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Cardboard Love
Yet again....I'm on alternating shifts now, so only part time this week. ;p
I Don't Know
( Emergency accommodations remember. )
Me: "Alright, I can put you at <hotel>-"
SC: “Does it have a free breakfast?!”
Me: “I’m afraid I don’t have that information about the hotel-”
SC: “AMERICAN AIRLINES TOLD ME THERE WOULD BE A FREE BREAKFAST!!!"
Me: “If you like I can give you the hotel number and you can check with them”
SC: “Well what happens if they don’t?! DO I CALL YOU BACK!?”
Me: “Yes-“
SC: “Than you give me the next one, and I call that one, than the next one-“
Holy shit dude, relax. I realize it’s the most important meal of the day but it’s not that important. You’re completely welcome to phone every hotel in a 10 mile radius demanding a free breakfast in exchange for gracing them with your presence. However, I doubt many of them will be receptive to your attempts at negotiation. Given the time of night, and your current location, the best you can hope for as far as breakfast goes is that the hotel has a working snack machine at the end of the hall that’s actually been refilled at some point in the last 9 years.
Also, if you call me back again in a couple of hours after the police have removed you from the premises for showing up naked in the front lobby screaming "BAAACCOOOOOON!~" at 6am sharp. Than vengefully mounting and rutting the Budget Rent-A-Car kiosk I am not finding you another room.
Legalities
SC: “I better use my mom’s name since I’m going to use her credit card.”
Let me stop you right there. Now I realize that your social skills are likely woefully undeveloped and your daily life calls for little more than grunts, gestures and the occasionally throwing of a rock or stick to ward others away from your territory. But I really do feel the need to intervene here before you run afoul of forces larger and more powerful than yourself. Aside from polar bears and walrus, anyhow. I speak of course of the legal system.
If you do not know the system of which I speak, I am referring to the people that keep taking away your Fruit Loop moonshine and putting you in the little grey room after you got into a fist fight with your sister over the last Coors in the cooler. Again. You know, the guys with the yellow stripes on their legs that show up in a plane right before you mysteriously wake up in a cell with a hangover? That’s the legal system.
You probably don’t realize it ( or many other things, honestly ) but using someone else’s credit card is generally bad. Especially when you outright admit up front you are going to do so, and are going to use their name as well. Even if it is your mom. These are the sorts of things that make the people with the yellow striped legs suspicious. Then they come to your house to ask you some questions and end up having to arrest you after noticing the meth lab you’re trying to construct out of old car parts and a lawn chair after catching 2 minutes of a story about them on The Fifth Estate.
Pop Quiz
You’re on the Skytrain. Drunk off your arse and clutching a plateful of buck a slice pizza. The best course of action is:
A) Sit still, shut up and try not to throw up on yourself
B) Sit still, shut up and try not to drop your pizza
C) Stand up and start to roam up and down the Skytrain car trying to desperately pick up chicks
If you picked C, congratulations! You got on at Broadway station and are holding your penis with your free hand.
No.
SC: “Do you have a website?”
You realize it is 3am, right? So unless you are currently engulfed in flames and the domain name is the safe word you need for your partner to piss you out than no, we do not have a website.
ARGH
SC: “And the number?”
Me: “552-“
SC: “5?”
Me: “552”
SC: “552?”
Me: “Than 6244”
SC: “52?”
Me: “6244”
SC: “1?”
Me: “6244”
1? 1? Where he Hell did 1 come from? I didn’t even use a 1 anywhere in my phone number deployment. I did not even use anything that sounds like one. No ones were involved in the creation of my response at any level in any capacity. The number 1 does not belong here! It has no place in this conversation. It did not bring an invitation. It isn’t even adhering to no shirt, no shoes, no service. How do you explain it’s presence? Why has it suddenly appeared between us? Did it quantum leap into our time line and is now trapped here, unable to escape until it somehow corrects your mistake?
Grr.
SC: “I want your lowest rate. But it has to be the hotel closest to the airport, have free transportation and a pool.”
Of course sir, will you be having the free breakfast as well?
Ok, what?
Now, I have seen many things whilst riding the rails of our city’s fine transit system in the dead of night. But I thought I had reached a point of uncaring. Where, regardless of how bizarre the events before me unfold, I do not question it. I simply accept that this is Vancouver, and this is the Skytrain. So odd, horrific and occasionally emotionally scarring things are going to happen anyway. So I may as well just go with the flow and accept it.
But sometimes my brain demands an answer. Like when two guys step onto the train with a life sized cardboard cut out of some airbrushed harpy from Sex in the City. Complete with her own stand so that she can remain upright whilst they talk about her and what to do with her this evening. That’s the point I must beg an answer. The point when you arrive on the scene with a giant life sized picture of a woman and whisper “You’re a dirty, dirty whore aren't you? Oh yes.” into her two dimensional ear. After which you launch into a 10 minute discussion with your compatriot about how extensive the "partying" will be with your cardboard date this evening and how you’re going to go about trying to convince bouncers to let you into bars with her. Because, apparently, you can't even get laid by cardboard unless you liquor it up first.
Hot Tips
SC: “Hi, if you think you’ve had a hard life just look at Prince Charles.”
Wait, I thought he was the Anti-Christ. Now all of a sudden you feel sorry for him? After all the years of abuse and slander you’ve hurdled towards the man, now you’re pulling a 180 and working the sympathy angle?
SC: “The only father he ever had was the priest that molested him.”
Have I mentioned yet this week that I hate you? What is wrong with you, boy? Every week now it’s something new. First it was Hitler pending Charles over the throne of Hell, than it was the Queen either giving it or taking it with the appropriate apparatus, now its Prince Charles being molested by priests? What happened to you? You use to be so fuzzy and harmless. With your cute little theories on how to win the war in Iraq or how Prince Charles was descended from Jack the Ripper.
Now not a week goes by where you don’t inform me of someone being violated in the most horrible way possible. Usually a person for whom the very mental image of them even thinking about sex is enough to induce a gag reflex.
Too Bad
Me: “Alright, I will page the resident manager and have them call you there”
SC: “Awww, but I don’t wanna wait!”
….I…don’t understand that statement. It was delivered in the tone of an impatient 6 year old. Which implies that you want building maintenance and you want it now or you’re going to hold your breath till you get it? Well, don’t let me stop you. Though I should warn you, you need to be conscious to answer the phone when the manager calls you back there. So you may want to restrict yourself to rolling around on the carpet, flailing your arms and legs.
Maritime Rituals
Me: "What would be a good time to call?"
SC: "First thing in the morning."
Me: “Alright, so first thing in the morning?”
SC: “Yep. The young fella goes to school. It’s an hour drive to the school. So he’s up around quarter to 7 and so we’re up at 7.”
What have I told you about stories? Do you see? See what I grew up with? I asked him one simple question and from that question I was informed:
1) He has a son.
2) This child is school aged.
3) This child’s school is an hour away from his house by car.
4) This child gets up at quarter to 7 on weekdays
5) They get up at 7am so that they can drive him to school.
I learned all that just because I asked him when he would like a call back. That’s it, that’s all I asked! But nooo, he’s from the Maritimes so he’s unable to answer without divulging extensive personal information. That’s because this is actually the first step of a complex social ritual that few outside of the Maritimes understand. On the surface, to you west coasters, it merely appears that are overly and somewhat unsettlingly friendly. But there is more to it, and I shall one again break my vows of Maritime silence to explain them.
This is actually a multistage process with 5 phases. What you are witnessing here is an attempt to engage me in Phase 1 and trigger Phase 2. Phase 1 is where you’re suppose to share basic information about your entire family. This includes pets. After pets you than begin to reveal information about extended family. With the amount of information being directly proportional to how well you know the person you are speaking with. In this instance I am a total stranger, so he may only mention immediate family members such as a child, sibling or parent. And yes, if you unfortunately spoke to the same person twice they would reprise all of this information again. But add a cousin.
After this, Phase 2 begins. In this phase you must discuss the careers, career goals or lack of employment of every person you mentioned in Phase 1. After that, you must discuss the current marital status and health status of all of the aforementioned people and how this health status was brought about. Drinking and smoking usually feature quite prominently in this phase. As do table saws and other pieces of large industrial machinery. Do not think I joking here. I have 4 uncles on my dad’s side. 2 are missing at least 2 fingers on one hand. One is missing 4 total across both hands. My grandfather is missing half of 2.
This leads to Phase 3, where you pointlessly discuss solutions to all of the problems in Phase 2. None of these solutions will ever seriously be implemented. This is merely a discussion on what every member of your family should be doing if “they were you”. Not any actual follow through on getting them to do it.
Phase 4 is a repeat of Phase 1-3, but featuring yourself. Now that you have ratted out your entire family, you must discuss your personal information, marital status, health status and career. Be sure that at least half of this discussion is what you’d like to be doing rather than what you actually do.
Phase 5 is an invitation to either curling or a Bingo hall. This is the part that throws most of you West coasters for a loop. Some of you have probably reached Phase 5 before with a Maritimer but then made a critical misstep by either accepting than asking specifically when or denying outright. Both of these are mistakes. You’re suppose to say yes and leave it at that. As there is a secondary rule in play here. If someone invites you out to curling or a Bingo hall ( Or ice fishing ) you do not actually have to attend unless at least two other members of that person’s family or extended family have also invited you. This is simply a placeholder invitation. However, if you do inadvertently achieve this trinity you are obligated to arrive at the event in question.
Case in point, as a child I was dragged to Bingo fairly often by my grandmother. But never just my grandmother. If only she suggested it, it would not occur. However, if at least 2 of my aunts also mentioned it to me than by thunder' n Jesus we were going to Bingo whether I liked it or not.
So be careful when you interact with those from the east, comrades. Lest you trigger a match 3 and end up in a smoke filled gymnasium somewhere surrounded by middle aged women with horseshoes and troll dolls.
Annnd rest.
I Don't Know
( Emergency accommodations remember. )
Me: "Alright, I can put you at <hotel>-"
SC: “Does it have a free breakfast?!”
Me: “I’m afraid I don’t have that information about the hotel-”
SC: “AMERICAN AIRLINES TOLD ME THERE WOULD BE A FREE BREAKFAST!!!"
Me: “If you like I can give you the hotel number and you can check with them”
SC: “Well what happens if they don’t?! DO I CALL YOU BACK!?”
Me: “Yes-“
SC: “Than you give me the next one, and I call that one, than the next one-“
Holy shit dude, relax. I realize it’s the most important meal of the day but it’s not that important. You’re completely welcome to phone every hotel in a 10 mile radius demanding a free breakfast in exchange for gracing them with your presence. However, I doubt many of them will be receptive to your attempts at negotiation. Given the time of night, and your current location, the best you can hope for as far as breakfast goes is that the hotel has a working snack machine at the end of the hall that’s actually been refilled at some point in the last 9 years.
Also, if you call me back again in a couple of hours after the police have removed you from the premises for showing up naked in the front lobby screaming "BAAACCOOOOOON!~" at 6am sharp. Than vengefully mounting and rutting the Budget Rent-A-Car kiosk I am not finding you another room.
Legalities
SC: “I better use my mom’s name since I’m going to use her credit card.”
Let me stop you right there. Now I realize that your social skills are likely woefully undeveloped and your daily life calls for little more than grunts, gestures and the occasionally throwing of a rock or stick to ward others away from your territory. But I really do feel the need to intervene here before you run afoul of forces larger and more powerful than yourself. Aside from polar bears and walrus, anyhow. I speak of course of the legal system.
If you do not know the system of which I speak, I am referring to the people that keep taking away your Fruit Loop moonshine and putting you in the little grey room after you got into a fist fight with your sister over the last Coors in the cooler. Again. You know, the guys with the yellow stripes on their legs that show up in a plane right before you mysteriously wake up in a cell with a hangover? That’s the legal system.
You probably don’t realize it ( or many other things, honestly ) but using someone else’s credit card is generally bad. Especially when you outright admit up front you are going to do so, and are going to use their name as well. Even if it is your mom. These are the sorts of things that make the people with the yellow striped legs suspicious. Then they come to your house to ask you some questions and end up having to arrest you after noticing the meth lab you’re trying to construct out of old car parts and a lawn chair after catching 2 minutes of a story about them on The Fifth Estate.
Pop Quiz
You’re on the Skytrain. Drunk off your arse and clutching a plateful of buck a slice pizza. The best course of action is:
A) Sit still, shut up and try not to throw up on yourself
B) Sit still, shut up and try not to drop your pizza
C) Stand up and start to roam up and down the Skytrain car trying to desperately pick up chicks
If you picked C, congratulations! You got on at Broadway station and are holding your penis with your free hand.
No.
SC: “Do you have a website?”
You realize it is 3am, right? So unless you are currently engulfed in flames and the domain name is the safe word you need for your partner to piss you out than no, we do not have a website.
ARGH
SC: “And the number?”
Me: “552-“
SC: “5?”
Me: “552”
SC: “552?”
Me: “Than 6244”
SC: “52?”
Me: “6244”
SC: “1?”
Me: “6244”
1? 1? Where he Hell did 1 come from? I didn’t even use a 1 anywhere in my phone number deployment. I did not even use anything that sounds like one. No ones were involved in the creation of my response at any level in any capacity. The number 1 does not belong here! It has no place in this conversation. It did not bring an invitation. It isn’t even adhering to no shirt, no shoes, no service. How do you explain it’s presence? Why has it suddenly appeared between us? Did it quantum leap into our time line and is now trapped here, unable to escape until it somehow corrects your mistake?
Grr.
SC: “I want your lowest rate. But it has to be the hotel closest to the airport, have free transportation and a pool.”
Of course sir, will you be having the free breakfast as well?
Ok, what?
Now, I have seen many things whilst riding the rails of our city’s fine transit system in the dead of night. But I thought I had reached a point of uncaring. Where, regardless of how bizarre the events before me unfold, I do not question it. I simply accept that this is Vancouver, and this is the Skytrain. So odd, horrific and occasionally emotionally scarring things are going to happen anyway. So I may as well just go with the flow and accept it.
But sometimes my brain demands an answer. Like when two guys step onto the train with a life sized cardboard cut out of some airbrushed harpy from Sex in the City. Complete with her own stand so that she can remain upright whilst they talk about her and what to do with her this evening. That’s the point I must beg an answer. The point when you arrive on the scene with a giant life sized picture of a woman and whisper “You’re a dirty, dirty whore aren't you? Oh yes.” into her two dimensional ear. After which you launch into a 10 minute discussion with your compatriot about how extensive the "partying" will be with your cardboard date this evening and how you’re going to go about trying to convince bouncers to let you into bars with her. Because, apparently, you can't even get laid by cardboard unless you liquor it up first.
Hot Tips
SC: “Hi, if you think you’ve had a hard life just look at Prince Charles.”
Wait, I thought he was the Anti-Christ. Now all of a sudden you feel sorry for him? After all the years of abuse and slander you’ve hurdled towards the man, now you’re pulling a 180 and working the sympathy angle?
SC: “The only father he ever had was the priest that molested him.”
Have I mentioned yet this week that I hate you? What is wrong with you, boy? Every week now it’s something new. First it was Hitler pending Charles over the throne of Hell, than it was the Queen either giving it or taking it with the appropriate apparatus, now its Prince Charles being molested by priests? What happened to you? You use to be so fuzzy and harmless. With your cute little theories on how to win the war in Iraq or how Prince Charles was descended from Jack the Ripper.
Now not a week goes by where you don’t inform me of someone being violated in the most horrible way possible. Usually a person for whom the very mental image of them even thinking about sex is enough to induce a gag reflex.
Too Bad
Me: “Alright, I will page the resident manager and have them call you there”
SC: “Awww, but I don’t wanna wait!”
….I…don’t understand that statement. It was delivered in the tone of an impatient 6 year old. Which implies that you want building maintenance and you want it now or you’re going to hold your breath till you get it? Well, don’t let me stop you. Though I should warn you, you need to be conscious to answer the phone when the manager calls you back there. So you may want to restrict yourself to rolling around on the carpet, flailing your arms and legs.
Maritime Rituals
Me: "What would be a good time to call?"
SC: "First thing in the morning."
Me: “Alright, so first thing in the morning?”
SC: “Yep. The young fella goes to school. It’s an hour drive to the school. So he’s up around quarter to 7 and so we’re up at 7.”
What have I told you about stories? Do you see? See what I grew up with? I asked him one simple question and from that question I was informed:
1) He has a son.
2) This child is school aged.
3) This child’s school is an hour away from his house by car.
4) This child gets up at quarter to 7 on weekdays
5) They get up at 7am so that they can drive him to school.
I learned all that just because I asked him when he would like a call back. That’s it, that’s all I asked! But nooo, he’s from the Maritimes so he’s unable to answer without divulging extensive personal information. That’s because this is actually the first step of a complex social ritual that few outside of the Maritimes understand. On the surface, to you west coasters, it merely appears that are overly and somewhat unsettlingly friendly. But there is more to it, and I shall one again break my vows of Maritime silence to explain them.
This is actually a multistage process with 5 phases. What you are witnessing here is an attempt to engage me in Phase 1 and trigger Phase 2. Phase 1 is where you’re suppose to share basic information about your entire family. This includes pets. After pets you than begin to reveal information about extended family. With the amount of information being directly proportional to how well you know the person you are speaking with. In this instance I am a total stranger, so he may only mention immediate family members such as a child, sibling or parent. And yes, if you unfortunately spoke to the same person twice they would reprise all of this information again. But add a cousin.
After this, Phase 2 begins. In this phase you must discuss the careers, career goals or lack of employment of every person you mentioned in Phase 1. After that, you must discuss the current marital status and health status of all of the aforementioned people and how this health status was brought about. Drinking and smoking usually feature quite prominently in this phase. As do table saws and other pieces of large industrial machinery. Do not think I joking here. I have 4 uncles on my dad’s side. 2 are missing at least 2 fingers on one hand. One is missing 4 total across both hands. My grandfather is missing half of 2.
This leads to Phase 3, where you pointlessly discuss solutions to all of the problems in Phase 2. None of these solutions will ever seriously be implemented. This is merely a discussion on what every member of your family should be doing if “they were you”. Not any actual follow through on getting them to do it.
Phase 4 is a repeat of Phase 1-3, but featuring yourself. Now that you have ratted out your entire family, you must discuss your personal information, marital status, health status and career. Be sure that at least half of this discussion is what you’d like to be doing rather than what you actually do.
Phase 5 is an invitation to either curling or a Bingo hall. This is the part that throws most of you West coasters for a loop. Some of you have probably reached Phase 5 before with a Maritimer but then made a critical misstep by either accepting than asking specifically when or denying outright. Both of these are mistakes. You’re suppose to say yes and leave it at that. As there is a secondary rule in play here. If someone invites you out to curling or a Bingo hall ( Or ice fishing ) you do not actually have to attend unless at least two other members of that person’s family or extended family have also invited you. This is simply a placeholder invitation. However, if you do inadvertently achieve this trinity you are obligated to arrive at the event in question.
Case in point, as a child I was dragged to Bingo fairly often by my grandmother. But never just my grandmother. If only she suggested it, it would not occur. However, if at least 2 of my aunts also mentioned it to me than by thunder' n Jesus we were going to Bingo whether I liked it or not.
So be careful when you interact with those from the east, comrades. Lest you trigger a match 3 and end up in a smoke filled gymnasium somewhere surrounded by middle aged women with horseshoes and troll dolls.
Annnd rest.
Oh dear! 
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