKdHfnVOFUe0guHbfSjzODQhBRNOFVsma5abg/s1600/Main_Template_0009_Slut.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 286px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 400px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5689809710286480578" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfoRPFkjSGH7y-XDpqfHyqDbtIb2lNu2uzIUlATq23igPqzGwr-lvyRlV7Fxb8gVHkL0ywJoUomA5fW2Qps80oTDilGXdPayZc0x8dGXKdHfnVOFUe0guHbfSjzODQhBRNOFVsma5abg/s400/Main_Template_0009_Slut.jpg" /></a><br /><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;"></span></div><br /><div align="center"><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:180%;"><strong>Max the Slut</strong></span></div><br /><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;"></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;">There is no better place to pick up than a wedding.<br /><br />Everyone is dressed up, looking as good as they possibly can. Romance and true love are in the air. People are liquored up and dancing up a storm.<br /><br />That is the recipe for easy pick ups.<br /><br />And understanding that I do need all the help I can get to meet women, I used to take full advantage of weddings to try and meet lovely ladies whenever I was single.<br /><br />However, this is not a romance story, nor is this a wedding story. This is a story of pure embarrassment; not exactly my finest moment in life.<br /><br />It started when I met a lovely lady named Carine at the wedding of my friend Antony and his girlfriend Colleen many years ago.<br /><br />Antony's wedding was held at a country resort about an hour or so, north-west of Toronto. Carine and her family had a cottage near Antony's parents and had become life-long friends of theirs.<br /><br />I had actually met Carine once or twice prior to the wedding. She seemed very nice but there were no sparks at that time. In fact, I don't even remember if we had even spoken much before the night of the wedding. But that night, everything seemed to change. She looked beautiful, she was drunk...it was magical. We danced all night together in the resort's ballroom and afterwards we had more drinks on the lawn chairs by the outdoor pool. We talked and flirted and drank. It was great.<br /><br />I asked where she was staying at the resort. The manager of the resort had made arrangements so that those attending the wedding were staying at the one end of the hotel. However, Carine had made her arrangements late and as such the only rooms available to her at that time were away from the rest of us.<br /><br />Not that this was necessarily a bad thing. We went back to her room and because we knew we were away from everyone else, felt less inhibited to make some noise.<br /><br />And noise we did make. The room shook. The walls shook. And Carine had chosen to use this new-found freedom to express her enjoyment vocally. Very vocally as it were.<br /><br />Which was fine with me, I just laughed. I mean, I didn't know anyone around us.<br /><br />Or that is what I had thought.<br /><br />Very early the next morning as we were stepping out of the hotel room door to leave, we heard the door of the room beside us open.<br /><br />I felt an instant twinge of embarrassment as I heard the door because of all the noise we had made throughout most of the night. However, I just took a deep breath and told myself that I didn't know them and was never going to see them again...so who really cared.<br /><br />That's when I lifted my head to see the couple coming out of the room beside us.<br /><br />It was Carine's parents.<br /><br />Apparently, they had told Carine that they were not going to stay the night at the hotel and were going to leave after the reception. I guess they changed their minds and got a room later in the evening. Out of sheer coincidence, they got the room next to hers.<br /><br />Everyone just froze upon seeing each other.<br /><br />Her parents looked exhausted, hair rumpled, and dark circles under their eyes, which were wide open at this point and red in colour. It was obvious they didn't get too much sleep during the night. Their expressions made it clear they understood who was responsible for keeping them up.<br /><br />You would think they would have concentrated their disgusted looks upon their daughter...but, alas...no. The father looked like he was going to kill me where I stood. All that I remember about her Mother was that her lip just quivered as she stared at me.<br /><br />That's when I ran.<br /><br />Yes, I ran away from them. I don't know why. I mean I was almost thirty at this point...we were both legal and we really did nothing wrong.<br /><br />But yes, I ran; down the backstairs and to my room as fast as I could travel.<br /><br />As I first turned to run and had made it almost to the stairwell door, I heard Carine say with a happy voice;<br /><br />"Morning Daddy! So...you guys decided to stay the night?"</span></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href='http://feedpublish.com/MaxRyan-rss10046'></a></div>M. Daiglehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15650839117624807817noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2315720192158964130.post-86873865484844764722010-08-24T15:00:00.012-04:002011-12-24T16:26:22.859-05:00<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDTXYBqClz2YwnJxOTcOw2OIMhQ8izxrsXNK8T1axj2GQgdVh5ud5JikK56lORWiRs5sgEOwplcj6JTJvQkYL1L6gLBQDSovE4bkeqr2rtnyWLhoPka3eVbGKy25pO4W7-IB6VNHa2Hg/s1600/Main_Template_0010_Coke.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 286px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 400px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5689809333902762466" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDTXYBqClz2YwnJxOTcOw2OIMhQ8izxrsXNK8T1axj2GQgdVh5ud5JikK56lORWiRs5sgEOwplcj6JTJvQkYL1L6gLBQDSovE4bkeqr2rtnyWLhoPka3eVbGKy25pO4W7-IB6VNHa2Hg/s400/Main_Template_0010_Coke.jpg" /></a><br /><br /><div align="left"><span style="font-family:arial;"></span></div><br /><div align="center"><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:180%;"><strong>Why I'm Not A CokeHead</strong></span></div><br /><br /><div align="left"><span style="font-family:arial;"></span></div><br /><div align="left"><span style="font-family:arial;">I was born with two cute features; a cute ass and acute pseudocholinesterase deficiency.<br /><br />This in medical terms is an inherited blood plasma enzyme abnormality.<br /><br />Not the cute ass part, but the other.<br /><br />In laymen's terms this condition can result in severe respiratory difficulty during surgery if the muscle-relaxing drug succinylcholine or other ester local anesthetics are used.<br /><br />To put it in layman’s terms, if I get these anesthetics, I will stop breathing. My respiratory muscles will be immediately paralyzed and I will no longer have the ability to breathe on my own. I will die within seconds if left unattended.<br /><br />But that is the key; if left unattended.<br /><br />In a hospital, hooked up to a heart monitor that has an alarm, I would not be in much danger at all, especially given that a doctor of anesthesiology and the surgeon would be right there the entire time.<br /><br />So, to be honest, I've never been much concerned about my condition. I don't even wear a medical alert bracelet. The only place I could ever come into contact with these anesthetics would be at a hospital, and I'd be safe there no matter what happened.<br /><br />Or that is what I thought until a few years ago.<br /><br />Melissa and I had gone to Aruba on a vacation where we met Kevin and Trish, a couple from Dundas, Ontario which is near Hamilton. Both are medical doctors, Kevin a radiologist and Trish a doctor of anesthesiology.<br /><br />As we all hung out together by the pool in the hot sun, the four of us talked for a long time together. They loved talking to Melissa about her job as an on-air news reporter in Hamilton and I loved hearing both of their medical stories.<br /><br />We learned Trish and Kevin met at McMaster University at medical school; Kevin was Trish’s instructor. They started dating after Kevin had taught Trish so there was nothing inappropriate about them dating, although for years afterwards I would go to great lengths to tease her about how she earned her mark in his class.<br /><br />Kevin is the youngest fifty year old ever, and Trish was just thirty years old when we met in Aruba. A wonderful and interesting couple to say the least.<br /><br />I happened to mention my allergic condition to Trish. I thought it would be interesting to talk about it with an expert. How many times would I have this opportunity again?<br /><br />All was good, until Trish said with a laugh, "So, I'm guessing you were left out of the experience of ever trying cocaine".<br /><br />My expression was obviously a little shocked, which seemed to disturb her.<br /><br />"They did tell you never to use cocaine didn't they?" she asked hesitatingly, as if afraid of the answer.<br /><br />"Why?" I asked, still confused.<br /><br />"Uhm…because your heart and lungs would stop functioning and you could die?"<br /><br />You think this would have been an important safety tip for me to learn at some point while growing up.<br /><br />Trish explained that cocaine is part of the family of drugs that my body cannot process. She reminded me that cocaine had been used as an anesthetic in the early days of medicine.<br /><br />Now, I have never tried cocaine...I guess that is obvious as I am able to write this story today. I've never even had any interest to experiment. However, I certainly have been around it many times and know many people who have tried it before.<br /><br />I kind of just sat there quietly afterwards with my feet in the pool and the sun on my back, trying to process what I had just learned. I was thinking of all the times I was asked to try cocaine over the years...and wondering exactly how close I had ever come to making a choice that would have killed me.<br /><br />It was more than a little scary to think about.<br /><br />I decided to call my Mother from Aruba to ask her about it. My Mom explained that I had an eye operation when I was just a few months old and that was where I was exposed to the anesthetic that my body could not process. I stopped breathing on the operating table and that is how I was diagnosed.<br /><br />The anesthesiologist involved with my eye surgery put a breathing tube in me and after almost a whole day the anesthetic wore off and my body was able to function on its own again. There was never any damage to me and never any real concern for my health at that time.<br /><br />I asked my Mom, "Did the Doctor ever mention anything about the fact that I would have a bad reaction to cocaine?"<br /><br />"Oh yes, you mustn't ever use that", she quickly replied, "That would be very bad"<br /><br />"Why didn't you ever tell me about this Mom?"<br /><br />That's when she started to laugh, "Oh how silly. Why on earth would you have ever used cocaine Max? It's illegal for one thing, Mr. Sillypants."<br /><br />Thanks Mom. Thanks. </span></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href='http://feedpublish.com/MaxRyan-rss10046'></a></div>M. Daiglehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15650839117624807817noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2315720192158964130.post-23136394635295386202010-08-23T21:58:00.012-04:002011-12-24T16:24:47.767-05:00<div align="center"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTzvmObRZd_5A5HkeGm42PxFcFMko5g4m9SNi1JM1KWWuJVhQfDuk7hhcB7xtLUXap5xnuLb84O9QpvIkLf3arZ1vBfUQ0xKCqk0DN3T23xXAC_SgOZ2IM3XbHfoB1KUaF0azxqK8cWA/s1600/Main_Template_0003_Rabies.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 286px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 400px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5689808708010928802" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTzvmObRZd_5A5HkeGm42PxFcFMko5g4m9SNi1JM1KWWuJVhQfDuk7hhcB7xtLUXap5xnuLb84O9QpvIkLf3arZ1vBfUQ0xKCqk0DN3T23xXAC_SgOZ2IM3XbHfoB1KUaF0azxqK8cWA/s400/Main_Template_0003_Rabies.jpg" /></a> <span style="font-family:arial;font-size:180%;"><strong>David Green Has Rabies</strong></span><br /><br /><br /><div align="left"><span style="font-family:arial;"></span></div><br /><div align="left"><span style="font-family:arial;">"David!" "David!"<br /><br />It was a fall afternoon as my family drove down Jeffrey Street in Port Perry to our home after a weekend away at a family friend's house in Georgetown. The trees which lined the street were overloaded with colourful leaves, some of which had already started to fall.<br /><br />As always, we drove fairly slowly down our street as there were usually kids everywhere, especially on nice fall afternoons like this one. We passed Mr. Green, our neighbour, walking down the street towards Trans General Store. Charlene and I waved but Mr. Green didn't seem to notice as he seemed very preoccupied, looking all around as he walked, as if he lost something.<br /><br />Behind him was Mrs. Nicks, the neighbour on the other side of the Greens, who also seemed to be looking for something or someone.<br /><br />As we passed the local town hall across from my parent's house, there were Kelly Green and Dora Nicks looking in the trees by the parking lot fence.<br /><br />That's when we heard it, "David!" "David!"<br /><br />"Ah", we all thought together.<br /><br />"David's lost again"<br /><br />David Green and his sister Kelly were my neighbours in Port Perry for the entire time I lived there, from the day we arrived when I was barely 4 years old until the day I left to go to university. Kelly was my sister's age, a year older than me, and David was a year younger than me.<br /><br />Being 5 years old, I had known David and Kelly for just over a year now and David hiding from everyone had become a fairly regular event. At that age I felt much older than David, for I spent each afternoon school day in Kindergarten. I enjoyed being in a real school rather than the daycare David went to.<br /><br />On the other side of David’s house lived the Nicks. Annie Nicks was also 4 years old, like David, and the three of us used to spend each morning playing together. Every morning about 9am, the three of us would meet by the old tree on my parent's property where the trunk was a little horizontal near the base and the three of us would climb up on it and sit there and talk. I used to love telling them all about what school was like; what I was learning each day, I'd talk about new world open to me by reading and I’d describe learning to tie my shoes as though it was a course on quantum physics. I enjoyed being older. Of course every now and then I’d make it a point to remind them that I'd be passing by the corner store on my way to school so I'd probably be getting myself some candy.<br /><br />On this particular Sunday afternoon, everyone was home and out looking for David, which as I mention, was not totally unusual...David wasn’t a bad kid, he just loved to wander around the neighbourhood and had no sense of time.<br /><br />"David!" "David!"<br /><br />My family soon joined the search, spreading out and yelling for him every few feet. I travelled over to the church and then the graveyard where we used to go and play, without any luck. Back to my parent's house, through the field and down to my grandparent's house where we looked all around the bushes and trees, yelling David's name as we searched.<br /><br />Nothing. No luck in finding him or a trail leading to David whatsoever.<br /><br />After about an hour of looking, which was much longer than it normally took I decided to go home to get something to eat. I was hungry. We hadn't eaten since lunch and by this time it was about 5:30pm.<br /><br />I was a little worried at this point. David had been known to be accident prone. It was only the week before that while David and I were playing cars in my basement, my father, who was doing laundry in the next room, yelled out for me to help him and David jumped up instead yelling, "I'll help you!"<br /><br />Soon, my father had loaded David’s arms with clean laundry in a pile that went way over his head and then sent him upstairs to drop it off on one of the beds. David was struggling to manage the load and the stairs and he didn't climb more than a few stairs before he turned his head to me, head jammed against the wall of sheets, and with a big smile said, "Look Max, I'm helping your Dad!"<br /><br />That's when he fell off the stairs.<br /><br />Yes. He fell. Headfirst too!<br /><br />There was no railing or wall on either side of the stairs at that point in time. And David fell off.<br /><br />Luckily, and I can’t imagine how this was even possible, David fell headfirst into the dirty clothes bin which was against the side of the stairs. He fell head first right in. All around was a cement floor and he picked the one spot in the whole room with a soft landing.<br /><br />Have I mentioned that David was also the luckiest kid I know?<br /><br />With nothing more than a scrape and a few tears, he was back to playing in minutes.<br /><br />As I ate my banana, I wondered what could have happened to my friend.<br /><br />Maybe an animal had gotten him, I thought to myself. I had just learned in school about rabid animals and how if someone got bit by a rabid animal they’d instantly get rabies and them would have to get something like sixty needles right in the stomach. Of course I told David and Annie all about it during our morning talks. Every animal that we saw for the next few days we examined closely to see if it was frothing at the mouth. Frogs didn't count, not having teeth, but everything else we saw as having the potential of a frothing rabies threat.<br /><br />After thinking about all these things, I decided I better keep looking for David, just in case. But first I needed my magnifying glass, which was in my bedroom, just in case there were any clues that needed close examination.<br /><br />I ran to my bedroom and opened the door.<br /><br />There was David. Fast asleep on my floor, mouth wide open, snoring away and covered in cookie crumbs. Toy car in each one of his hands and the cookie bag was crumpled to the side of him.<br /><br />"David!" I screamed.<br /><br />We never locked our front door. No one did during those years, and I guess David went into our house that morning to play with my toys and fell fast asleep.<br /><br />David awoke quickly and I told him he was in trouble for being missing. I grabbed my magnifying glass before following David out of the bedroom and out the front door of my house.<br /><br />"I found David everyone! I found David!", as I held up my magnifying glass high in the air as if it was my deduction skills that had accomplished this feat.<br /><br />With David found and another mystery solved, everyone let out a sigh of relief and trudged back to their homes. Just like that, another weekend was almost over.<br /><br />That night, after our weekly game of hide-and-go-seek with all the kids on our block, we were playing in the leaves at the front of my house. We'd make a big pile of leaves and run and jump in them.<br /><br />After a jump from David, he yelled out "Mouse!"<br /><br />And yes, there was indeed a mouse running right by him...the mouse must have been hiding in the leaves and when David jumped, the mouse made a run for it. As quick as the mouse itself, and without any fear, David reached out to grab the mouse but missed and the mouse ran over David's hand.<br /><br />David started to laugh, showing us where the mouse had scratched his hand. I guess he thought it was cool...that is until Annie and I started yelling to him that he now had rabies and needed to get sixty needles in his stomach. Then he started to cry. We weren't joking though or trying to mean, we actually thought this was how one got rabies.<br /><br />We started screaming for David's mom who came outside soon after and we informed her, while David cried that David had been bitten by a very large mouse. Yes, we told her, very large and very mean.<br /><br />Mrs. Green took David inside to wipe away his tears. There was indeed a tiny scratch on his hand so they cleaned that up too and decided to take him down to the hospital emergency just in case.<br /><br />That's when David's crying stopped and sheer terror set in. His eyes and mouth opened wide and he knew, as did Annie and I, that this meant sixty needles in the stomach.<br /><br />We yelled out "Rabies!", "David's got rabies!"<br /><br />And while David's parent's assured us all that David did not have rabies and they were going to the hospital just for a check-up, it didn't do much good to alleviate our collective fears.<br /><br />So, they shooed us away, and away we went over to my parent's front steps, too afraid to step on the grass for fear of rabid mice. There, we talked about how David might die.<br /><br />I still remember to this day David's red face, wailing as he held his Mom's hand as she literally dragged him to the car.<br /><br />"It was only a frog!" he screamed. "IT WAS ONLY A FROG!!!"</span></div></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href='http://feedpublish.com/MaxRyan-rss10046'></a></div>M. Daiglehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15650839117624807817noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2315720192158964130.post-26627794548392716872010-08-22T01:30:00.013-04:002011-12-24T16:20:15.014-05:00<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaHNYs5ApzdT8Mqaio_Chm-WQ0MjTVrAxJ9xOy9nY28Q4m-qRAME4isRyZDTMkCmTSpBvUZzF20hmOslY0s2JIQ-jlGJGcR5d66Ec5c-5wY8KjdMcwSUsxaVqslMzXZd5stns23udGig/s1600/Main_Template_0011_TyBum.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 286px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 400px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5689807739736974530" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaHNYs5ApzdT8Mqaio_Chm-WQ0MjTVrAxJ9xOy9nY28Q4m-qRAME4isRyZDTMkCmTSpBvUZzF20hmOslY0s2JIQ-jlGJGcR5d66Ec5c-5wY8KjdMcwSUsxaVqslMzXZd5stns23udGig/s400/Main_Template_0011_TyBum.jpg" /></a> <br /><div align="left"><span style="font-family:arial;"></span></div><br /><div align="center"><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:180%;"><strong>Ty's Bum</strong></span></div><br /><br /><div align="left"><span style="font-family:arial;"></span></div><br /><div align="left"><span style="font-family:arial;">Prior to recently becoming an equal parent, I used to only see my son Ty every Friday and every other weekend. As such it sometimes was difficult to gauge safety and health issues as I didn't see him enough to get a proper baseline regarding what is normal.<br /><br />For example, when I had him for a weekend soon after he turned 3 years old, and he did not go poop for a couple of days, I got a little concerned.<br /><br />Erring on the side of caution, I decided to get some child suppositories to aid him in his release.<br /><br />He had no problem with it at all. I guess I really shouldn't have been surprised given his age...so, when I explained that I'd have to put a little pill in his bum he simply nodded and got into position, bending over with bum held high.<br /><br />And that was that. Simple as anything.<br /><br />Right afterwards, Ty and I walked across our street to the grocery store. I figured we'd get some groceries and also kill some time while the pill worked its magic.<br /><br />For those who have never used a suppository, the pill melts inside the anus which softens up the stool, and in turn causes the user to poop. It usually only takes an hour or so to start to work.<br /><br />At the grocery store, we walked around for a little while, picking up a few needed items, and soon went up to the cashier to pay. The line at the cashier was packed of people even though it was the '8 items or less' line.<br /><br />As we arrived at the register, Ty started doing a little dance from one foot to his next. The cashier, a grey-haired woman about my mom's age and obviously a mother and grandmother herself, asked Ty if he was doing the "pee-pee dance".<br /><br />Ty replied loudly, "No. My bum feels weird. Daddy put something in it"<br /><br />The woman looked absolutely startled and had a look on her face as if she was trying to convince herself that she hadn't heard correctly.<br /><br />I looked around. Everyone within ear shot just stopped what they were doing. There was a sea of open mouths and wide eyes staring at us in every direction.<br /><br />And although I explained the situation as quickly as I possibly could, and everyone eventually laughed, I still to this day, do my grocery shopping on the other side of town.</span></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href='http://feedpublish.com/MaxRyan-rss10046'></a></div>M. Daiglehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15650839117624807817noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2315720192158964130.post-66516885739997337452010-08-21T17:36:00.034-04:002011-12-24T16:17:34.534-05:00<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiV0AhuEuQ2PLnyuIk-O4ArxfhjD9OUkhGNx7wcDUbfPO2rr7QBn990VHa7LiAHj3Kj0EMBzIGlCuJSzT8XXvtfPD0La-_AUb-pUB699cIBpEHAMZa9K1ZKiEnGz4gPO-7c8_tZ4ZzRDg/s1600/Main_Template_0012_MyWNight.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 286px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 400px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5689806947157441218" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiV0AhuEuQ2PLnyuIk-O4ArxfhjD9OUkhGNx7wcDUbfPO2rr7QBn990VHa7LiAHj3Kj0EMBzIGlCuJSzT8XXvtfPD0La-_AUb-pUB699cIBpEHAMZa9K1ZKiEnGz4gPO-7c8_tZ4ZzRDg/s400/Main_Template_0012_MyWNight.jpg" /></a> <br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;"></span></div><br /><div align="center"><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:180%;"><strong>Our Wedding Night</strong></span></div><br /><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;"></span></div><br /><div align="left"><span style="font-family:arial;">I stood there waving at the bus as it pulled away from Dundas Castle, located near the Edinburgh Airport in Scotland.<br /><br />Only a few hours earlier at the Castle, Melissa and I had said our vows of marriage in front of our family and friends to become husband and wife. After a long, exhausting day, things were finally coming to an end. Our wedding dinner was now over, the speeches were all over, the dance was over...and most of our sixty guests were on the rented bus I was waving goodbye to as they headed back to the houses we had rented in downtown Edinburgh.<br /><br />Dundas castle didn't have that many rooms for guests so unfortunately there was not enough for all. Standing with me waving was Melissa and those remaining with us at the castle, namely; my parents, Melissa's sister and brother in law, their two young children, our minister, his wife, my best friends Justin Miller and Jeff O’Hara and Melissa's best friends, Tonya Jones and Tina Reid.<br /><br />We had hired a celtic band to play our dance at the castle and they were busy inside packing up their gear.<br /><br />As the bus drove out of sight, I let out a sigh of relief. At that moment, life was good. It was very good.<br /><br />I've probably had only two or three moments like this, of pure happiness, one when Ty was born, and this moment here after my wedding.<br /><br />I had just gotten married; we were in a castle…a real life castle! Our duties were done for the day and now the place was all ours.<br /><br />The whole day I was so busy preparing for and taking part in the wedding, the photographs, the dinner, the speeches, etc... I had absolutely no time to enjoy the fact that we were in a castle.<br /><br />As much as I say that we got married there because Melissa wanted to be a real princess that day, which is very much true, I have always loved regal looking castles. Maybe everyone does.<br /><br />And this one was indeed regal. The Auld Keep of Dundas Castle, which is the oldest part of the building, a stone tower located within the castle walls, was built in the early 1400's for the purpose of being both a home in times of peace and a fortress in times of war. That is where our wedding ceremony took place. In the early 1800s the main castle was built around the Auld Keep and that is where the dinner and dance took place on the main floor and where the guest rooms were on the second floor. The castle part is exactly what you'd expect a King and Queen to live in...And for that night anyway, Melissa and I were that royal couple.<br /><br />We even had our own butler. His name was Smith and he was an elderly man dressed in a tuxedo. His job was to be on call throughout the night to ensure the guests of the castle were looked after and taken care of. And he did take care of us; very much so.<br /><br />The first thing Smith did was ask if we wanted to move into the library for drinks. I loved the fact that this place had its own private library…it made it feel like we were in a real game of ‘Clue’. At the back of the library, there was a small bar for our use and Smith offered to make us all something to drink.<br /><br />The five band members came in to have a toast with us before leaving. We all had one drink together of scotch and they made a toast to Melissa and I and our life together.<br /><br />After they left, most of the others went to bed. Within a short time all that remained in the library was Melissa, myself, Justin, Jeff, Tonya and Tina.<br /><br />There we sat, sipping our drinks. Everyone was fairly quiet at this point, I think because the day had been so exhausting and we were just enjoying the calm of the evening. Myself and the other two guys were still very much sober at this point but the three ladies were feeling no pain as the three of them were enjoying celebration shots just prior to the bus going.<br /><br />Melissa knew Tonya and Tina from Calgary, Alberta where the three of them attended high school together and where Tonya and Tina still lived.<br /><br />During our past week in Scotland, Justin, Jeff and I didn’t get to know Tonya and Tina very well, compared to the other members of our group. While the rest of our guests had stayed in Edinburgh, Tonya and Tina decided to stay their week in Glasgow which was just less than an hour’s drive away. So, we didn't get to spend as much time with them.<br /><br />I had met both Tonya and Tina a couple of times before when Melissa and I were visiting her parents in Calgary. Both seemed very nice and Melissa had nothing but good things to say about them. I had been told that when Tonya drank, she became a bit rough and opinionated, but I had never seen that side of her. Although she was drunk at this point, she was just sitting quietly.<br /><br />As we sat and sipped our drinks, someone decided to break our silence. The conversation started innocently enough. Justin was asked what he did for a living and he mentioned he worked for the United Nations in Thailand. This led to some questions about the United Nations and international politics in general.<br /><br />Out of seemingly nowhere, Tonya, who had been silent until this point, yelled out “How can you sleep at night working for the United Nations??"<br /><br />The room went quiet. Justin had a look of surprise, his eyes and mouth wide open.<br /><br />I just smiled and tried to diffuse the situation by saying, "Perhaps we shouldn’t discuss politics here" as I took a deep drink of my scotch.<br /><br />Tonya it seemed had now officially become the 'Drunk, Opinionated Tonya' that Melissa had once warned me about. She continued, "You do know that the United Nations kills babies don't you? Babies!"<br /><br />Smith walked into the library to see what the commotion was and Justin got out of his chair and walked over to the bookshelf on the other side of the room, pretending to read the covers of the books.<br /><br />Tonya followed him.<br /><br />"These Baby-Killers use people just like you to wage wars and destroy governments for their own political objectives".<br /><br />Justin held out his hands as if to indicate to her not to come any closer, "Stop talking. I don't want to discuss the United Nations with you. You are drunk and acting like a total ass. Stop it".<br /><br />I whispered to Melissa, "She's loaded. Can you please take her for a walk outside?"<br /><br />"Let's just all go play pool together", Melissa responded pointing to the billiard room across the hall. It was then that I noticed how red Melissa’s eyes were, a sure sign that she had recently been smoking pot, one of her favourite past-times.<br /><br />"You are so gullible!" Tonya was now yelling at Justin. "The babies! They kill babies!"<br /><br />"Just take her for a walk. Please!", I begged to Melissa.<br /><br />"FUCK OFF!" Justin growled back at Tonya.<br /><br />"Let's all go play pool!" Melissa said with a laugh...as if pretending it was funny would magically diffuse the tension in the room. It did not.<br /><br />At this point, I got angry.<br /><br />Melissa wasn't listening to me. I was exhausted. It was supposed to be a special evening; our wedding night in a castle! Now, because of this idiot yelling at Justin, any chance of any relaxing, special memories were now gone.<br /><br />"Fuck this!" I began. "Come on Justin, let's go upstairs to your room and have a drink", as I motioned to Jeff to come with us.<br /><br />The three of us guys quickly got up and passed by Smith, who had been witness to the last few minutes and simply nodded understandingly. I had grabbed the bottle of scotch as we passed by the bar and we walked up to Justin's room at the top of the stairs.<br /><br />Once the door to the room was closed, our tension instantly broke and the three of us just laughed.<br /><br />I couldn't fucking believe what had just happened. What a crazy bitch, I thought to myself, shaking my head as I wore a little smile on my face.<br /><br />We sat down and I re-filled our glasses. For a few minutes it was back to being good again.<br /><br />That's when I heard the screech from downstairs.<br /><br />"MAX! MAX!"<br /><br />It was Tonya. Impossibly even more drunk now, yelling at us from downstairs.<br /><br />"Consummate your marriage! Consummate your marriage!"<br /><br />"What the fuck is she saying?" Justin asked.<br /><br />"Commiserate?" Jeff questioned.<br /><br />Apparently, Tonya was concerned that I had not yet consummated my marriage with Melissa. Yes, she was now yelling to me in a house full of my relatives to come have sex with my new wife. Perhaps she was feeling a little guilty for her behaviour but this wasn’t helping anything.<br /><br />I wasn't going to leave this room for anything. All i did was get out of the chair and lock the door of the bedroom.<br /><br />The yelling continued, in this high pitched wine, "Max! Your bride is down here! Consummate your marriage!"<br /><br />That's when I heard Melissa's little niece, Lila, cry from the next room where she and her family were sleeping. Lila was only just a baby. She had awoken from Tonya's screams.<br /><br />I was now wondering if the minister and his wife had also heard...and my parents! "Oh God", I sighed quietly.<br /><br />There was a knock at the bedroom door. It was Smith.<br /><br />"If I might have a word sir?" he asked from the other side of the locked door.<br /><br />I opened the door to Smith who asked that I go down and speak with Tonya so as not to wake the rest of the house. He was right. So, I left Justin and Jeff and the bottle of scotch and started down the stairs with Smith.<br /><br />By this time, Tina had gone to bed. While I had been upstairs, Melissa had gone from slightly tipsy and stoned to total inebriation.<br /><br />As I slowly walked down the stairs beside Smith and towards Tonya who was waiting for us at the bottom, I could see Melissa in the library, sitting at the end of the couch. Her once pretty Vera Wang dress was now crumpled around her. Her hair was mussed up. Her eyes were bloodshot from smoking pot. She just sat there stoned, drunk and very quiet. What had been my beautiful princess was now more like Queen of the Trailer Park.<br /><br />Tonya greeted me with a very slurred, "I had to get the butler to get you because you wouldn't come!"<br /><br />She continued, "Your bride has been patiently waiting for you to consummate your marriage! When it was my wedding night my husband took me right in the limo!...right in front of the driver! That's the way it should be Max! That's the way it should be!"<br /><br />Tonya was wasted. I mean, really wasted.<br /><br />As she stood at the bottom of the stairs, she barely was able to hold herself straight. I looked over at Melissa who was looking rough and thought the two of them made quite the pair.<br /><br />That’s when Tonya burst into tears.<br /><br />I really didn’t know what to do at this point so I hugged her in an effort to keep her from crying.<br /><br />I don't know why I thought that would work. I guess I was just exhausted and wanted this night to finally end...perhaps I just didn't have the energy to fight any more.<br /><br />Whatever the reason, I hugged her. And she hugged me right back.<br /><br />That’s when she really started to cry. And I mean sob. As if her emotional dam had broken and everything just released at once.<br /><br />We probably held each other for ten full minutes as she buried her face into me and just wailed.<br /><br />When she finally tired herself out, I walked her hand-in-hand over to the couch to where Melissa was. I sat down in between Melissa and Tonya. My one arm was around Tonya and my other hand was on Melissa's knee.<br /><br />Tonya again buried her face into me and sobbed. Melissa silently held my hand.<br /><br />And that is where the three of us stayed, staring, silently. For what seemed like hours. Truthfully I really don't know how long we were there.<br /><br />After a long while, Tonya fell asleep on my shoulder in mid-cry. Melissa had fallen asleep too, head back against the couch and mouth open, snoring loudly beside me.<br /><br />I carried Tonya up to bed. Although she was quite the spit-fire I doubt she weighed even a hundred pounds. As I carried her up to her room, she was half asleep, completely drunk and I think she just liked the idea of being carried. I opened the door to her room, put her into the bed, covered her up, and left, closing the bedroom door behind me.<br /><br />I noticed that the light in Justin's room was now off. He and Jeff had gone to bed. My night in the castle was over.<br /><br />I went down to Melissa and woke her up.<br /><br />Melissa and I were not staying at the castle. Earlier in our planning of this day, Melissa had heard there was a stone and log cabin by a pond on the castle grounds and had decided that we'd stay there that night instead of the castle.<br /><br />We were told that the cabin was over a hundred years old and it was very nice, but we hadn't seen it yet.<br /><br />Smith came over to us and asked us if we wanted him to bring the car round. We were more than ready. Smith had to drive us as we had no other car there, and Melissa sure wasn't in a state to drive even if we did.<br /><br />The ride there was pretty quiet. The moon was bright and the gravel road to the cottage was pretty rough and we could feel each bump as we drove along it.<br /><br />The cottage was a couple of kilometers from the castle. It was very nice. However, it was much like any rustic cabin. I would have preferred to stay at the castle but I was just happy it was finally the end of a very long day.<br /><br />Smith wished us a good night and pointed out the roses and champagne beside our bed that one of our friends had ordered for our room. No thanks I thought. There was no chance I was giving Melissa any more to drink, and I just wanted to sleep.<br /><br />The cabin was dark and smelled musky. It did have electricity but it was very rustic. There was only one light to the room and no running water.<br /><br />But there was a bed; a nice comfortable bed. I think I went to sleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. Melissa was still getting out of her dress as I drifted off.<br /><br />I woke up in the middle of the night. There was a strange sound.<br /><br />It was gasping.<br /><br />I looked beside me towards Melissa but it was so dark without the light on I couldn't see much. I could hear her though. She was gasping for air.<br /><br />Melissa has asthma. Although she doesn't experience many attacks, when it happens she requires an inhaler to help her breathe. She’s even had to go to the hospital on occasion.<br /><br />I don't know what brought this one on; perhaps the muskiness of the cottage or her pot smoking earlier, or even the stress of the evening. Whatever started it, there she was beside me absolutely gasping for air.<br /><br />I got out of the bed, turned on the light and went to her side. She was still able to talk, though barely, and only in gasps. The fact that she could talk meant it wasn't totally dire, but it was serious enough that I needed to get her the inhaler.<br /><br />That's when she informed me that her inhaler was in her suitcase which was in Tonya's room at the castle. She had brought her suitcase there earlier in the day to get ready for the wedding.<br /><br />There was no land-line phone in the cottage and my cell phone had no signal so we could not get ahold of Smith.<br /><br />In a word, we were fucked.<br /><br />I got dressed back into my tux, got on my dress shoes and started walking to the castle, which was, like I mentioned, a couple of kilometers away.<br /><br />It was more difficult finding my way back to the castle because I couldn't see it and the road often split into different directions and I didn't pay close enough attention when we drove there to know exactly where to go.<br /><br />But it was fairly bright because of the moon so I could make out at least fifty feet ahead at a time. Although I made a few wrong turns, I was able to quickly correct my path and make my way towards the castle.<br /><br />But it was a long walk; my feet hurt and the road was bumpy and full of holes. My tux had now become uncomfortable as it was itchy and smelled like sweat. I was miserable.<br /><br />Eventually though, I made it back to the castle and retrieved the inhaler from Tonya’s room. Smith was busy cleaning up and when he heard what happened, he offered to drive me back to the cabin.<br /><br />The ride was once again, a quiet one, until the end. As we pulled up to the cabin, Smith turned to me and said, "You know what they say sir, a rough wedding night is indeed good luck for a long and happy life together". He smiled and gave a little laugh.<br /><br />Then there was a long pause as his face slowly became more serious, as if he was about to pass on wisdom to a son. Perhaps he was thinking about everything that transpired over the evening.<br /><br />"And even if that isn't true sir. That is okay too."<br /><br />"Yeah Smith, that is okay too" I laughed, and got out of the car.</span></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href='http://feedpublish.com/MaxRyan-rss10046'></a></div>M. Daiglehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15650839117624807817noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2315720192158964130.post-50670826778840292542010-08-20T22:52:00.014-04:002011-12-24T02:33:14.434-05:00<div align="center"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9gTP8co2Qgw_vLU67yWOmQA-4u5Oz35QTGD30w4mpUlDT6fvXbPANMVNNf1ScD_d2nR9AbS7j5YOBHYJ2oxRVSQ1n48WBRg7SlvX0aH5yL8RqC-rY3b70dUQu8oaea7WxeIiFpyUYuA/s1600/Main_Template_0014_Champ.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 286px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 400px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5689592996035186354" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9gTP8co2Qgw_vLU67yWOmQA-4u5Oz35QTGD30w4mpUlDT6fvXbPANMVNNf1ScD_d2nR9AbS7j5YOBHYJ2oxRVSQ1n48WBRg7SlvX0aH5yL8RqC-rY3b70dUQu8oaea7WxeIiFpyUYuA/s400/Main_Template_0014_Champ.jpg" /></a><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:180%;"><strong>THE CHAMP</strong></span></div><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />Her boyfriend was elsewhere getting drinks and the others weren't paying attention. However, I was right there witnessing this.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />Mary was not hurt at all and I ended up looking like a hero to our little group for coming to her rescue.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />Not exactly my most humble moment.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />It was then that I let out a scream.<br /><br />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.<br /><br />Yes. I was knocked-out by a hotel room.<br /><br />And this was only the start of my humiliation.<br /><br />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"<br /><br />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".<br /><br />"To whom?" she asked, unsure of the joke.<br /><br />"Ah, that would be Room 302", my girlfriend laughed.<br /><br />I just cannot win.</span><div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href='http://feedpublish.com/MaxRyan-rss10046'></a></div>M. Daiglehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15650839117624807817noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2315720192158964130.post-71236675064978969802010-08-19T12:27:00.018-04:002011-12-24T09:38:36.025-05:00<div align="center"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIoPjj2ThyFGpFkl2vUGAcGwaS325sNQVLRM0U5vWPYh7_0GpmiJlNu6WyIogZ5s_0k1WkmstK__Ct5hhiwAeCMEZKQrLoGI_EC7wj_GZdWJDDVqqkBigqkTpwB7Xroz7cD6AQ3nR77Q/s1600/Main_Template_0015_13Drunk.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 286px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 400px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5689703921596942786" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIoPjj2ThyFGpFkl2vUGAcGwaS325sNQVLRM0U5vWPYh7_0GpmiJlNu6WyIogZ5s_0k1WkmstK__Ct5hhiwAeCMEZKQrLoGI_EC7wj_GZdWJDDVqqkBigqkTpwB7Xroz7cD6AQ3nR77Q/s400/Main_Template_0015_13Drunk.jpg" /></a><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:180%;"><strong>Max the 13 Year Old Drunk<br /></strong></span><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><br /><div align="left"><span style="font-family:arial;">I think most people's first drunken experience ends up being a good memory for them, if only eventually. Usually it involves a good story.<br /><br />For me, I was 13 years old. It was a Saturday night in February.<br /><br />My friend, Justin Miller, was sleeping over at my house, like most Saturday nights while growing up.<br /><br />Billy Lowe, who was in our class at school, lived nearby. At school, Billy mentioned that his father had recently made homemade red wine.<br /><br />Justin and I didn't hang out with Billy much outside of school, but when he suggested that we try some of his father’s wine, it sounded a lot better than playing the board game, ‘payday’ and watching Loveboat…which was basically our Friday night plan. Billy, much like us, was bored and felt like getting into some trouble that night.<br /><br />There was a knock at the door around 7pm and there was Billy, carrying two large Coke bottles that were suddenly red in colour and had a particularly funny, strong odour. He had filled the bottles with his father's homemade red wine.<br /><br />Billy’s plan was to head back to the forest behind his house and pass around the bottles until they were gone. Not a brilliant plan by any means, but a plan none the less. I was really eager to try it.<br /><br />I do remember quite vividly that at 13, I was suddenly curious as to what all the fuss was about alcohol. Of course I had sipped it once or twice, I even had half of a beer at a recent wedding.<br /><br />But this was different. I wanted to know what it felt like to get tipsy. My parents never drank much so I don’t even recall having seen a drunken person prior to that evening. Perhaps I was just oblivious to it before.<br /><br />Within a few minutes, we were sitting in the cold, snow covered ground in the forest behind Billy's house. We sat underneath some trees and passed one of the bottles around.<br /><br />Not being connoisseurs of wine at this stage in our lives, we drank it like we would pop; we chugged it. I remember it tasted horrible, and the after taste was even worse.<br /><br />At some point we agreed that we'd had enough.<br /><br />I remember the walk from the forest was an usually long one. The path in the snow seemed much more uneven and harder to navigate than I had ever remembered. We were all very quiet, probably afraid that if we opened our mouths to talk we'd throw up...so we just trudged our way along silently, each alone in our own minds, one unsure step at a time.<br /><br />As Billy's older brother was hanging out at his house with his friends, the three of us made our way back to my parent's basement to watch television.<br /><br />It had been a few hours by this point since I had left my house and my parents had gone to bed early. The lights were off upstairs and it was quiet as we entered and made our way downstairs to where the television was. These days it is easier to name the rooms in the house that don’t have a television, but then most people usually only one in their basement.<br /><br />We started to watch the movie 'The Poseidon Adventure' with Gene Hackman. If you're not familiar with the movie, it is a story about an ocean liner that has capsized and deals with how its passengers struggle to escape.<br /><br />It was only when I sat on the couch that I truly realized how much my head was spinning. I couldn't see straight, I couldn’t see in focus. I had to constantly shift my head to each side just to be able to watch the movie.<br /><br />We probably could have picked a more suitable movie to watch after drinking all that red wine. Each time the boat in the movie rocked up and down in the water I felt like I was right there with them. My face was getting greener and greener with each rock of the boat.<br /><br />I was sitting on one side of the couch holding on to the arm rest, as if for dear life. The other two guys were beside me, Justin had fallen asleep and was now snoring loudly. Billy’s face was completely blank of expression as he watched the television screen. I wasn’t sure if he was awake or not.<br /><br />As I held onto the couch, head spinning, face starting to sweat, vision still blurry. I realized I was starting to feel a little nauseous.<br /><br />Make that a lot nauseous…perhaps even sea sick.<br /><br />I understood even in my blitzed state, that from the basement, the closest place for me to be sick was outside.<br /><br />I managed myself up the stairs as quickly as I could with the floor moving, opened the sliding door and ran out into the cold snow in my stocking feet.<br /><br />There I puked. And I mean puked.<br /><br />The snow became red in colour. All I could smell was that awful red wine smell. And my head was spinning; oh god, was it spinning. The cold on my face felt good. The cold snow on my feet did not.<br /><br />Hopping from one foot to the other, back and forth in an effort to keep only one foot in the snow at a time, I continued throwing up, gasping for air with each thrust of my stomach.<br /><br />That's when all the lights turned on upstairs in my parent's room.<br /><br />I guess my mom had heard me and woke up. She quickly got out of bed, turned on the lights, grabbed her housecoat and came downstairs to see what was going on.<br /><br />When I heard her coming down the stairs, I ran and hid at the edge of the house. Still in my socks, freezing, covered in my own puke, standing in the snow, now shivering uncontrollably.<br /><br />My mom turned on the light outside and opened the glass sliding door. That’s when she saw the red on the snow. Thinking it was blood, she started to scream for my father to come.<br /><br />"God! Oh my God! What has happened?! God!"<br /><br />You see, when it comes to mother, especially when I was that age, she would never have suspected alcohol. No, it somehow made much more sense to her that I was dying and blood poured out of me onto the fallen snow.<br /><br />Perhaps this was because my mother was a nurse. Perhaps where one person would assume it was red wine or red paint on the snow my mother automatically thought blood. I don’t know.<br /><br />What I did know though was she was screaming.<br /><br />Loudly.<br /><br />Shreaking for all to hear that there was blood all over the snow. Then she started screaming for me, to find out where I was lying, dying in the snow.<br /><br />"Max! Max! Where are you?! Where are you?!"<br /><br />When I saw the neighbour's light turn on I decided to cut my losses. I slowly came out from the side of the house, a big smile on my face.<br /><br />I was trying to portray the message of "...you're not going to believe this mom, it's really just a funny story and a simple misunderstanding..." The message I actually portrayed was that I was a drunken idiot.<br /><br />Her expression when seeing me, was instant happiness to see me alive...however, it just as quickly changed to one of dismay, as she realized what she was seeing....there was her baby boy, 13 years old and covered in his own puke, words slurring and very, very drunk.<br /><br />"Ith okay mom! Ith just half a glass of red wine", was all I could muster.<br /><br />To this very day, she doesn't find this story nearly as funny as I do. </span></div></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href='http://feedpublish.com/MaxRyan-rss10046'></a></div>M. Daiglehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15650839117624807817noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2315720192158964130.post-28290758733557793032010-08-18T20:34:00.009-04:002011-12-24T09:42:06.219-05:00<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikCh2GsVq5PYr1j-5CCBTJBcncsHvE4SlBpVCWFYtaSFX2jDq50Mp6AOO6n-AiW6sGN-X9FnbkaNtpn4aB314g2aG-t3k0gpDnG3WSCdLFoDx9uO1EHwGE-clii-BnAnRdDU61-7pQ6g/s1600/Main_Template_0016_SADD.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 286px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 400px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5689704806776079586" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikCh2GsVq5PYr1j-5CCBTJBcncsHvE4SlBpVCWFYtaSFX2jDq50Mp6AOO6n-AiW6sGN-X9FnbkaNtpn4aB314g2aG-t3k0gpDnG3WSCdLFoDx9uO1EHwGE-clii-BnAnRdDU61-7pQ6g/s400/Main_Template_0016_SADD.jpg" /></a><br /><br /><div align="center"><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:180%;"><strong>A SADD Day</strong></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;"></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;">When I was still in high school, I joined a group called SADD which stands for ‘Students Against Drunk Driving’. For many years, Port Perry was the capital of drunk driving deaths in Canada and we had a number of students die during my time in school.<br /><br />A small subsection of this group was formed to create a play, which travelled from school to school in Durham region, putting on the play for other students, spreading the message of 'if you drink, don't drive'.<br /><br />I was in this group, having had some theatre experience as a kid.<br /><br />When I was in grade nine, there was lots of resources provided for this travelling theatre group so we always had buses to take us to the various performances. However, after a year or so the budget was reduced to almost nothing.<br /><br />When I went into grade ten, I was put in charge of the play and we had 10 or so kids performing.<br /><br />One week, early in the school year, we were scheduled to do a performance at 9:30am Monday morning at Ajax High School. Ajax is about 40 minutes away from Port Perry.<br /><br />I had arranged for three cars to drive us, one driven by the teacher supervisor and two others by students.<br /><br />When we all showed up at 8:00am on Monday only one car was there and that was the one driven by the teacher.<br /><br />The two other idiots didn't bother to show up and with a show to do in an hour and a half, and no other cars to take us...it looked like we were in trouble.<br /><br />Luckily I had a friend named Dan LePage, who at 16 years of age had his own car. He readily agreed to drive us on our outing and he quickly arrived at the school.<br /><br />Dan didn't own what you'd call a 'large' car...it was a two-door 1980 Honda Civic.<br /><br />Including Dan and the supervising teacher there were twelve of us and two cars. Six people fit into the teacher’s car and off she went; she hadn’t seen Dan’s car yet so she wasn’t aware how small it was. She did hand Dan $20 for gas before she left.<br /><br />One of the guys was fairly big and so he took the passenger seat; there were 3 of us squeezed into the back seat and a girl was in the trunk. Although she was sitting in the trunk her head was sticking out above the backseat of the car as the trunk was open to the main cabin of the car.<br /><br />Okay, perhaps not exactly the safest way to travel or the most comfortable one but it was now 8:20am and we had to get going.<br /><br />Dan’s gas gauge showed completely empty; he said he knew his car and there would be plenty of gas to get us to the gas station. He preferred to use a gas station just outside of town which was also on the way because he knew the gas would be cheaper there.<br /><br />So off we went.<br /><br />5 minutes later, we were stuck on the side of a country highway, as we had run out of gas.<br /><br />Before the car conked out, amid Dan saying, "I know my car, we'll be fine", we made it just outside of town on an old country road that had nothing but farms on it and we were still 4 or 5 kilometers from the gas station that we were trying to get to.<br /><br />Everyone got out of the car. The only buildings we could see were two farm houses....one in front of us, and one behind us.<br /><br />So, we split up into two groups to go looking for gas at each of the houses.<br /><br />I went with Dan and one of the girls and we walked down to an old farmhouse and knocked on the door.<br /><br />The old farmer who answered was very nice and lent us his plastic gas can which was almost full. We walked back to the car and met the others who had also just returned carrying a large plastic gas container…which also, was almost full with gasoline.<br /><br />The time at this point was 8:50am; we didn’t have time to return the tanks. We put the gas from the two containers into the tank; it wasn’t a lot but it was enough to get us there. Our plan was to take the containers with us, go perform the show; we’d then fill up the car and the gas containers afterwards and on the way home we’d return the gas tanks to the owners. It seemed like a reasonable plan.<br /><br />We got into the car, same seats for all, only this time we had to also take the two containers which still reeked of gasoline.<br /><br />Although we had the windows down the entire drive, and the containers were completely empty of gas, the fumes were unbelievable. It was really hard to breathe.<br /><br />In fact, before long we feeling dizzy, incoherent, and had difficulty concentrating on anything. We were wasted from the gas fumes.<br /><br />Yes. Wasted we were. Blitzed, in fact.<br /><br />And on our way to teach teenagers why they should never drink and drive.<br /><br />There are six of us squashed into a car that barely seats two, including one girl in the trunk. There are two tanks of gas on our laps, and we’re so high off of the gas fumes we can’t stop laughing.<br /><br />We did arrive at the Ajax High School right at 9:30am…right on time to go on stage.<br /><br />It was very obvious that we were all stoned. Our eyes were red. We were all giggling. And one guy kept asking if we could get some chips. Plus we all just reeked of gasoline.<br /><br />They hurried us to the stage in the auditorium, which was already packed with students to watch our show.<br /><br />The five students in the play group that arrived with the teacher were fine, although they had been wondering what took us so long to arrive. The play was made up of a number of skits, each one was pertaining to a scene in which teenagers made bad decisions to drive while drinking and they paid the ultimate price.<br /><br />The five of us who were high were extra loud and trying to be extra funny as we performed; I even grabbed Dan from off to the side and pulled him on stage.<br /><br />Several skits were centered on the premise of underage teenagers drinking at a party. So when I pulled Dan on stage, even though he had never acted in a play in his life, he adapted quickly to play the stoner in the back of the room that just giggled at everything.<br /><br />The kids in the crowd loved our show, especially Dan. It was our best reaction yet.<br /><br />However, the message of our skits started to become a little skewed after a while.<br /><br />That might have been because as we ad-libbed each of our skits in our current state, we made the last 10% of each skit about not driving while drunk and the first 90% about how fun it is to get drunk and stoned.<br /><br />The last scene of each skit was meant to be serious and involved the decision to go driving while drunk. For most of these skits, we sat in chairs, pretending to be in a car, driving away from the party and sound effects and lighting effects helped show that we were involved in a fatal accident.<br /><br />It is a very serious message. It is 'the' message of the play.<br /><br />That message was a little lost as Dan kept saying "Dude, I think I'm dead again!" as he lay on the floor at the end of each skit...and of course all 5 of us gas-stoners couldn’t stop giggling over it.<br /><br />Like I said, we were a hit. The kids loved us.<br /><br />The teachers? Not quite as impressed.<br /><br />Afterwards, I could see the principal of the school talking to our teacher supervisor. The principal didn't look happy at all. And of course, neither was our teacher.<br /><br />I still remember how angry she looked after her conversation with the principal; she walked right by me, not even looking at me and growled, “Let’s Go”.<br /><br />However, I don’t think she understood that we really were under the influence and not just pretending, for she got into her car with her five passengers and left without talking to us.<br /><br />We all knew we were probably going to be in trouble when we got back to Port Perry so we didn’t go home right away; plus we had the munchies so we hit every fast food place from Ajax to Port Perry.<br /><br />In the end, however, nothing happened, at least to me.<br /><br />The rumour was that the teacher was soon transferred to another school; and someone told me she got in trouble for not providing adequate supervision and for not ensuring a safe environment for the students under her care.<br /><br />Needless to say, there were no more SADD plays after that one. </span></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href='http://feedpublish.com/MaxRyan-rss10046'></a></div>M. Daiglehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15650839117624807817noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2315720192158964130.post-21407972228565772432010-08-17T22:45:00.012-04:002011-12-24T09:54:13.824-05:00<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGdVBt8Siidw2C7eFmsxcqaJkGo6lWLSIU0a6JtYeBC52Hs1xwFUIEZ6PRCjbquwk4hBoi1qaaIpwdgZ2c2dj3Tjbw7cszSFBGbazVltejPRiRWzgOiOJiYb_60XSTlcAJ2oNz2A7VGw/s1600/Main_Template_0017_Power.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 286px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 400px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5689707514392176674" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGdVBt8Siidw2C7eFmsxcqaJkGo6lWLSIU0a6JtYeBC52Hs1xwFUIEZ6PRCjbquwk4hBoi1qaaIpwdgZ2c2dj3Tjbw7cszSFBGbazVltejPRiRWzgOiOJiYb_60XSTlcAJ2oNz2A7VGw/s400/Main_Template_0017_Power.jpg" /></a><br /><br /><div align="center"><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:180%;"><strong>Max Power</strong></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span></div><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;">I couldn’t wait to get out of Port Perry as a teenager. I knew there had to be more to life than beer tent fights, hunting and snowmobiling. While others dreamed of going to the legion for a beer I just wanted to see the world.<br /><br />I guess I just felt trapped.<br /><br />Most people find an outlet of some sort when they feel trapped; sometimes it is a healthy outlet like exercise or a hobby but most of the time it’s alcohol, affairs or some other self destructive behaviour.<br /><br />My outlet was a goal.<br /><br />The goal Justin Miller and I had was to shut down the high school, at least for a full day. And a couple of times I know we came pretty close.<br /><br />The day before we were to start Grade 12, Justin Miller and I went to the paved lot outside of town where all the school buses were parked each night. Our mission: to demobilize these school buses.<br /><br />We started about 10pm that night and by 3am we were finished. It took hours, crawling from bus to bus in the dark, removing the tire valve stem from a single tire of each bus, deflating the tire and temporarily rendering the bus immobile.<br /><br />It seemed like a great plan, at least in theory. We put the valve stems beside each deflated tire so there was no permanent damage to the buses. A high school like Port Perry relied on buses to bring in most of the kids. Without buses to bring in the kids, we figured there would be no point in having the school open.<br /><br />That bus parking lot was full. It felt like there were a hundred buses or more. We were absolutely exhausted afterwards as we quietly and slowly crept along the field back to Justin's car, certain there were hidden cameras everywhere. It had to be after 5am before I was back home and in bed, confident that I’d be woken by news of school cancellation on the radio.<br /><br />Alas, I awoke to no such news.<br /><br />I went down to the bus stop and met Justin as he lived right around the corner.<br /><br />He was just standing there staring. His eyes were dark, his hair was tangled and he looked more than a little rough. I imagine we both did having had such little sleep.<br /><br />Not only did the bus show up but it was extra packed with kids. And I mean completely packed. A bus completely packed of sweaty teenagers when you've had no sleep is not much fun.<br /><br />When we got to school we heard that some school in Oshawa got the day off due to lack of buses.<br /><br />Yes, that’s right; Justin and I did the wrong school buses.<br /><br />I still have no idea where the Port Perry buses are parked each night, but I can tell you where they park the Oshawa buses.<br /><br />Apparently Port Perry lent some of our buses to the Oshawa school which resulted in our own buses being very full.<br /><br />Word gets around fast in a small town like Port Perry and after many kids spent an additional hour getting to school because of us we weren’t exactly on anyone’s favourite list.<br /><br />However, we weren't deterred from our original goal.<br /><br />Still determined in our quest to shut down the school, we returned to the school later that evening to put industrial caulking in all the locks. This is the stuff you’d have to burn out with a torch. We figured if they couldn't unlock the doors, they couldn't get in, right? Picturing someone having to climb in a window each day to open the school just made me smile...besides, now we could now make "caulk" jokes at will. I figured if the school closed because of this, the local news channel would show up to do a story and by god I was going to be there to be interviewed.<br /><br />"Yes, my name is Max, and the Principal of this school told us that someone's caulk was preventing the school doors from opening. Will the owner please come down and remove their caulk from our doors so we can all get back to our lessons?"<br /><br />I went to sleep, again about 5am, smiling at the thought of what was going to transpire the next morning.<br /><br />Alas, it was not meant to be. The school indeed was opened as we arrived the next morning. Justin was looking even more tired than the morning before. The dark circles under his eyes and his groggy expression stated loudly that perhaps we should give up.<br /><br />But how could we give up?! We were on a quest!<br /><br />I have absolutely no idea how they got the doors open...not just that day, but any day after that...I checked years later and the caulking was still in the door locks!<br /><br />I was starting to think maybe we should just give up; and then lightning hit.<br /><br />Seriously!<br /><br />Okay, it was man-made lightning, but still.<br /><br />Sometime in the early fall, we had a bad storm in Port Perry and the power went out in town. We asked Justin's father, who worked at Ontario Hydro what caused the power to go out. To our delight, Justin's father, a nuclear engineer, gave us a detailed lesson on what a power transformer was.<br /><br />We learned that power lines are connected to transformers. Some of these transformers can be seen on telephone poles. When the wind gets too strong, or the snow or rain gets too heavy, the power lines can physically be pulled. As a safety mechanism, there is a breaker switch in the transformers so that when the power lines get pulled too far the breaker switch trips.<br />Mr. Miller explained that when this happens the electrical circuit is broken causing an instantaneous burst of electricity, looking like lightning and sounding like thunder.<br /><br />What Mr. Miller intended for us to take away from his lecture, I don’t know…however, the lesson I did take with me was that Justin and I needed to blow up electrical shit right away!<br /><br />There just happened to be a transformer on one of the telephone poles just outside the Port Perry High School. So, one night around midnight we took a close look at it, from the ground of course.<br /><br />Then, as if out of nowhere, Justin got a brilliant idea. To this day, Justin believes it was due to Divine inspiration.<br /><br />Justin decided to go across the street and pull on the guy-wire of the telephone pole that was directly connected to the one with the transformer on it. The guy-wire is the metal wire connected to the pole to stabilize it, it usually has a hard yellow plastic cover on it.<br /><br />Justin figured that if we pulled on the guy-wire then that would cause that pole to rock back and forth, ever so slightly. This in turn would cause the power lines to pull on the transformer which might just cause the circuit to trip, and the transformer to blow.<br /><br />So, Justin started pulling the wire…no joke intended...and sure enough the pole connected to the guy-wire started rocking back and forth. This caused the pole across the street, the one with the transformer on it, to start swaying.<br /><br />Nothing prepared me for what happened when it blew.<br /><br />It was an EXPLOSION!<br /><br />I fell back on my ass...the thunder bolt sound it made was still ringing in my ears. My eyes were blinded from the bright flash of the lightning.<br /><br />Then, total darkness. And complete silence...other than my heart which was pounding out of my chest.<br /><br />We had just shut off Port Perry.<br /><br />I can tell you that I have experienced the joy of my first kiss, and losing my virginity...but frankly these don't come close to the joy of blowing up a transformer and shutting down the power of a town.<br /><br />We laughed all the way home.<br /><br />The school still didn't shut down. It was back up and running the next morning. However, over the next few days, we learned that if you get the right motion the transformer will blow in less than a minute.<br /><br />Fixing the transformer, we learned, is as simple as resetting the safety breaker switch. Of course it takes several hours for the hydro crew to get the truck with the ladder in it and go to the transformer and reset the switch. Sometimes it can take all night.<br /><br />I felt like Zeus each time that thing blew up. We blew up that transformer a lot that year, yet we never did stop the school from opening each morning. While Zeus might have brought the lightning, it seems like God himself was ensuring we wouldn't miss a single day of school.<br /><br />As an adult looking back, I do understand that what we did was absolutely wrong and I would never encourage anyone to purposely do what we did. However, as a 16 year old, when you feel powerless, there is nothing that makes you feel better than turning the power off of a whole town with a huge explosion and a bolt of lightning.<br /><br />Being a small town, within a short time everyone knew it was us. No one knew about our quest to shut down the school, people just figured we were pulling pranks. I guess after a time, we kind of forgot about our quest too...besides, this got us through the first half of the school year.<br /><br />Some other kid's father heard about the pranks we were pulling and called me at my parent’s house; at first I thought that he was calling to yell at me but surprisingly enough, he called to give me new ideas for pranks.<br /><br />Apparently he was an engineer at General Motors and his idea was that if a group of 15 of us or so each opened up a fire hydrant at the same time in the downtown Port Perry area it would create a vacuum inside the town water tower and would crush it like a soda can.<br /><br />I bet he was right too...and if it wasn't so hard to convince 14 friends to help me open up fire hydrants we would have found out for sure.<br /><br />Another father came up to my dad in the street and told him that I should try and put a car up on a flagpole. He even told my dad that I should give him a call so he could tell me how to go about doing it....although my dad smiled as he listened, he had absolutely no idea what this guy was talking about.<br /><br />All I know is that when other people's fathers start calling you at home and offering you prank ideas, it is a pretty good sign that it is time to leave town. And pretty soon I did. I left for university.<br /><br />On the last day of high school, this janitor at the school named Sam came up to me to say goodbye and wish me well. Sam was about the age that I am now, about 40 years old. He was born and raised in Port Perry, and I have no doubt he is still there.<br /><br />Whenever we passed each other in the halls we'd say hello to each other and we'd talk every now and then; he was a really good guy.<br /><br />Anyway, on my last day, Sam shook my hand and wished me well while I was away at school. As I was walking away he yelled to me, “And remember, don’t be blowin up any power lines where you’re goin”.<br /><br />I turned around; eyes wide open in complete shock. Sam just laughed.<br /><br />“The first night you guys were trying to shake that stupid pole I was still workin and watchin ya from the window. Ha ha. Thanks for getting me the night off of work."<br /><br />Then his smile left his face, he paused and then said seriously, "I know you can’t wait to get outta this town and that’s okay, just don’t go forgettin where ya came from, ya hear?”<br /><br />I haven’t forgotten Sam, promise. </span></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href='http://feedpublish.com/MaxRyan-rss10046'></a></div>M. Daiglehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15650839117624807817noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2315720192158964130.post-60737386358925988252010-08-16T12:23:00.006-04:002011-12-24T09:58:01.832-05:00<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVlqe6ZU4JoCJK9H-vB6jyR1fkoFVsGHZCXz6viL-pIP6mNUV5hMXWX8uYePc2uyccrUTnyB04XKDczo5nmvFLg6fM9b6iH73-1qz-y7k61z9usnNTYLCj2pYRntOPmGCPP7VCRaShaA/s1600/Main_Template_0019_Bernardo.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 286px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 400px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5689709164459466130" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVlqe6ZU4JoCJK9H-vB6jyR1fkoFVsGHZCXz6viL-pIP6mNUV5hMXWX8uYePc2uyccrUTnyB04XKDczo5nmvFLg6fM9b6iH73-1qz-y7k61z9usnNTYLCj2pYRntOPmGCPP7VCRaShaA/s400/Main_Template_0019_Bernardo.jpg" /></a><br /><br /><br /><div></div><br /><br /><div><br /><br /><div align="center"><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:180%;"><strong>Max Bernardo</strong></span></div><br /><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;"></span></div><br /><br /><br /><div><span style="font-family:arial;">During the early 90s, Southern Ontario was gripped in fear of a psychotic rapist named Paul Bernardo. Before people knew who he was, he was known only as ‘The Scarborough Rapist’ and because of him people were genuinely afraid to leave their house.<br /><br />During the first few days of September, 1991, Justin Miller, Jennifer Ward and I traveled up in my mother’s car to London, Ontario to help move me into my off-campus house to begin my second year of engineering. Justin was driving, I was in the passenger seat and Jennifer was in the back seat.<br /><br />We were just outside of the Kitchener/Waterloo area when Justin first noticed we were being followed by a police car. Justin checked the speedometer to ensure he wasn’t going over the speed limit and we all had our safety belts on. We couldn’t figure out what the cop’s problem was…and so we just waited for him to pull us over. But he didn’t.<br /><br />After 10 minutes of the police car following us very closely we were starting to get a little paranoid; but we kept going.<br /><br />All of a sudden, out of nowhere, we were surrounded by cop cars. Three cruisers going in the opposite direction on the 401 came screaming across the grass median and cut us off; forcing us to the side of the road just like we were in an action movie. Two other police cars raced up from behind with their sirens wailing. The policeman who had been following us parked his car directly behind ours, got out of the car and started walking towards us.<br /><br />I looked around. There had to be 7 cop cars surrounding us. I then looked over at Justin, “Just how fast were you going?”<br /><br />Justin had a look on his face of absolute, total shock. I also had a look of absolute, total shock. Jennifer was humming a tune and checking her nails.<br /><br />The cop came to the driver’s side window with his hand touching his gun and asked Justin to slowly get out of the car with his hands up. He brought Justin to the front of the car and had him bend over the hood with his hands spread while they frisked him.<br /><br />Suddenly I’m thinking this has something to do with the fact that this isn’t Justin’s car. Perhaps my father wasn’t aware that my mom had lent us the car and had reported it stolen. I knew I needed to help Justin. He was my best friend after all, my brother. I got out of the car to tell the officer that I was the owner’s son. The cop frisking Justin suddenly grabbed his holster, as if getting ready to draw his gun, and yelled, “GETTHEFUCKBACKINSIDETHECAR!!!”<br /><br />As I dove back into the car, I gave Justin a look that told him he was on his own at this point.<br /><br />Soon after, another cop came over to my window and asked me to place my hands on the dashboard where he could see them and proceeded to look around the inside of the car. Jennifer was still humming to herself and was now checking her cuticles. The cop asked me if I had dropped anything out of the window a few kilometers back.<br /><br />I gasped, my voice quivering, “this is over littering???”<br /><br />While I wasn’t trying to be funny, in my fear I wasn’t able to figure out that they thought I had thrown a weapon or something equally as bad out of the window. Instead, I was frantically trying to remember if I had thrown my gum or maybe a piece of paper out of the window a few miles back. The cop, not liking my littering comment, opened the door, slammed my face into the dashboard and then grabbed me and pulled me out of the car and brought me to the front of the car. The cop screamed at me to stand beside Justin with my hands spread on the hood of the car.<br /><br />A woman officer went to the back of the car and opened up the back door to talk with Jennifer; who was still humming and didn’t look to be having that bad of a time.<br /><br />The female officer kept asking Jennifer again and again, “Miss, are you okay?”<br /><br />Jennifer responded, each time with a big smile, “Fine. How are you?”<br /><br />The policewoman raised her head with a confused look. She turned to the other cops with a shrug…she had no idea if Jennifer was drugged or not. She tried again.<br /><br />“Miss, are you okay?”<br /><br />“Fine. How are you?”<br /><br />This went on for what seemed like eternity.<br /><br />I had a breakdown; I couldn’t it anymore. I screamed, “Jennifer! Tell them we’re friends! Tell them you’re okay!”<br /><br />Although my scream to Jennifer caused the male officer behind me to grab me and smash my face into the hood of the car the message to Jennifer had apparently gotten through to her as she told the female officer that everything was fine. She explained who we were, how we knew each other and said that we were going to London to move me into my house for school.<br /><br />They checked Jennifer’s identification. They looked it over, gave it back to her and told us to get back in the car.<br /><br />As we were getting into our car, we saw that most of the officers were already in their cars and were driving away. No explanation of what just happened. Nothing.<br /><br />Justin got in front of the last police car to leave and demanded to know what was going on from the cop inside. The cop explained that a truck driver had called in a report of seeing two guys in a car with a shotgun pointed at a girl in the backseat and the cops had mistakenly thought it was us.<br /><br />Now things started to make sense. When they asked if I had thrown anything out of the window they wanted to know if I had gotten rid of a gun. I was happy to know that police weren’t beating up people for littering crimes.<br /><br />Apparently the truck driver didn’t get the license plate number of the car, but his description of the vehicle was similar to the one we were driving and so when the first cop spotted us he followed us until his backup team had arrived.<br /><br />This whole experience was truly terrifying, even more so in knowing that my life was in Jennifer’s well-manicured hands. I’m glad that Justin had the sense to find out what was going on…imagine what kind of a nervous wreck I would have become if I thought this is what happens when somebody litters.<br /><br />Justin and I were still shaking, sitting quietly in the car staring off to nowhere as we remained parked on the side of the road. We were still sitting there ten minutes after the cops left us.<br /><br />We just sat there staring ahead in disbelief until Jennifer finally proclaimed; “That was really awesome! It was just like an episode of ‘Cops’! And did you see that one young cop? He was so cute! Maybe they’ll stop you guys again on the way home and I’ll get to talk with him”.<br /><br />I would have thrown her out of the car at this point, but I was still afraid of the litter police. </span></div></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href='http://feedpublish.com/MaxRyan-rss10046'></a></div>M. Daiglehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15650839117624807817noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2315720192158964130.post-80045533482828664292007-07-04T12:42:00.003-04:002011-12-24T10:00:43.786-05:00<div align="center"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLCFn-9xlyyVexjuCbg2yHEQJUzAVEGBBSw7JZG6FiNqaPtI8iF6BqKvBTgZYiVsONu0PTw6LUZ9NDTL111uRYONr3j7lHRxvHRdwyplq0qmmoHVY2_ys7nHTlRknschTXR6WeMqEOng/s1600/Main_Template_0002_Cheese.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 286px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 400px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5689709662610743010" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLCFn-9xlyyVexjuCbg2yHEQJUzAVEGBBSw7JZG6FiNqaPtI8iF6BqKvBTgZYiVsONu0PTw6LUZ9NDTL111uRYONr3j7lHRxvHRdwyplq0qmmoHVY2_ys7nHTlRknschTXR6WeMqEOng/s400/Main_Template_0002_Cheese.jpg" /></a><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:180%;"><strong>Cheese!<br /></strong></span><br /><br /><br /><div align="left"><span style="font-family:arial;">"How does our food taste?"<br /><br />What kind of a question is that? Working as a teenager at 'Bar-B-Que Heaven' in Brooklin, Ontario, I spent most of my time in the kitchen as a cook. Only during the busiest of times did I ever venture into the dining room to serve food or pickup used dishes.<br /><br />Such was the case one busy summer afternoon. I was bringing out a plate of nachos to a table as the waitress was being pulled in all directions and needed some help.<br /><br />As I brought over the plate the lady smiled and asked me how her nachos tasted? I obviously had a confused look on my face to this question. She repeated, "How does our food taste?"<br /><br />I told her I'm sure their food tasted good as all the food does at the restaurant.<br /><br />She said, "The only reason I ask is because you seem to have a small thread of cheese hanging from your mouth and going all the way to our plate".<br /><br />I was so embarrassed. When I received the plate in the kitchen, the cheese was overflowing off the plate and as I picked it up a little came off on my fingers from the very side edge of the plate. Not wanting to go out there with cheese on my hands I licked it off my finger. I had no idea the other end was still attached.<br /><br />The owner basically resigned me to the kitchen from then on. </span></div></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href='http://feedpublish.com/MaxRyan-rss10046'></a></div>M. Daiglehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15650839117624807817noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2315720192158964130.post-67961010132368506472007-07-03T23:45:00.002-04:002011-12-24T10:03:12.244-05:00<div align="center"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfNStyukXm7iOLSInsWIfc9orSYcgsfxj6EA6dOnPoKtSEBfSnykX4KE8XrJ04C38fYd382Os3Z1se7L7PNCoZkBEY5Oy9DP4jbXTQTaYeQ9yY1iG9jH2xb0WsoC91QyVACYG7pXC2Pg/s1600/Main_Template_0018_Lavalife.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 286px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 400px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5689710459992293890" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfNStyukXm7iOLSInsWIfc9orSYcgsfxj6EA6dOnPoKtSEBfSnykX4KE8XrJ04C38fYd382Os3Z1se7L7PNCoZkBEY5Oy9DP4jbXTQTaYeQ9yY1iG9jH2xb0WsoC91QyVACYG7pXC2Pg/s400/Main_Template_0018_Lavalife.jpg" /></a> <span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:180%;"><strong>Lavalife Sucks<br /></strong></span><br /><br /><div align="left"><span style="font-family:arial;">For those of you who happened to be single in 2000, or anytime since then, you have no doubt used the internet at some point to try and meet someone.<br /><br />Lavalife dates have become so popular that everybody I know has been on one. As these are essentially blind dates, they are more like being in a job interview. I've known women that have scheduled their Lavalife dates back-to-back every hour and a half and kept notes during their meeting with each potential candidate.<br /><br />I’m serious!<br /><br />You'd arrive and meet, start with casual conversation regarding the weather and slowly get into the "what are your long term goals?" type of questions. "Where do you see yourself in five years? What about ten years?"<br /><br />It is horrible.<br /><br />At the end of the date you shake hands and they'd say, "We'll be in touch". You call back a few days later to get a response of, "I’m sorry, that position has been filled" or you'd be scheduled for another round of interviews.<br /><br />Anyway, there is no real good alternative; finding a date is always hard and Lavalife makes it easier.<br /><br />I’ve tried it before. It wasn’t pretty.<br /><br />There I was, one summertime afternoon near Yonge and Eglinton on a patio having a beer and waiting for my Lavalife date to show up.<br /><br />In walked a good looking lady who came over to my table and said, "Are you my Lavalife date?"<br /><br />Not a bad way to start things. With a smile I said I was. She sat down and instead of going into the usual weather-talk she began a long rant of how she hated Lavalife and the whole experience of going on blind dates. I was really enjoying her rant. And I totally agreed with everything she said. Before long we found ourselves having a good time and enjoying the conversation.<br /><br />As we laughed together, another woman at another table kept staring at us. I figured she was mad because we were making too much noise laughing. She got up, and with a mean look on her face, came over to our table. I figured we were in for a scolding.<br /><br />"Max?" she asked.<br /><br />I said yes, but I could not recognize this girl for the life of me.<br /><br />"I'm Ann, your Lavalife date for 2pm. Are you seriously on another date at the same time?<br /><br />My mouth dropped.<br /><br />The woman across from me said, "Max? I thought you were Cliff?"<br /><br />A guy from across the restaurant yelled out, waving his hand, "I'm Cliff!"<br /><br />The only Lavalife date I've ever been on that I truly enjoyed and it wasn't even my date. </span></div></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href='http://feedpublish.com/MaxRyan-rss10046'></a></div>M. Daiglehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15650839117624807817noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2315720192158964130.post-34803883713990570882007-07-02T22:25:00.001-04:002011-12-24T10:05:48.614-05:00<div align="center"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiu1fc0DwcF6fCzPlR2JsV6h-Ead06gxW-u-WHkxdOYt1ANZ0xZeoRTMj9hSy6KXv8bzjlunDk1D2CG1VQ1OrzNImTBsoUsFHO3CYK2567CXdhtz_3gM9GcjI4PFt6BNfArsI6VgBkmxQ/s1600/Main_Template_0007_Fire.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 286px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 400px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5689711053686513314" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiu1fc0DwcF6fCzPlR2JsV6h-Ead06gxW-u-WHkxdOYt1ANZ0xZeoRTMj9hSy6KXv8bzjlunDk1D2CG1VQ1OrzNImTBsoUsFHO3CYK2567CXdhtz_3gM9GcjI4PFt6BNfArsI6VgBkmxQ/s400/Main_Template_0007_Fire.jpg" /></a><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:180%;"><strong>Great Ball of Fire<br /></strong></span><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><br /><br /><div align="left"><span style="font-family:arial;">It was my 31st birthday and I was visiting my parent's house in Port Perry for a celebration dinner. I had invited my younger cousin Jack over to join us as he lived just down the street. My parents, Jack and I sat down to a nice roast beef dinner.<br /><br />Everyone had finished dinner and as usual I was still eating. What can I say? I’m a very slow eater…I always have been (it comes with being a slow thinker).<br /><br />My father, wanting to get started on dessert decided to leave the dining room, go into the kitchen, get the birthday cake out of the box and put it on the cake plate. He waited for a few minutes and saw I still wasn't done eating. So he decided to start putting the candles in the cake. After a few minutes more, he began lighting the candles.<br /><br />I'm not exactly sure what he was thinking; perhaps he thought the candles would burn for quite a while.<br /><br />Every few minutes he would yell into the dining room, "Want me to bring in the cake now?" and my mom would tell him not to. She and I had no idea that the candles were already lit.<br /><br />Well, it didn't take long for the candles to burn right down to the icing and I don't know if it is common knowledge but sugar does indeed burn.<br /><br />Yes indeed. The whole cake suddenly caught on fire.<br /><br />My father, seeing the fireball in front of him made a split decision; instead of throwing it into the sink and running water over it he thought he'd still be able to save the cake. So, he ran with it into the dining room yelling, "Blow it out! MAKE A WISH!! MAKE! A! WISH!" while reaching out towards me with this large burning ball of fire.<br /><br />My mom, obviously shocked at what was happening was still determined to continue with the birthday celebration and started to sing "Happy Birthday". She sang the lyrics as quickly as she possibly could in an effort to complete the song in under a few seconds. This made her sound like she was starting to hyperventilate.<br /><br />I grabbed Jack's glass of water and threw it on the cake dousing it. The fire went out.<br /><br />My father looked at me with pure disappointment in his eyes, "Why did you go and do that for? Now the cake’s all wet!"<br /><br />We all just sat quietly for the next few minutes eating burnt, wet cake.<br /><br />The funny part was when I started opening up my gifts. You want to know what my cousin Jack had coincidentally bought me for my birthday?<br /><br />A fire extinguisher for my apartment. </span></div></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href='http://feedpublish.com/MaxRyan-rss10046'></a></div>M. Daiglehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15650839117624807817noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2315720192158964130.post-8279282144152131652007-07-01T22:13:00.001-04:002011-12-24T10:08:23.197-05:00<div align="center"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdTyb9dcpNqAC_VcZW4f8ffXSa99Os_WqvRsOSRoQDYjSQJiYXbueIueJUXn8e6c_GwfzYbi3KXUfzxc4vMb0-Vh0bnHg7plw8eIw_MO0tTx_J-i8W2S2pfl2_KKEbkQscCBzWzhwMxg/s1600/Main_Template_0020_Coma.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 286px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 400px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5689711733751227186" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdTyb9dcpNqAC_VcZW4f8ffXSa99Os_WqvRsOSRoQDYjSQJiYXbueIueJUXn8e6c_GwfzYbi3KXUfzxc4vMb0-Vh0bnHg7plw8eIw_MO0tTx_J-i8W2S2pfl2_KKEbkQscCBzWzhwMxg/s400/Main_Template_0020_Coma.jpg" /></a><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:180%;"><strong>Coma-ing Home<br /></strong></span><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><br /><div align="left"><span style="font-family:arial;">My grandfather was in his mid-eighties when he, like many elderly people, developed diabetes. His doctor prescribed him medication to regulate his blood-sugar levels.<br /><br />However, as you can imagine, the medication is only useful when followed as per directed. Often he would forget if he had taken his pills would result in him doubling his daily dosage. This was sometimes combined with missed meals which would occasionally, albeit rarely, result in him going into hypoglycemic shock from not enough sugar in his blood.<br /><br />For those that have never seen someone in this state, the person looks drunk. They slur their speech, they often can't see properly, coordination is affected; mentally they are out of it. As you can imagine, it is difficult to tell the difference between a Port Perrian on a Friday night and someone going into hypoglycemic shock.<br /><br />If left untreated, it is possible the person in the hypoglycemic shock can slip into a coma.<br /><br />This was the fear one summer night as my grandparents were driving back from the city of Oshawa. Apparently he had been feeling bad for hours but hadn’t mentioned anything. As he was driving, he could tell it was getting worse. By the time they hit the border of Port Perry my grandfather couldn't see two feet in front of him and was really out of it.<br /><br />It was a full hour after that when I received a phone call from my mother to come to my grandparent’s house. I raced over to find the ambulance parked in the driveway, ran inside and met my mother who told me that my grandfather was inside on the couch and that the ambulance attendants had quickly diagnosed his condition. They had given him a few glasses of orange juice and although he was still weak from the experience, the natural sugars in the orange juice quickly took effect in his body clearing his mind and vision, bringing him back to normal health.<br /><br />The first question asked to my grandmother was how did my grandfather manage to drive the rest of the way home? From the Port Perry border to their house is a good 10 miles. We were wondering if she drove as she had never done so before in her life.<br /><br />"Of course not", she firmly answered. "A lady never drives a motorized vehicle. I simply reminded your grandfather to turn the steering wheel a little left or right whenever he started to swerve to the side. Although we might have driven nearer the ditch than normal, your grandfather managed just fine."<br /><br />While this answer was not totally unexpected coming from someone my grandmother's age it is not every day you hear someone reason that a diabetes induced coma is not a sufficient reason to stop driving.<br /><br />When my grandfather was asked why he didn't just pull over and get help from a neighbour he replied; "I knew something was wrong. When I couldn't see any more I thought I might be having a massive stroke so I figured the best thing speed up and get home as fast as I could". </span></div></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href='http://feedpublish.com/MaxRyan-rss10046'></a></div>M. Daiglehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15650839117624807817noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2315720192158964130.post-48411594769413101602007-06-30T23:45:00.001-04:002011-12-24T10:11:59.158-05:00<div align="center"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4OP_sA8GuTTjwsYbeQvnm0UfUsbqLKsLytplxuev8M6a_VPpWK9xXy3z9kj65dQJ76eRfiOk7t1DQOmLrVlQRv28UJGg1m3ZITieDpGEsEa3iysP_qQs5uVVFmxdBcXaRdhzpPvMpIg/s1600/Main_Template_0021_Nerdville.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 286px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 400px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5689712720729042098" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4OP_sA8GuTTjwsYbeQvnm0UfUsbqLKsLytplxuev8M6a_VPpWK9xXy3z9kj65dQJ76eRfiOk7t1DQOmLrVlQRv28UJGg1m3ZITieDpGEsEa3iysP_qQs5uVVFmxdBcXaRdhzpPvMpIg/s400/Main_Template_0021_Nerdville.jpg" /></a> <span style="font-family:arial;font-size:180%;"><strong>Warp 10 to Nerdville<br /></strong></span><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><br /><br /><div align="left"><span style="font-family:arial;">During the honeymoon phase of any relationship I believe the chemistry of the mind slowly changes to turn you into the best partner possible for your mate.<br /><br />There is nothing more evident of this than in the watching of television shows. You start off watching each other's favourite shows just as a way of spending time together, even if you can’t stand those shows. However, before long, you find yourself becoming a fan in the very shows you used to despise.<br /><br />This was indeed the case one day when I was watching Melissa's daily dose of, 'Days of our Lives'. I found myself, from out of the blue, yelling to the television screen, "How can it be Shawn's baby?? Oh no! What's Phillip going to do? That Belle is such a bitch!"<br /><br />Then there was this long awkward pause in our living room.<br /></span><br />I slowly turned to face Melissa who was staring at me with her eyes beaming as she held back a laugh.<br /><br />"You've become a chick! You've become a chick! Oh, this is great!" she said, the happiest I've ever seen her. "Now I've got someone to watch my soap with!"<br /><br />"Forget that!" I said with a gruff. As soon as the soap was over, I grabbed the remote control to change it to 'Star Trek Voyager'. Being an engineer, watching Star Trek is as close to being back in the womb as you can get.<br /><br />Melissa sat back with a smile, allowing me to watch what I wanted; simply delighted that she had changed me into a soap loving show watcher.<br /><br />After a half hour of the episode or so, Melissa yelled out, "This show is so stupid! I can't believe you watch this. Everyone knows warp 14.1 was the maximum speed in the original series but suddenly now it has changed to warp ten. That's just ridiculous! And Paris and Janeway mating and having lizard babies?? That just doesn't make any..."<br /><br />Melissa suddenly froze, stopping herself halfway through her rant. She realized that she too had changed since we started dating.<br /><br />I truly loved this moment.<br /><br />"Well, well, well. It looks like I didn't have to wait for kids to have another nerd in the family. I'm going to get popcorn, let me know if Neelix finds a use for the beryllium crystal he bought".<br /><br />Melissa let out a long sigh.<br /><br />"Dear Diary, today I have become a nerd", she quietly said to herself. </div></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href='http://feedpublish.com/MaxRyan-rss10046'></a></div>M. Daiglehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15650839117624807817noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2315720192158964130.post-62590078465272349982007-06-29T22:49:00.001-04:002011-12-24T10:14:34.774-05:00<div align="center"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK1_1EErsrSMeKTz-7whQBD6OLBdXVcrm65BL-nXZqdO5YPaatSVR94BprbY3hDKDa-A8knEXkQgwg1DlWykmSrIE-8H0CzCi720GVV3mxXfQsG0rdKVOIOXVT8Do1fTvM64Ln66vSbA/s1600/Main_Template_0023_Bear.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 286px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 400px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5689713410679315010" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK1_1EErsrSMeKTz-7whQBD6OLBdXVcrm65BL-nXZqdO5YPaatSVR94BprbY3hDKDa-A8knEXkQgwg1DlWykmSrIE-8H0CzCi720GVV3mxXfQsG0rdKVOIOXVT8Do1fTvM64Ln66vSbA/s400/Main_Template_0023_Bear.jpg" /></a> <span style="font-family:arial;font-size:180%;"><strong>Bear Security<br /></strong></span><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><br /><br /><div align="left"><span style="font-family:arial;">During one of our weekly section meetings at the nuclear power plant, Ludka read out a corporate announcement stating that the modifications to the security fence surrounding the plant were finally complete.<br /><br />This multi-million dollar project incorporated state of the art technology into the fence.<br /><br />Ludka said the exact upgrades were not detailed in the announcement due to security reasons but we had all heard the rumours; wherever the fence was touched, cameras zeroed in on the location. Heat signature equipment and security microphones, combined with the camera, sent data to a high-tech computer that could instantly analyze to determine what the risk was, if any. Also, if the fence was ever cut, the technology in the fence itself would allow the security team to know instantly where the breach was.<br /><br />All the latest in technological devices were included in the design of the fence. It was no wonder that it had a multi-million dollar budget.<br /><br />We were all impressed. Of course, anything technology related is a big hit in a room full of engineers.<br /><br />Ludka then went on to read the next announcement. "Be careful when walking outside as a large bear was spotted recently on-site…” she began.<br /><br />I raised my hand, interrupting her..."How did a bear get onto the grounds?"<br /><br />"What do you mean, Max?" she asked with a sigh.<br /><br />"Well, with the new security fence installed, how did a large bear, probably weighing a tonne or more get on-site?"<br /><br />"Oh, that's easy", she said, happy to know the answer. "The fence doesn't go all the way around the property.” </span></div></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href='http://feedpublish.com/MaxRyan-rss10046'></a></div>M. Daiglehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15650839117624807817noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2315720192158964130.post-41896860450899059282007-06-28T23:20:00.001-04:002011-12-24T10:16:58.364-05:00<div align="center"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2kBJazx8uy51_7FBqMDHQZPi3kpJo39T2t3KeoVPGiZN7Rjkq4E5pWx6CkykL5iLIKeJlyN10taUenMlRNaruEIsnmaUdo-4Tmvb2IegTd0ZaosFseFSOqrsuyrpruAl9s1jE9lsBaw/s1600/Main_Template_0022_Revenge.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 286px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 400px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5689713981113323842" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2kBJazx8uy51_7FBqMDHQZPi3kpJo39T2t3KeoVPGiZN7Rjkq4E5pWx6CkykL5iLIKeJlyN10taUenMlRNaruEIsnmaUdo-4Tmvb2IegTd0ZaosFseFSOqrsuyrpruAl9s1jE9lsBaw/s400/Main_Template_0022_Revenge.jpg" /></a><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><strong><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:180%;">The Revenge of the Grandkids<br /></span></strong><br /><br /><div align="left"><span style="font-family:arial;">Mom called up her two sisters to discuss their father and the fact that he was way past due for a prank. Having just pulled a cruel prank on his two young grandchildren, myself at age 5 and my sister Charlene who was 6, they quickly decided to give him a taste of his own medicine.<br /><br />They figured the best time would be during the upcoming Thanksgiving long weekend. My grandfather, a retired minister, had been asked to officiate an outdoor wedding for a friend of the family. My mom, her sisters and each of their families had also been invited as guests.<br /><br />My grandfather was a man of habit, and before each wedding he liked to go for a walk around the block. He used that time to practise what he was going to say and to relax before the service.<br /><br />My mom gave my sister, Charlene and I one job, an important job, for this prank...when my grandfather returned from his walk, as he approached the front door of the house we both ran up to him and said, "Oh my goodness! You smell like a skunk! Oh no! Were you sprayed during your walk?"<br /><br />You see, my grandfather was born without any sense of smell.<br /><br />Not having the ability to smell anything, he was always very cautious, afraid of having embarrassing odours of any kind; after all, he was a retired-minister and had to present himself at all times as such.<br /><br />So, upon hearing this from his pure and innocent young grandchildren, he ran to find my grandmother, who was waiting for him.<br /><br />Before even arriving at her location, my grandmother yelled out, "Oh Charlie, what is that smell?? Have you been sprayed by a skunk?"<br /><br />Hook, line and sinker. Not bad for our first time at a prank.<br /><br />My grandfather raced to the washroom and started running a bath. He jumped in and started scrubbing his body with everything he had.<br /><br />His three daughters, who just 'coincidentally' happened to arrive all at the same time, looked into the washroom to see their father frantically washing. They were all very helpful, telling him that they heard tomato juice was good for removing skunk smell.....and wouldn't you know it, they just happened to have 10 cans of the stuff on hand.<br /><br />At this point my grandfather wasn't thinking about the whys or about anything suspicious at all. He was only concerned that he had to officiate a wedding in less than two hours and he smelled like a skunk.<br /><br />I can still picture my grandfather pouring can after can of tomato juice over his head.<br /><br />After fifteen minutes of dousing himself, my mother and her sisters told him they thought he was starting to smell a little better. They told him that it would probably be better if he wore a few pairs of long underwear and shirts underneath his suit, to keep the rest of the smell in.<br /><br />So he did. I mean, why wouldn't he believe his wonderful daughters who were only trying to help?<br /><br />He left for the service with plenty of time. The extra clothes he had on made him look like he had gained 10 or 15 pounds. Others who didn't know him wouldn't have guessed he was wearing half his wardrobe under his nice suit. To us, his family, it looked like he was wearing a ‘fat-suit’ under his clothes.<br /><br />The ceremony went off without a hitch. The bride and groom may have wondered why our grandfather stood ten feet from them during the ceremony but if they did wonder they didn't say anything.<br /><br />Our family did notice that he seemed to be sweating a little bit more than usual, even though it was a cool fall day. Perhaps it was the four pairs of long underwear he was wearing.<br /><br />As you probably know, during the service, a collection is taken. Plates are passed from row to row and money is donated by the congregation to help support the church's activities. Many people put their donation in an envelope so that it remains private.<br /><br />My mom gave my sister a small envelope to place on the plate as it went by us.<br /><br />Instead of money inside it was a handwritten note on a small card my mother had written on our behalf. She knew that part of my grandfather's responsibilities was to deposit the collection at the bank and so he would open every collection envelope in the process.<br /><br />Later that evening, my mom later read the note aloud for all to hear.<br /><br />Just in case you were wondering, my grandfather laughed hardest of all, I think he loved a practical joke even more when it was played on him. The card read;<br /><br />"Dear Rev. Clarke,<br />We paid our donation earlier by 'credit card'.<br />Love, your grandchildren,<br />Max & Charlene<br />p.s. Gotcha!" </span></div></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href='http://feedpublish.com/MaxRyan-rss10046'></a></div>M. Daiglehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15650839117624807817noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2315720192158964130.post-32584617323706038502007-06-27T23:29:00.001-04:002011-12-24T10:24:52.074-05:00<div align="center"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4sPIk0KMgVddGwxiHbJSMsJrYa8ZAlaj4N_-Ptv29pR8vtW0sfbtvQlpWdUlEz3pw3EMih4J0Dm0aQN-PGotVmipoHzcDEMqkPO0l_wc87fZphGwEBENlnHveHLgCawJWn0fgImafng/s1600/Main_Template_0025_TheCard.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 286px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 400px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5689716004727655938" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4sPIk0KMgVddGwxiHbJSMsJrYa8ZAlaj4N_-Ptv29pR8vtW0sfbtvQlpWdUlEz3pw3EMih4J0Dm0aQN-PGotVmipoHzcDEMqkPO0l_wc87fZphGwEBENlnHveHLgCawJWn0fgImafng/s400/Main_Template_0025_TheCard.jpg" /></a><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:180%;"><strong>My Grandfather The Card<br /></strong></span><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><br /><br /><div align="left"><span style="font-family:arial;">My grandfather, being from the east coast, had a great sense of humour which included a penchant for playing practical jokes.<br /><br />And no one was spared from these jokes. Not even his young grandchildren.<br /><br />Such was the case one fall afternoon when my parents were both working late, my grandmother was at a church women’s group meeting and so my grandfather was left with the task to take us both out to the chinese restaurant for dinner. I was five years old and my sister was six.<br /><br />It was always a treat to go out for dinner with our grandfather. We were allowed to order a whole pop to ourselves and he always ordered more food than we could possibly eat. That night was no different, before long the three of us were fully stuffed.<br /><br />After receiving the bill for the meal he took out his wallet and looked inside. A look of pure fear came over his face, "I have no cash!" he whispered to my sister and I.<br /><br />Being a year older and knowing that grandfather was a jokester my sister was hesitant to believe him.<br /><br />"As god is my witness I do not have any cash in my wallet". Now my grandfather was a retired United Church minister and religion was taken very seriously in our family. My sister and I knew that if he said, "As god is my witness..." whatever he said after that must be the truth.<br /><br />And it was the truth. He had no cash in his wallet.<br /><br />My sister and I were in a state of complete panic. We had heard what happens when you don't have enough money to pay your dinner bill; the police come and they make you wash dishes all night long...maybe even for days. I just wanted to go home.<br /><br />My eyes teared up, "What are we going to do?"<br /><br />"I don't know Max. I just don't know". There was a long pause while he pretended to think. "Okay, I want you both to go outside and wait for me. I'm going to go talk to the owner", he whispered as if we were conducting a covert operation.<br /><br />My sister Charlene and I hurried ourselves outside and got into the backseat of his car and hid low from sight. We began fretting about the situation.<br /><br />My sister who was I trusted as older and wiser said, "If anything bad happens, just run Max. Just run”. I treated those as my mission orders.<br /><br />The next few minutes seemed to take hours for the two of us. Meanwhile, my grandfather was obviously enjoying the moment while inside the restaurant.<br /><br />We couldn't see him at all until he got to the car. As he opened the door to the driver’s seat, he screamed, “We have to go kids, before the police come!”<br /><br />The people inside the restaurant must have thought we were all crazy.<br /><br />My sister gasped in fear and I held my breath, my body paralyzed. We were beyond certain at this point that we were breaking the law and running away without paying our bill.<br /><br />Visions of angry policemen and the army hunting us down flashed repeatedly in my mind. I had seen late night television before, so I knew what happens to criminals.<br /><br />Once we got home, Charlene and I immediately ran in our home and hid under the bed, certain that the police were on their way to arrest us.<br /><br />Later that same night, my parents arrived home to see my grandfather with his feet up on the couch and enjoying a drink. With no loud children about they knew instantly something was up.<br /><br />When they asked my grandfather he replied with a friendly smile that Charlene and I had been absolutely no problem at all. He said he couldn't understand why some people have such a hard time managing kids. After all, he explained, he was able to get us to sleep in our rooms a whole hour before our bedtime. He pondered out loud that he must have a natural gift with children.<br /><br />Now my parents were certain something was wrong. They went upstairs and when they finally coaxed us out from under the bed Charlene and I were both hesitant to tell them of our crime. After all, as known local criminals, would our parents still love us?<br /><br />After repeatedly assuring us that everything was fine I still wasn’t sure. Overcome with emotion, I cried out, "I didn't even touch the fortune cookies once I knew we had no money! Honest!"<br /><br />Very soon afterwards, my parents calmly explained to Charlene and I about the magical device known as the "credit card".<br /><br />Don't feel too bad for us though. My mom got on the phone that night with her two sisters and decided that their father deserved a prank of his own. </span></div></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href='http://feedpublish.com/MaxRyan-rss10046'></a></div>M. Daiglehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15650839117624807817noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2315720192158964130.post-56097229549115342222007-06-26T23:53:00.001-04:002011-12-24T10:30:18.630-05:00<div align="center"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5yOsU_fYEfTgXXtgr890VYK4XVLmsZbPx6eDfda3ptS4JMHBO7rdtCQTjtLDrNZdst2n4gKJD6D_Ip6JhGG8RJa85yFR_VaeuJSNmpsEDaaqg6hXekNuQn9EPbTLeLd3n4ngj2TOQTQ/s1600/Main_Template_0024_Tent-Trailer.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 286px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 400px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5689716730479098626" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5yOsU_fYEfTgXXtgr890VYK4XVLmsZbPx6eDfda3ptS4JMHBO7rdtCQTjtLDrNZdst2n4gKJD6D_Ip6JhGG8RJa85yFR_VaeuJSNmpsEDaaqg6hXekNuQn9EPbTLeLd3n4ngj2TOQTQ/s400/Main_Template_0024_Tent-Trailer.jpg" /></a><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:180%;"><strong>Ally Grayson and the Tent-Trailer<br /></strong></span><br /><br /><div align="left"><span style="font-family:arial;">When I was 20 years old I thought Ally Grayson was the sexiest girl in the universe. When she called I would come running.<br /><br />This was the case one summer night when I got a call from her late in the evening; her whispered voice told me to meet her out in the trailer in her mom's backyard.<br /><br />Adrenaline and pure fear shot instantly through my body. Her mom and step-father had a fold up tent trailer that they used on summer vacations. When not in use, they parked it in their backyard right under their bedroom window. Ally often slept outside at night as she said it felt like camping.<br /><br />Her step-father was a giant of a man who worked as a butcher. He did not like me dating Ally and made that very clear, telling me in no uncertain terms that I was not to touch his princess or else there would be consequences to pay. As he told me this upon our first meeting I could see the complete set of butcher knives he had in his kitchen. I really didn't want to find out what he meant by consequences.<br /><br />But I was 20 years old with hormones racing through my body. You might as well ask the sun not to shine or the grass not to grow...I WAS going to meet her in the trailer, consequences be damned.<br /><br />Ally enjoyed the fact that I was deathly afraid of her step-father, enjoying the adrenaline rush that came with our trysts. Plus, she enjoyed having both her step father and I wrapped around her little finger.<br /><br />Knowing the dangers of her step-father, the butcher, I really should have known better than to pull a prank on Ally. But again, I was 20 years old and an idiot. Besides, it was a little harmless prank that ended with Ally and a couple of her friends being soaked in water. It was all in good fun.<br /><br />However, my little prank resulted in Ally and her friends deciding to take this opportunity to get their revenge.<br /><br />I didn't know this at the time, but Ally's parents were away for a few days. Ally turned on her parent's bedroom light and television so that I would believe the butcher was at home in bed watching the evening news.<br /><br />A fold-up tent trailer has beds in both sides of it. Their idea was to get me to come over, Ally would be waiting in the bed on the one side of the trailer and her friends would be all hiding on the other side, unbeknownst to me. Inside the trailer was so dark you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face, so it was easy for her friends to hide without me knowing.<br /><br />The plan was for Ally to get me near-naked and then Ally would make a lot of noise. I would be so afraid of her step-father hearing her I would be in a panicked state. Then, when her friends jumped out from the other side of the trailer I would scream and they would laugh, having gotten their revenge.<br /><br />And their plan was near perfect.<br /><br />I did race to Ally's house after receiving her phone call. I did see the light on in her parent’s room and hear the television on. I tiptoed to the trailer and slowly opened the door.<br /><br />It was indeed pitch dark inside. I heard a voice from the far left side, where one of the beds was. It was Ally. "I'm over here waiting for you", she said.<br /><br />I couldn't see my hand in front of my face. I certainly couldn't see Ally on the one side or her friends hiding on the other side. I reached out with my hands so that I didn’t run into anything and moved slowly towards her voice.<br /><br />"I can't wait to touch you. Take off your clothes and get into bed", Ally purred.<br /><br />I have never gotten out of my clothes so fast. Within seconds I was standing in my underwear. We had not yet consummated our love and I was ready to burst. I was sure tonight was the night.<br /><br />I jumped into bed and started kissing her neck and lips. She started to moan really loudly.<br /><br />I broke out in a cold sweat. "Stop! Quiet! Your step-dad!" I begged. My sentences weren't coherent at all but it was all I could muster at the time.<br /><br />This only made Ally yell even more, "Don't stop! Fill me with your love! Keep going!"<br /><br />I have never been so scared or confused on what to do in my life.<br /><br />Her friends didn't make a sound. At least, I didn't hear them at all.<br /><br />What I did hear though was steps outside of the trailer walking towards us...and they were getting faster and louder...someone was coming to the trailer.<br /><br />This obviously surprised Ally too because she gulped, "Daddy?" She must have thought her step-dad had come home early.<br /><br />That's when I bolted.<br /><br />I had nowhere to go! I quickly thought to hide on the other side of the trailer. The trailer was all of 15 feet long so it's not like it was the best plan but I certainly couldn't leave through the door. I could picture the butcher right outside with his large cleaver in his hands. His voice saying, "There will be consequences!" kept going through my brain.<br /><br />As the sound of footsteps outside were almost at the trailer door I ran full speed to the other side in the pitch dark. I dove onto the other bed, but instead of hitting the mattress I landed on one of Ally's friends who was hiding there. She let out a scream like no other and I fell off of the bed and landed with a loud thud on my back in front of the door.<br /><br />The door opened.<br /><br />I screamed. And I mean I screamed like a little girl in pure terror.<br /><br />I was certain I was going to die by butcher knife. I yelled out, "Please God No!" and crossed my arms over my face to protect it while holding my breath in absolute fear.<br /><br />Standing there at the doorway was Ally’s neighbour, Mr. Johnson, a kind elderly man who lived next door.<br /><br />Apparently he was going for a walk outside when he heard Ally's loud moans and not knowing what was going on, he thought she might be in trouble so he walked over to investigate. When he heard the scream, he opened the door expecting the worst.<br /><br />And the worst he did find.<br /><br />Specifically, me half-naked on my back with a look of pure horror on my face.<br /><br />He opened the trailer door wide to allow some light in and, looking inside the camper, saw the 5 girls in there with me. Seeing the others for the first time also made me gasp in fear and utter confusion. To say I had no idea what was going on was an understatement.<br /><br />Although I was very relieved to not see Ally's step-father and his butcher knife, I was certain I was in for some yelling; I felt like a kid who had been caught doing something very wrong.<br /><br />But there was no yelling at all. In fact, I don't exactly know what he thought was going on but he seemed amused at me naked with 5 girls. I say this because he had a funny half-smile on his face and said, "Nice work lad. Nice work". He closed the trailer door and walked away.<br /><br />As the door closed, all 5 girls broke out in instant laughter as I let out a breath of pure relief.<br /><br />I knew from that moment on that sex was a scary, scary thing. </span></div></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href='http://feedpublish.com/MaxRyan-rss10046'></a></div>M. Daiglehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15650839117624807817noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2315720192158964130.post-2740624421495463952007-06-25T22:52:00.001-04:002011-12-24T10:33:28.437-05:00<div align="center"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-NWDZUGbbJV7TV-5H2pMBL0zPCrkNWWa6z_2HRiBBuYDUdJ1F1Wu-aFXfaeZQm-Sm8tzVNL3CmlLvMZ4SJJkLdez8zrZOZV7PPXiyF09v4KaMYL_6p3Sm1YZC-JmESSLAoeFXsLBoZQ/s1600/Main_Template_0041_Engagement.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 286px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 400px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5689718178333535906" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-NWDZUGbbJV7TV-5H2pMBL0zPCrkNWWa6z_2HRiBBuYDUdJ1F1Wu-aFXfaeZQm-Sm8tzVNL3CmlLvMZ4SJJkLdez8zrZOZV7PPXiyF09v4KaMYL_6p3Sm1YZC-JmESSLAoeFXsLBoZQ/s400/Main_Template_0041_Engagement.jpg" /></a> <span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:180%;"><strong>Our Engagement Story<br /></strong></span><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><br /><div align="left"><span style="font-family:arial;">I had absolutely no idea just how difficult a task it is to propose marriage to someone. Those commercials that remind the viewer that a 'diamond lasts forever' don't mention that shopping for one takes equally as long. At least it felt like forever after the sixth weekend in a row going from shop to shop, learning everything there is to know about clarity, cut and weight. I now know that a diamond is formed by compressing a bank account into the hardest substance known to man.<br /><br />Melissa loved her ring. In fact, I remember her gaze at it like a deer caught in headlights. Carol Channing sang that diamonds are a girl's best friend, and I'm starting to think she was right...they'll out-live men, light up a room like no man could and a diamond doesn't need to take Viagra to stay hard forever. It is hard for a man to compete with a diamond, maybe that is why men have proudly taken on the dog as their best friend. As long as a man doesn't pee on the rug or chase cars then they'll appear to be the superior species…well, most of the time anyway.<br /><br />After buying the ring the next biggest task is choosing the perfect location and situation for which to propose. After polling several men from work the most popular answers were (a) they got loaded and handed a ring to their girlfriend at a local bar in a desperate effort to get a free plate of chicken wings or (b) they were getting yelled at by their girlfriend and used the ring to stop the yelling. A diamond ‘get out of jail free’ card if you will.<br /><br />While these choices remain classic examples of romance at its best I remained determined to try and do something unusual; believing the story of how Melissa received the ring would be just as important to her as the ring itself.<br /><br />I asked Melissa to book off work from June 13th till June 16th. This was the day before her birthday and I thought a surprise trip would be a nice way to begin her new year. I packed a bag for her the morning of the 12th and arranged for a limousine to pick us up that evening from our building. The limo arrived the evening of June 12th filled with roses and a bottle of champagne and met Melissa at the door of our building as she arrived home from work.<br /><br />As we drove to the airport Melissa asked me 20 questions as to our final designation but I didn't let any secrets slip. The airport ticket agents were more than happy to play along and reminded me to hold onto both tickets. As we boarded the plan she read the sign that we were heading to Heathrow in London but she didn't know if that was our final stop or not.<br /><br />As we were about to enter the plane we were stopped by a man who worked for the airline. He gruffly asked for our seat assignment tickets, looked at them and ripped them in two saying they were no good. He must have enjoyed our jaws dropping in shear horror wondering what was going on. He pulled two first class tickets out of a folder and handed them to us. With a discreet smile, he quietly told us congratulations, winked and walked away.<br /><br />Wow! We had our own private movie monitors at our seats! More champagne than we could drink, the best meal...it was incredible! We didn't want to leave the plane when we pulled into Heathrow....but alas, our adventure was just beginning. Melissa asked if we were staying in London. I told her no and directed her to our next flight. The next flight was to Paris and was a short flight of about just 45 minutes.<br /><br />I could tell she had no idea if Paris was just a stop-over or if this was our final destination. I was really enjoying the game of it all when I suddenly realized it couldn't go on much longer; once we picked up our luggage she would know we were here to stay. So, once we were off the plane and just in front of the luggage conveyors I told her we were here to stay and why I picked France.<br /><br />On our first date, Melissa told me that she had spent a year in France on an exchange when she was 18. She went to a little town by the water called Blaye which is near Bordeaux. It was her first time away from her parent's home in Calgary and she went there not speaking a word of French.<br /><br />The first six months were spent with a wicked woman who mentally abused and intimidated her. I still don't know many stories of what happened during the first six months. Melissa never spoke much of it. I do know that she gained 30 pounds in those six months and when we went to Blaye she could not remember exactly which house was the host family's even though she lived there for six months. I don’t know what went on there, but I know that it must have been a horrible ordeal for her.<br /><br />Melissa had asked the exchange association that sent her to Paris if she could have another host family without giving them details as to why she wanted this. They refused. I still don't really understand why she didn't leave on her own. She said that at the time she felt trapped, unable to leave. I imagine it's because she was 18 with little money and didn't want to be seen as a failure by her family and friends back home for not being able to hack it abroad.<br /><br />Blaye is a small town and word of any trouble gets around pretty fast. An elderly couple living in Blaye had heard of Melissa's troubles and felt they had to do something. The gentleman decided to meet with Melissa's host mother to determine if there was any truth to the stories he had heard of the woman's abusive nature.<br /><br />I don't know what the discussion was between the elderly gentleman and Melissa's host mother but his wife said that when he came home afterwards his face was white and he told his wife they needed to get Melissa out of there immediately.<br /><br />Melissa didn't know who this elderly couple was that wanted to help her, she didn't know anything about them except they were involved with the local Rotary Club. After several peaceful attempts to remove Melissa from the home they decided to get the local police involved as they were afraid the host mother would become violent. Soon after, Melissa did leave and came to live with this elderly couple for the remainder of her exchange.<br /><br />The reason why I chose Blaye to propose to Melissa was because when she and I had our first date she told me that her experience in France molded her into the person she is today. Surviving the hard times made her realize she could overcome any of life's challenges and this gave her the confidence that she still carries today. When I pulled her aside in that airport I told her that I wanted to meet the elderly couple and thank them...for many things; for helping Melissa become the person she is today, for saving her, for saving me...<br /><br />Picture us both crying, while embraced, in a crowed airport by the luggage conveyor belt, as people crowded us to get at their luggage. It wasn't a Kodak moment per se, but special none the less.<br /><br />We stayed the night in Paris and in the morning we rented a car and drove to Blaye which is about 5 hours away. Melissa drove Mach 10 the entire way as I held on for dear life to the passenger door.<br /><br />The drive from Paris to Blaye is absolutely beautiful and I would recommend it to anyone. We passed through many small towns that haven't changed in centuries with cobble stone streets and houses older than Canada. It was so beautiful.<br /><br />We arrived in Blaye and Melissa took us straight to the elderly couple's house. On the way, I learned their first names were Leo and Isabelle Deniau. They were in their mid-eighties and we soon found out they were still living in the same house that Melissa lived in for several months all those years ago.<br /><br />When they saw Melissa they threw their arms around her and the three of them cried as they held each other. I really wanted to commemorate them for helping Melissa by giving a formal thank you when I met them. I had been practising my speech the entire trip from Paris and I couldn't wait to use it. Well, as soon as Mr. Deniau stuck out his hand to shake mine I began. It was beautiful; Melissa later told me I was articulate, thoughtful and truly romantic...I can only imagine how good it would have been if either of them had spoken a word of English. One would think that Melissa would have brought up this point during our discussions in the car but as she is fluent in French she probably never stopped to consider it a problem for me.<br /><br />Leo and Isabelle just stared at me, pausing slightly after my speech they smiled. I believe Isabelle even nodded once or twice out of politeness. There was a short awkward pause before ushering us into the house to get caught up with the Canadian girl that they had lost touch with more than a decade ago.<br /><br />I believe I now know what it is like to be a dog. We soon had tea in our hands and were sitting around their kitchen table. As Melissa and the Deniaus talked I had no idea what was being said. I just looked at whoever was speaking and when they laughed I laughed, when they looked sad I looked sad and nodded my head as if in agreement. I had absolutely no idea what was going on.<br /><br />Whenever I heard a word that I understood, such as Max, Toronto, Hamilton, SARS, etc…my ears perked up like I was finally grasping the language. It was short lived however as usually the words following the word I understood would bring me back to a state of confusion.<br /><br />Melissa told me the Deniaus had invited us to stay the night at their house and we both heartily accepted. Their place was right out of a story book. It was over 200 years old and absolutely beautiful.<br /><br />Their kitchen window opened up to a garden filled with flowers and trees and it made you wonder if anyone ever left Blaye and if so why? I couldn't imagine a more beautiful place.<br /><br />In the last couple of hours of sunlight Melissa and I walked down to the water and through the citadel.<br /><br />The citadel is an old fortress that I was told had been used to protect the town during times of war, hundreds of years ago. I told Melissa I thought the idea of proposing in a castle was very romantic, tales of a knight and a princess. To tell you the truth though I couldn't stop thinking about the French in that castle from Monty Python's ‘The Holy Grail’ and wishing I could be taunted a second time before "la vache" would be fetched. I decided these thoughts would be best kept to myself.<br /><br />It was on top of a hill inside the citadel overlooking the water I got down on one knee and asked Melissa to marry me. I remember feeling it was a very special moment although we were both so nervous that neither of us remember what I said. I believe it was something to the effect that I would spend the rest of my life trying to make her happy. The most important part I do remember, and that was that she said yes. It was a great feeling. I took out the ring that I had been carrying in my front pocket the past couple of days and placed it on her finger.<br /><br />All was right in the world.<br /><br />We walked down the hill and towards the town, hand in hand, totally in love. We were engaged. It was a very special moment for us.<br /><br />When we past the phone booths we should have kept on walking. However, we were honour bound to share our special moment with our loved ones.<br /><br />After several calls to both Melissa's and my families the only person we were able to reach was my grandmother. My grandmother was born and raised in Port Perry and at the time had recently turned 96 years of age. A wonderful lady, she was both wise and very knowledgeable. She was also however, stone deaf.<br /><br />I started talking to her in a normal tone and when it became obvious she could not hear me I slowly raised my voice until we found the right volume. This turned out to be a full on scream into the phone.<br /><br />While strangers at a nearby cafe watched, I began to scream as loudly as I could into the phone trying to get my grandmother to understand that Melissa and I had become engaged.<br /><br />The strangers across at the cafe had no idea what I was saying as it was in English; all they knew is that this crazy man walked down the hill, hand in hand with his love and was now shouting at the top of his lungs into a pay phone.<br /><br />The only word my grandmother could make out was "marriage" to which she then made the assumption that we got married, not just engaged.<br /><br />Before I knew it she was crying on the phone telling me it will break my mother's heart when she learns we got married without the family in attendance. I shouted as loud as I could into the phone, telling her that we were just engaged, not married. But again with her being deaf, it wasn't easy. By the time I hung up the phone 20 minutes of shouting later, everything had been sorted out; at least I believed it was.<br /><br />The next morning we woke up to Mr. Deniau’s news that we had better get ready because he had made arrangements for the Rotary Club members to meet us for lunch. My imagination immediately lead me to assume that perhaps a local Arby's surrounded by old men in Shriner’s hats would be our next destination. How wrong I was.<br /><br />Melissa and I followed behind the Deniaus in our rental car as they led us to a nearby castle located on a local winery. It was absolutely incredible. The castle was right out of a story book and the owners were a young couple only a few years older than Melissa and I. Apparently the father had bought his son this castle and winery as a coming of age present. In Canada, we receive what’s known as a ‘hallmark card’ for our coming of age presents. All in all, I’d rather be from France.<br /><br />As we entered the large dining room we were surprised to find approximately 30 or so couples waiting for us for lunch.<br /><br />Apparently the news of how the Deniaus had helped Melissa those 13 years ago had become somewhat of a legend within this group and a source of pride for the Rotary Club. I quickly learned that they take great pride in the help that they provide to their community and beyond and Melissa's story was an excellent reason for them to celebrate the good work that they do. There were few people under 50 and they were all immaculately dressed and obviously wealthy.<br /><br />I felt very self-conscious in my t-shirt and jeans. That feeling was only amplified after I found out the man sitting beside me at the dinner table was the Chief Nuclear Officer of the local four unit nuclear generating station. I kid you not. Melissa apparently forgot to mention the small fact that the town of Blaye is supported by not only the wine industry but by the nuclear industry as well.<br /><br />The Deniaus had made mention to the winery hosts that I worked in a nuclear power plant in Canada and they arranged to have me sit beside this gentleman. He spoke English very well, as did many people there. I was so nervous as he asked me questions about nuclear power in Canada. To tell you the truth I was so worried about saying the wrong thing I still have no idea what his name was.<br /><br />You get to know someone fairly well over the course of a French dinner...you see, it lasts at least five hours and includes many, many drinks.<br /><br />First the aperitif, then the wine, then champagne, then cognac...and then the real drinking begins.<br /><br />By the end of it we were like old friends sharing laughs and funny stories.<br /><br />Another enjoyment of dinner was the troupe of English Rotarians that were visiting. They were easy to spot as they were right out of a Benny Hill episode...wild hair, tweed suits and loud boisterous laughs. They were in sharp contrast to the fairly uptight and chic looking French. The English gentleman sitting on the other side of me enjoyed the words "brilliant" and "fuck" and used them in nearly every sentence during the five hour meal.<br /><br />He listened to the story of how I proposed to Melissa and took delight in pointing out to the French males of our table that their reputations for being romantics was being challenged. By the middle of dinner and after many drinks his ability to speak dwindled down to the repeated phrase, "He fucking got you lot. Brilliant really. Brilliant."<br /><br />The afternoon was incredible. It felt almost as if our wedding had taken place.<br /><br />After the dinner, Melissa and I said goodbye to everyone and promised we would be back often. The Deniaus had tears in their eyes as they hugged Melissa and reminded her not to stay away so long.<br /><br />Melissa and I didn't talk too much on the way back to Paris. So much had happened during the past 48 hours that we just sat silently holding hands and became lost in our own thoughts.<br /><br />The next morning we started on the journey home to Canada and by 8:30am Tuesday I was back in my cubicle in Pickering wondering how so many things could happen over the course of a weekend.<br /><br />Brilliant really. Brilliant </span></div></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href='http://feedpublish.com/MaxRyan-rss10046'></a></div>M. Daiglehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15650839117624807817noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2315720192158964130.post-30565403126302166382007-06-24T22:02:00.002-04:002011-12-24T10:39:37.452-05:00<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgx7ja80oReidUhFxoY8wKbmoSYo1UubrkMj7hmw0ySqG72-SlF-T6c3NEmOd-aDl1wfalh1FOwDA8TekhhtJ4gg_0-p7QVlwjwkI6QhOukKHLWK7XN2n17r7k_IfWmvVQb82vNUACFpQ/s1600/Main_Template_0026_Anita.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 286px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 400px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5689719851942252866" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgx7ja80oReidUhFxoY8wKbmoSYo1UubrkMj7hmw0ySqG72-SlF-T6c3NEmOd-aDl1wfalh1FOwDA8TekhhtJ4gg_0-p7QVlwjwkI6QhOukKHLWK7XN2n17r7k_IfWmvVQb82vNUACFpQ/s400/Main_Template_0026_Anita.jpg" /></a> <br /><div align="center"><strong><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:180%;">Aneda Brain</span></strong><br /><br /><div align="left"><span style="font-family:arial;"></span></div><br /><br /><div align="left"><span style="font-family:arial;">Sophia's sister Aneda remains one of my favourite people and she truly felt like family to me when Sophia and I were dating.<br /><br />Aneda was born with the rare (okay, maybe not that rare) ability to completely shut down the logic faculties of her brain. In her 20s she was able to do this daily, even hourly sometimes.<br /><br />An example of this was when she and I went to see the movie, 'The Green Mile'. After sitting down just before the show started she asked me what the movie was about because I had read the newspaper reviews on it.<br /><br />I told her that Michael Clarke Duncan plays a mentally challenged man who has powers similar to Christ; he can cure the sick with a touch, bring the dead back to life, read people's thoughts and other magical things.<br /><br />There was a long pause while she thought about it, "...is it based on a true story?" </span></div></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><a href='http://feedpublish.com/MaxRyan-rss10046'></a></div>M. Daiglehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15650839117624807817noreply@blogger.com1