life is funny: Part 5: Mr Dropout Big Shot Loser

Life is funny.

There is this guy I know, he figures he has it all figured out. He dropped out of school and went straight to Alberta. Now he is a big shot working in the Tar Sands. The guy doesn’t have the sense to bless himself. He tries to encourage younger kids to drop out of school and follow in his footsteps.

The other day my little guy came home with plans for the future. He is only in grade five, but when he gets older, he wants to follow in this guys footsteps. The guy is his uncle, and all the little guy hears from his grandparents is how fortunate and lucky his uncle is. He worships the guy.

Karma is funny.

In July, Mr. Big Shot hurt his back at work, and hasn’t been working since. Oil Town is an expensive place to live, especially since Mr. Big Shot recently entered a relationship with a woman who has four kids. I hear you, you are saying “FOUR KIDS”??? See, he has it all figured out. Grade ten education, living on God knows what, with no future.

I told you life was funny. Want to know something even funnier? I know you do.

The entire time Mr Big Shot was working, he constantly made fun of his sister, my lady, for wasting her time getting a degree. Who is laughing now?

life is funny: Part 4: facebook romances

life is funny.

First you have a couple who can’t talk to each other in public, but on their facebook you would swear that he is friggin’ Casanova.

He: Babe I love you with all my heart, looking into your eyes reminds me of ocean of blue

She: And you, my love, you are like a handsome prince who has rescued me.

Me: Blah (followed by intense vomiting)

 

Why is it that people chose to express their love for their significant other on Facebook? Who the hell do they think wants to hear (or read) that?

The missus and I had those friends back in St. John’s (well SHE had those friends, I just went along to be nice). The guy would sit on one chair, and directly across from him, his missus would be sitting on the arm chair, and they both had laptops with (you guessed it) their perspective Facebook pages open in front of them. Every now and then the guy would write his lady a note on Facebook, she would giggle and respond…on Facebook. We both felt like idiots sitting there with the two of the non-verbally speaking to each other. I joked that the next time we visit, we bring our laptops and we have a Facebook foursome. They were NOT impressed. So much for communication in a relationship!

Is this where we are headed? Maybe so, but not me, I prefer intimacy in a relationship. Want to know the deep and dirty in my relationship? Get a life, or buy a Harlequin

Like I said, Life is funny!

Life is funny: Part III: The Truth about men

We are men, we fuck up. Its in our genes to fuck up.There, I said it. Now the story behind the theory:

Life is funny.

I once dated this woman, she was a larger woman, but a beautiful woman. She used to ask me all the time “Do I look fat in this dress?”

What did I say?  I say one minute, and I call a friend.

Men aren’t like women. We don’t give other guys good advice. That way, if his woman splits with him, we are fair game. dog eat dog.

“Tell her you like fat women”

I took his advice.

Boom! Next week, my friend is dating her. Dog eat dog I guess. I think he married her. Now she is huge and he calls me all the time.

“How do I get her to lose weight? She is over 400lbs now!” he pleads to me.

“I thought you liked fat women” I say, with sweet revenge.”

“He he he…I just told you that so I could get her for myself”

Lesson learned, get better friends.

But we don’t, because we are men, and we fuck up, it’s in our jeans.

No typo there, it is in our jeans.  we think with our penis, its a fact.

That little guy down there dictates how we choose to live our lives. Take for instance the players? They don’t think with the head with the brain in it, they think with the other head, the ruthless head.

Players spend their entire lives finding sex partners, they don’t think, they don’t have to. All they want is sex. Now what head do you think is doing the thinking on this one? That’s right, the little guy (well, not little, but not as big as the one with the so-called brain, that’s for sure). “Feed me feed me” says the little head, and players obey. No questions, they just obey.

This is why we fuck up. We have two different heads talking at the same time. Three when our ladies are talking to us. It’s not selective hearing, it is just that too many people are talking at the same time. One head tells us to say “The dress looks great on you”, while the little head is telling us to get rid of the dress and have sex, and the lady is looking for some sort of answer that doesn’t hurt her feelings, but yet is honest. No wonder we fuck up. Who could blame us?

“Does this dress make me look fat”

“That dress does you no justice, now take it off and let’s make love”

Damn, the little head won again!

life is funny: Part II

Like I said in part one, life is funny. It is not funny in a ‘ha ha’ way, but it is funny nonetheless.

For instance, everything we were taught as a child was a lie; but yet, our parents told us not to lie.

Santa, The Easter Bunny, The Tooth Fairy, Honest Politicians, Caring Doctors, The Great Pumpkin (Okay, maybe my parents didn’t tell me about this one, but Linus did, and who wouldn’t believe a kid with a blanket?), and gentle dentists, all lies.

One by one those myths were debunked. I felt like an idiot arguing with the other kids that Santa existed, until one night I noticed my dad crawling from the attic while standing on two dressers stacked on top each other, all the while holding my presents. Explain this one dad!

“Would you believe that Santa actually crashed on our roof, leaving a gaping hole in the attic? I managed to get those presents from him before he had to return to the North Pole to fix his sleigh!”

I believed him, and I was the laughing stock of every kid the next day. Thanks dad!

The Easter Bunny was next. How could any kid not believe in a giant rabbit that hopped to your home and delivered eggs? Didn’t chickens deliver eggs? Did the rabbit steal the eggs? If so, I don’t want no stolen eggs. My parents couldn’t even keep straight faces when I presented this case to them.

The toothfairy. A little fairy like creature (until Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson became a tooth fairy and scared the hell outta kids everywhere) who collected rotten teeth and replaced the tooth with money. I never did have much belief in that one, especially since one night I nonchalantly reached under my pillow in my sleep just to make sure the tooth was still there and grabbed my mom’s hand. She was doing the exchange when I leaped to my feet from the fright of touching her hand under my pillow!

The honest politician? That couldn’t fool a two year old, let alone an almost 49 yr old! Same with the caring doctor and the gentle dentist. When I was eight I had to visit the dentist. “Don’t be scared, he is the most gentle dentist in town” lied my mom.

When he put his fingers in my mouth (mom always warned us never to put our fingers in our mouths, so why should a stranger do it?), I bit him. With that, he returned the favor with a hard slap across my chin. I almost didn’t need Novocaine, but he pumped me full anyway. He is the same dentist that drilled out my good adult teeth and then refilled them, making a fortune on my teeth and to this day causing me pain and anguish from cavities I didn’t deserve. That Bastard!

Like I said, life is funny.

Life is Funny: Part I

Life is funny.

This will be a multiple part series examining just how funny life can be sometimes. Enjoy!

A tribute to freedom and respect

I met a girl once

she was from the big city

she used to laugh at the corniness of my town

and that made me frown.

There was this old guy

who lived on a farm out back in the high country

his kids were all loners

they were laughed at when they came to town

and that made me frown

A while ago someone took away our freedom

by flying into two buildings a world away

now nobody trusts nobody in this town or any town

and that made me frown

They tell me this is reality

someone is always out to hurt someone else

They say not to let this get me down

I can’t help it, it just makes me frown

 

 

The Water Witch

That winter was especially cold. Water pipes froze in homes that weren’t well insulated, and heating cost a fortune that year. But water pipes and high heating bills were nothing compared to losing your water. The water froze quite often back then, and getting it back took a lot of work and a lot of volunteers, something that was usually lacking in the community. Whenever the water froze, people called my dad and expected him to get it back.

On this particular occasion, the water had frozen somewhere in my grandfather’s cow pasture. Back then, the community depended on water from a dam that lay high in the mountains, across the meadow from my grandfather’s farmhouse. Sometime in the Eighties, the community received a government grant to construct a reservoir, and to run pipes to each household in the area. My dad was project foreman and he worked with assorted men from in and around our community to ensure the job was done correctly. At the time of construction, the reservoir was quite the piece of work, but when completed, over 80 homes received water for the first time. Through the years the condition of the reservoir deteriorated and required constant repairs, which cost the community a great deal of time and money, but we needed water.

Since dad thought that he knew the location of the frozen pipes, this job seemed easy. He figured the pipes had frozen under the river, where they were buried many years ago. Most times when the pipes froze, this was where the problem was, but unfortunately this time was not the case, the water ran freely in that location; meaning that the problem was anywhere from the river to my grandfather’s house, some three miles through the farmland.

Finding the pipe under over six feet of heavily packed snow was damn near impossible. To try digging up the entire field seemed impossible, but with almost no way to detect exactly where the pipe ran, this was probably the only way to find the pipe. Since the pipeline was run across the field, the pipe had many curves,  so using a pipe snake to break the ice was impossible. There had to be a better way.

My uncle had just returned from Labrador. He had been working there for the summer months, returning home to cut firewood and do a bit of hunting. Seeing my dad and I working at the water  line, he came over to help. When my dad explained that we had no idea to where the pipe ran, my uncle came up with a plan. He said that while in Labrador, he noticed one of the men using two curved sticks to determine where water ran underground. He said that the man was a local Inuit, and he was known as a ‘Water-Witch’. My uncle said that he spoke to the man and was taught to find water this way.

With that, my uncle grabbed two pieces of alder, and holding the sticks like pistols, he allowed the ends of the sticks to swing in his hands. When the two sticks crossed, he asked my dad to dig directly under the crossed sticks. Although my dad doubted my uncle, he did as he was instructed, and VOILA…the pipe lay in the hole. They did this right across the field, and cutting the pipe and checking for ice in the line, they found three blockages. Using a propane torch, the ice was melted and the community had water again.

Not many believe this story those days, but I was there and I seen it for myself. Nowadays the community has several artesian wells that provide good clean water from hundreds of feet below ground. We have never experienced our water freezing since that faithful day in my grandfather’s meadow where I discovered that my uncle was a Water Witch.

Clarity in the menu please!

Being in the Capital City for the Fogerty Concert, we ate at a few restaurants. On the night of the concert we ended up eating at Mexicana Rosa’s, a Mexican restaurant. Seeing how this was just hours before the concert started, the establishment chose to offer only an appetizer menu. Scanning the sparse menu, the only thing that caught my eye was ‘Chicken Wing Nachos’. I like Chicken wings, I like Nachos, how could I go wrong?

When the waitress finally arrived with my food (an hour later), she held in one hand a large plate of nachos. On the nachos I seen the usual cheese, salsa, and peppers, along with a few tiny pieces of chicken breast meat. I am like “Er Ma’am, I think you forgot half my meal in the kitchen!”

She looked at me in wonderment, like I was crazy. “It’s all there, you ordered Chicken Wing Nachos, that is what you have.”

I say “but where is the rest of the order, where are the wings?”

I am sitting there waiting for some cook in the kitchen to discover that he forgot to include the chicken wings when the waitress adds “No wings, you ordered chicken wing nachos, you get nachos with chicken wing sauce”

I hated my ‘supper’ and ended up visiting a chicken joint after the concert. Who says anything about truth in advertising? I still say some menus should have pictures…Just saying

In the City

We arrived yesterday. In a full day of maneuvering across the island, we withstood at least four seasons of weather and some of the worst highways in the country just to reach our goal…St John’s…that’s right, we are now in KJ’s neck of the woods.

When we arrived in the city we were amazed by the drivers here. I would imagine that anyone buying a used car from this city would find one part of the car that is just like new, the turn signal switch. Nobody here uses turn signals, they just turn whenever they want, pull in front of you on busy streets, and change lanes at will. No wonder there are so many accidents here in this part of the island. On the way in, not only did we witness several car accidents, but one guy’s car actually caught fire! Poor guy!

We managed a bit of shopping. Since my lady and I do most things together, she came to Princess Auto with me to look at truck parts, and then to the tire rack to price winter tires for the truck, and I had to accompany her to LaSenza, a lingerie shop. We managed to find similarities with the tire shop and the lingerie shop, The bigger the rim size on the tire, the less rubber you get, and with the lingerie shop, the less you buy the more it cost…less is more I guess.

And fashion! I must be the only guy in the city who knows how guys dress. I mean, I am the only guy in here with a plaid shirt and jeans. Every other guy seems to be wearing some wild flashy ‘top’ that could be easily interchanged with girl clothing. The women seem to crave attention in the city. One woman wore a shirt that said “If you can read this, you must be staring at my TITS”…I was reading it out of curiosity, didn’t mean to offend anyone.

Looking forward to the Fogerty concert later tonight, my primary reason for leaving the safety and calmness of the west coast and rural life. My lady? Her primary reason for coming here was to buy clothing and shoes.

Until later…

Gimme a chaw of that stuff

When I was a kid, Old Man Stan used to visit my parent’s house. He would always chew tobacco. I was about eleven at that time, and of course, I was curious to what chewing tobacco was, and how it tasted. I figured it would taste like bubble gum, or maybe chocolate. Either way, I wanted to try some.

Old Man Stan was quite the rascal. He used to cut firewood and deliver it to widows living in the area. He would never take money from the women, and me and my friend Ricky were always curious to how they paid for their firewood. Hey, we were innocent kids back then!

Anyway, one day Old Man Stan, who was Ricky’s grandfather, asked if we would like to go with him to cut firewood. Mom said it was okay for me to go, but I was not allowed to come along when he delivered his wood. I always wondered why, but now I know.

We were up in the woods (as we newfies always say, up in the woods means deep in the forest) with the old guy when he takes out a ‘chaw’ and stuffs it into his cheeks. Right away he begins spitting. As kids we right away figured that it must have tasted like crap, the way he was trying to get the stuff out of his mouth. He said that it tasted minty, and freshened his breath, but we didn’t believe him, his breath always smelled like rotten onions to me, you could smell him right across the room.

Ricky was the first to try some, chewing it like his mouth couldn’t stop. I took a bit and began chewing as well. Of course, we swallowed the stuff as fast as we could, to get the taste out of our mouths. This made the two of us sick, and we must have vomited the rest of the day while Old Man Stan laughed his head off at the both of us.

I never picked up the tobacco chewing habit, neither did Ricky (although he did become a smoker). Old Man Stan? He passed away many years ago from throat cancer. Go figure!