Yesterday was an interesting day because at around 2:30 or 3pm my heart seemed to want to burst from my chest while my brain sizzled like a freshly opened soda. However, my work production increased 250%, and I was a bit more chatty than usual with my coworkers. Why? I’ll tell you in a minute.

After consuming lunch at my desk, I left the building to go to the convenience store for a diet Pepsi with lime but was disappointed to only find regular ol’ boring diet Pepsi. But on the way I noticed two humorous items which drew my attention away like the easily distracted child-minded person that I am. I’m going to tell them in reverse order because I find the first item funnier than the second item, and I thought you would appreciate them better that way.

Runaway Cart!

Please don’t think I look unkindly towards the homeless. They’re on the street, and there’s obviously a reason why they’re there. But yesterday as I was heading back to the office from my useless trip to the convenience store, I saw a gentleman with a shopping cart full of pop cans. What drew my attention at first was the rattling sound of the cart as it sped freely off the sidewalk and into the side of a very new looking Dodge truck. As far as I could see there was no damage, but the cart had tipped over and much of its contents spilled behind and under the truck. When I saw the owner of the shopping cart running towards the mess I was a little stunned. He was younger than me, pretty spry (as he was running) and kind of well dressed. It might be presumptuous of me to say that he was homeless, but if he wasn’t then he was definitely horning in on their business.

Do We Really Want to Eat Here?

Now, on my way to the under-stocked inconvenience store I witnessed something that I found very funny indeed. There is a restaurant very near where I work which is along the way to the store. I won’t give you the name since I don’t want to be responsible for its decreased business, but suffice it to say that it is a self-proclaimed pizza and steak house. The set-up inside consists of booths that rest up against full-sized picture windows so masticators can watch the traffic pass as they eat. As I passed by the window noticing the packed seats in the restaurant, the reflection of the glass showed me this:



Okay, okay! The smiling guy in the hat may not have been there, but his truck was parked right outside the front door of the restaurant. I don’t know about you, but if I’m the owner of a downtown restaurant the last thing I want parked outside the front door would be the guy responsible for getting rid of the roaches. In fact, the absence of the smiley guy is all that more ominous. What was he doing? Spraying for rats? Well, that can’t be because as far as I know Alberta is still considered the rat-free province. I hear they just turn them away at the BC and Saskatchewan borders, and forget about making it across from the US! Those border guards are ruthless. Just try sneaking an apple across! Or an IBM!

Is My Heart Supposed to Beat This Loudly?

I did something yesterday that I haven’t done in over a year…I had a cup of coffee. The effects weren’t immediate, but when my hands started to vibrate so much that I could see through them I knew something weird was happening to me.

I didn’t get a lot of sleep the night before, so when I got into work and plopped my butt down in front of my computer I knew that staying awake would be a chore. So I had a cup of coffee with none of that floofy poofy stuff like cream or sugar I used to put in it. I took a sip and immediately regretted it; not because it tasted bad! No! I regretted it because it tasted good.

When I was younger and my family and I used to live in Calgary, we would make the drive back to Victoria a couple of times a year to visit family and friends. Common on this trip were drive-thru stops so my parents could pick up a cup of nuclear hot coffee from McDonald’s and an Egg McNuthin’ for me and Wendy. I used to marvel at the smell of coffee; its aroma was rich and would encompass every breathable inch in the vehicle we occupied. It called to me with its siren song, and, since I was still a pre-teen, I hadn’t partook in the beverage yet.

On one particular trip I asked my mother for a sip (ahh, poetry). She took her coffee black, I believe, like she still does today. Two sensations were immediate in my mouth, one of pain and one of disgust. Many people have heard the story of the woman who sued McDonald’s because she spilt the coffee she had just purchased on her lap. You can actually read about her, Stella Liebeck, right here. It’s an interesting read as it tells the whole story and not just the “what the?!?” part of someone suing for a stupid reason. Where was I? Oh yes!

My mouth was seared, and my tongued took on that sandpapery feel that it takes on when it gets burnt. Thankfully mouths heal pretty fast because that is one annoying feeling. I rank it up there with that piece of skin that hangs from the roof of your mouth after you try to take a bite of piping hot pizza. The second sensation of disgust was brought on by the fetid diaper water that molested my taste buds. How could people drink this? What an untrustworthy beverage, I thought. Nothing should ever have a taste as terrible as that but have an aroma that angels sing about. Totally! Not! Fair!

But then yesterday I partook of the forbidden ambrosia and found it savory. Much like beer, coffee is an acquired taste, and I guess that in the time between retching about it’s flavour to drinking mass quantities of it with cream and sugar, milk and sugar or just sugar I had acquired its taste alla plain. Now I just have to stay away from it since the reason I quit it before was that I drank practically two pots a day and still had to fight to stay awake in class. The withdrawal headaches were akin to the Lord of the Dance and Stomp dueling it out in my skull.

I have to admit that the affect was quite funny to others, though. I popped my head into Andrew’s office to inform him that I had taken from the bean, and he laughed at how chatty I was. At one point I’m pretty sure the order of my words were breaking the space time continuum by racing each other out of my mouth. I would hate to see that fateful day when, as a result of a subsequential word escaping before its predecessor, a black hole forms and the universe is sucked in whole. That truly would be a day to stay in bed.