Super Creeps

Well… so much for my good karma run. Done and done.

First of all, thank you SO much to the Toronto Transit for striking and completely ruining my weekend. Really, thanks for coming out. Appreciate it. Yep. Jerks.

Second… I head down to my apartment building’s Freddy Krueger basement to my storage locker (which is sort of hidden in a dead-end hallway) and find my storage locker door wide-open to the public. Someone busted off the entire lock (which needs a key) and stole it. Brilliant. What the hell are you going to do with a lock and no key? Seriously. Stupidity at its best.

I have no idea how long it was open for, since I haven’t been down there in ages (mostly because of its Freddy Kruegerness). I have no idea if anything was stolen, which says a lot about what’s in there. My first thought was to go and get a new lock, which of course I can not do since the stupid transit is on strike and there are no lock selling stores in my area (again, thanks TTC, thanks a lot). But now I’m thinking, maybe I should just leave it open for business and let the fellow jerks in my building do my spring cleaning…..hrmmm.

I’m also peeved that no one told me. I mean, the stupid thing is registered to my apartment, and I know the supers could have figured it out if they cared, but the Super Creeps don’t give a crap. That I know for sure, because they are definitely creepy, miserable and crazy. I’ve witnessed many creepy encounters with them, and they freak me out, way out. They kind of remind me of the creepy neighbours from that movie, The Burbs. I’m pretty positive that they possibly capture tenants that piss them off and store them in the Freddy Krueger basement. Maybe that’s what happened to my lock. Maybe a tenant broke loose. Maybe the lock is evidence.

So now the question is, do I say what I really want to say to the Super Creeps and risk being locked up Freddy Krueger style? Or just go about my business and curse them to no end? Decisions, decisions.

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Rockin’ the karma

Yep. I’m rockin’ the karma this week for sure. First an unexpected tax refund, and now an unexpected work from home day (when I really, really, need it).

I ended up on a patio after work yesterday, which is something I generally never ever do when I have to work in the morning. Mainly because I can’t function like a normal human being the next day, and that sucks for obvious reasons. But it just so happened that a friend was in the area when I was finishing up, the sun was shining, and the patio was calling us. So off we went. Some sunshine, some beer, and a sunset later, it was time to get my butt home, pronto. That little voice in my head kept saying, ‘Uhm, hello? Work. Tomorrow. Remember? ‘

I had an incredibly hard time falling asleep when I got home. Could have been the beer, or maybe it was the excessive amount of coffee I funneled during the day. My sleep was no where close to satisfying since it consisted of me waking up every hour, on the hour, nervous that I would sleep in or miss my alarm.

When I woke up I played the whole, ‘Whatever, I’m fine. I’m not even tired. Really. Not at all. Nope. Invincible, that’s what I am. Sure. Yep. I can do this. I feel great. This is nothing. Right.’

I kept lying to myself as I got ready for work, and then got a call from The Best Boss Ever. She wasn’t feeling well and couldn’t drive me in. I told her to feel better, and that I would hop on transit. She told me to work from home today.

Yessssss.

As soon as I heard those words my extreme tiredness kicked in, followed by a lingering head ache and some funky stomach rumbles.

Thank you karma!!

Yep, still have to work, but at least I get to do it in my pj’s.

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Sweet

Happy Monday (for real, no sarcasm today, really I AM happy on a Monday).

Why? Good question.

Well, I finally made myself sit down and do one of my least favourite things last night…….<queue scary music>…. taxes. Yikes, the dreaded ‘T’ word.

Numbers make me anxious, not to mention the fact that I was pretty damn positive I was giving the government a big chunk of cashola. Seriously, I’m number dyslexic or something. No joke here. They freak me out. Way out.

Since I am contract, last year was my first operational year for my business. I hoarded every receipt like a squirrel hoards nuts. Seriously. My only regret (which I was warned many, many times of) was not keeping everything all nicely compiled together… no matter how hard I tried (okay, seriously I didn’t try that hard), but who wants to sit around and mess with receipts? You know? Anyhoo, learned my lesson, yadda yadda… time saver… yadda yadda…

Right. So back to <queue scary music>…taxes.

I was totally prepared and saved a huge chunk expecting to give it back to the Man with tears in my eyes. Well my friends, not so, not so!!! After diligently entering everything in, I closed my eyes, pressed the ‘result’ button and…

wait for it……

 

wait for it …….

 

REFUND baby!!!!

Yessss.

I mean, I would have been ecstatic to break even. I would have been happy even to pay a small chunk, as long as it was smaller than what I saved.

Imagine my happiness.

I feel like some karmic universal force was like,

“Well honey, you’ve been through some tough times recently, and you’re trooper and a half. Who knows what’s next, so…. TA-DAH!!! Refund for you!”

Sweet.

 

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Oddly enough…

Right. So I realize a lot of my stories are coming from transit rides, but I mean, I’m on the bloody thing twice a day at the least, so it’s bound to happen. Non-transity stories to come soon, promise.

Anyhoo, so today was yet another interesting ride. Quite crowded when I hopped on, but there was a fresh spot waiting just for me. Yay for transit gods. I think I got a little over excited about my spot, and sort of swung around the pole, you know, stripper styles. I swung myself right into this plumpy little mismatched lady. I said ‘sorry’, but I had my mp3 blasting, so it was more like, “SORRRRYYY.” She seemed embarrassed and just stared at me. Oddly enough, that encounter caused her to be magnetically attracted to me or something. Seriously. The damn woman stepped on my foot about five times, and did a little stripper pool swinging of her own and swung right back into me. I wondered,

Okay, is this lady crazy and getting me back from earlier? Or is it that she just can’t balance properly?’

To her defense, I have definitely had off balance days on the subway and it’s not fun. But she kept looking at me with her strange bug-like eyeballs.

Does she want to play a game? Is that was this is?

I redirect my attention to the huge backpack jabbing into my back. People!! If your backpack is 3 times the size of me, have some damn courtesy and take the thing off when it’s crowded. Honestly. I don’t want your schnasty ass dirty, smelly bag rubbing up against any part of my body. Gross. Not to mention as soon as someone moves with one of those things on, it looks like football practice. People get body checked, bounced and thrown all over the place. Jesus.

So Little Miss MisMatch steps on my foot again. I think,

Seriously, if this woman touches me one more time I’m going to pound her. Just try it MisMatch. Just try.

Have you ever seen that Seinfeld episode, where Elaine is stuck on the subway, on her way to a wedding or something, and the subway stops in the tunnel? She totally freaks out, but not out loud…just in her crazy mind. That is seriously me on transit. For real. In real life, I say, ‘Excuse me’ and in my head, it’s more like,

MOOOOOVVVEEEE <any word works here, really> MOOOOVVEEEE!!!!!!!!

I notice a bunch of men staring at this one girlie who has passed out in one of the seats. I’m thinking, what’s up with this chick? and then I realize why all the stares were headed her way. Her chest was, how do I say this nicely, friggin gigantic, massive, humongous and popping out of her top. Sandwiched in between there was a massive silver gangster style cross with Jesus on it. How ironic, I mean, isn’t there some kind of commandment like, ‘thou shall not be a hoochy mama.’

No, if you are wondering, I certainly do not stare at women’s chests at random, but these suckers were pretty hard to miss. Mountainous, even. I think every man on in the vicinity of Chesty McChesterton had a smile up to his ears. One man pretended to read, and of course I noticed this because he never turned the page of his book the entire ride. He did the whole, let’s peek over the top of the book and see if they’re still there, thing. I’m sure if Chesty wasn’t sleeping the men would have been a lot less obvious, but I guess that’s how the story goes. But still, you know. Chesty woke up with a sort of snort and looked around at all the people staring at her. Then she looked down at her mountains and smiled. Classy. I guess in this case, thou shall BE a hoochy mama.

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All or nothing, that’s how I roll.

So…. Happy Monday and junk. Since my work email is down (yet again), I thought it was the perfect time to talk about my Monday subway experience, or the perfect time to procrastinate, however you want to slice it is fine by me.

Surprisingly, overall an entertaining and stress-free ride today. It’s amazing what a little sun and nice weather does for the mood of big city slickers. I had plenty of standing room today, and even though I desperately needed to sit (first day off the crutches and back on the tootsies), I was okay with it. Mainly because Mr. Nice Guy beside me shared his newspaper. I also had a few mildly entertaining moments that helped me forget about how much I needed my coffee, pronto.

One older man sporting the all too attractive Donald Trump hairstyle, was propped up against the window sleeping. He wore a leather jacket that was much too tight, so tight that you could see the outline of his mp3 player in the pocket. His hand held up his chin as he dozed, and then suddenly a “ssskkkuugg.” I don’t know how else to explain that sound. You know, half snort, half snore. The breeze that came out with that sound blew his hair piece up a bit, and then it slowly feathered down to it’s previous position. He sucked the air in just enough for the drool to retract back into his mouth. In order to stop my eyeballs from popping out of my head (it’s hard, really hard, to hold in the laugher sometimes), I had to think about some schnasty curdled milk…among other things that totally gross me out. I mean, imagine how much of a luntaic I would seem to be (notice I’m saying seem to be, because I’m not hiding anything, not at all), if I just randomly burst out in laugher on a crowded subway. Really. Looners. Anyhoo, Snort Snore did this the whole ride, and eventually other people noticed that the hand that was holding up his chin, was also smearing drool all over his face. Love it.

Then a man comes on with, I must admit, amazing subway skills. At first glance, from behind he looked like the cutie who I’ve seen in my office building and shared many awkward elevator rides with. I’m pretty sure the man is happily married with kids, dogs and white picket fences, but whatever, a pathetic girl can dream. Turns out we happen to take some of the same route to work (not that I’m keeping track or anything). To my extreme disappointment, it was not Mr.Unavailable, but to my surprise, a very talented transit rider. Buddy read the paper, balanced a computer bag and briefcase on either shoulder, had no bar to hold on to, and…. here’s the topper…. had his Starbucks coffee in his suit pocket!!! Now that is what I call skill. I mean, I won’t even bring coffee on transit if it’s all I have to carry. I’m bound to spill the piping hot stuff on myself and others, and cause some kind of ridiculous scene. I can just imagine it now, sticky hands, slippery floor, broken limbs, numerous swear words, alarms going off…the whole nine yards.

After I read Mr. Nice Guy’s paper, I snuck a peek at part of a study that had something to do with population survey of immigrant children. Not the most exciting morning material, but it did the job. Although, the woman reviewing it was very cautious of my wandering eyes. She moved the paper around a lot, but I had the upper hand, I was standing and she was sitting. I mean, if it’s top secret info, then don’t bring it out on public transit, where people like me have nothing better to do than try to read your junk. Geez. The nerve of some people, you know?

A super cool ‘I wear my sunglasses at night on the subway’ guy tried to beat me at my own game today. You know, that one where I stare in the reflection of the train window and try to use my super-strength mind power to get people to look up. Yep. Don’t think I can’t tell what you’re doing Mr. Super Cool Shades. You know, I could do that too, because it’s much easier to play when dark shades cover your eyes. I like a challenge. Full-on stares all the way. All or nothing, that’s how I roll.

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Poor little Mini Egg

Right so. Just in case there were some question about my Montreal blues singin’ cab driver (mainly questions of my own, as in: “Did that really happen? or did the booze make me imagine it..?‘) ….looky what I found in my purse today:

Yes, I realize it’s backwards, thank you very much. Mainly because I took the shot with PhotoBooth and I’m too lazy to fix it. I just wanted to point out the damn harmonica on the card. Seriously. If you ever want a musical cab ride in Montreal, he’s your man.

So as I was waiting for the best boss ever to pick my sorry, crutches-in-tact ass up this morning, a boy passed, who looked familiar. Ahhh HA! I remembered who he was, and said,

“Hey what’s up Mini Egg!!!”

And the boy went running. I imagine this would make more sense if I told the beginning of the story. Right. So, sometime before Easter, I was in the Shopper’s Drug Mart with a friend, wandering in aimlessly in a hung-over zombie walk. We noticed a boy who looked like he was stealing Mini Eggs, lots of them. We were not sure what the hell was going on, but in the end, dude stole an abundance of Mini Eggs, which were stuffed in his coat. We drove somewhere else, and then came back to my place. As we were parking, Mini Egg strolled down the street, munching on his hot items. My friend yells,

“Hey!! How are those eggs buddy?!!”

The kid went running, right into one of the massive (by massive I mean, MASSIVE) old homes in my hood.  I live in a wealthy neighbourhood of the city. Somehow my old, grubby apartment buidling got plopped down in the middle of it. Who knew?

Anyhoo, this kid is terrified, it’s apparent by the look he gave me this morning. Sometimes the constant fear of being told on is worse than getting caught. Poor little Mini Egg.

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Chill

Ouch.

So, I’m sure anyone that has experienced an injury knows what I’m taking about here. It’s so, so, so very hard to take it easy and not try and do everything that you are used to doing when you are recovering. Especially when it comes to feet. I have to keep reminding myself that I just had major surgery in January, and to chill the frig out. But it’s really hard when I live in a city that travels at warp speed, as I know I will be trampled if I slow down. As I have said before, this whole ‘invisible disability’ stuff is brutal. Just because I don’t have some kind of walking device, doesn’t mean I don’t have pain when I walk that feels like knives stabbing at my eye balls.

Last week, I went to catch the bus. It was leaving the station (these guys wait for no one), so I figured I’d wait for the next one. A man darted past me, and surprisingly the bus waited. I was closer, so I tried to hobble run to grab it. When I got on the bus, the bus driver said with attitude,

“Well, what the hell… you could have ran you know.”

I was so pissed. I said, “Actually, I can’t run, since both of my feet were recently broken. How about you think for a second before you accuse me of being an ass.”

That shut him up fast.

I went to Montreal this weekend, walked a lot and really had no problem (although that city doesn’t move as fast). Yesterday I walked one block from my office, and surprise!!! my foot is a mess again. What the hell? So there I was, sitting at a conference this morning, feeling like there was a stake in my foot and about to have a panic attack. Panic attacks are brutal. It’s hard for people that haven’t experienced them to understand, but basically you feel like you are going to pass out and die. Seriously. I’ve been getting them for years now, they appeared after someone drugged my drink in a bar. At first they just happened in crowded bar-type places, and eventually spilled into all aspects of my life, like on the bus, shopping, sitting on the couch, whatever. Soon they became associated with any kind of pain I had (I’ve had kidney stones twice, now that’s some crazy ass pain for you). Eventually I had to get help. I can pretty much control them now, or control their severity at least. As I was listening to the panel discussion, a dizzy spell kicked in, and I grabbed the table like I was going to fall off my chair. I felt nauseous and imagined projectile vomit flying into the woman in front of me. When I have an attack, I get super paranoid, and think everyone is looking at me like I’m some kind of freak. The more I tried to forget about it, the more I thought about it. I literally had to bite my lip hard enough to draw blood, just so I didn’t have a complete meltdown. The room started spinning, I couldn’t catch my breath and kept telling myself, “You’re not going to pass out, you’re not, just chill. Chill.” Thankfully, I have the best boss ever (seriously for real) and she ordered my sorry ass home, pronto.

I feel like every time my foot gets better, it gets worse. Notice I am only talking about one foot. My other one has caused absolutely (knock on wood) no problem at all. The one that is causing me problems has been broken before, and sprained about a million times. I felt that during my recovery, I was some kind of bionic superwoman. I healed quickly, got my casts off early, and walked right out of the hospital. The surgeon was amazed. Now I feel like some karmic force is saying, “That’s what you think honey, nice try though, really, E for effort.”

Moral of the story: Chill.

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