The Boulevard Couch

Once upon a time my 3 siblings, my father and I, were walking to a football game. We spotted a couch on the boulevard and as we walked passed it, I started thinking about how crappy my mother's old couch was. She had the 15 year old couch stuffed with pillows and blankets so people wouldn't sink in every time they sat on it. But this couch looked like it was in pretty good shape. I ran back to it and lifted the cushions to see if there was any damage. I also tipped it forward to see if the bottom was crappy, but it was fine. So we walked to the stadium and watched the game (the Bombers lost).

With 9 beers in his system, my dad was quite loud, giggly and definitely not walking straight. As I tried to make sure he didn't drop his camera again, I was also trying to convince Chad to help me carry the couch to mom's. It would be a city block, but I knew it was in better shape than hers, and I knew she wasn't home. It was the perfect window of opportunity. Reluctantly, he agreed to help.

Once we got it to mom's, Lori and I decided that we'd put the old couch in her porch so that once she found out that we got this other one off the boulevard, we could just switch it back if she was angry. But as soon as we moved it, everything fell a part. Springs, foam, pillows and blankets went everywhere. So we decided that it was garbage. We placed the boulevard couch in her living room and left.

At home, I tried to think about lies I could tell her so she wouldn't find out it was from the boulevard, but I decided just to tell her the truth. The next morning she called me and asked if the furniture fairy had brought her a couch the night before. I told her the story and she seemed fine with it.

It has been in her living room for just over a year now. She recently bought a new set of couches and we need to get rid of the sacred boulevard couch now. She didn't want to sell it. But I refused to listen to her. Within a few hours of putting it on "Used Winnipeg", I got a call. $60 for a couch we got for free! We plan to use the money to replace the baseboards that the contractors (Handy Hands) screwed up.

NOTE: Handy Hands does NOT know what they're doing! They are a business run by a dad and his son who clearly don't communicate well. Don't EVER employ them to renovate your home. They did a half ass job on my mom's place. The only thing they did right was the siding, fascia and soffeting. They got a cross-eyed guy to paint, the paint was full of hot patches (blotches), used 4 different types of baseboards, and covered their crappy drywall cuts with more baseboards.

Life - The Weekday Routine

The traffic buzzes by the window as I pep talk myself out of bed. This morning was extra difficult because somehow I managed to find the one comfy, spring free spot on our mattress during the night.

I roll out of the coziness to wash the sleep off my face and brush the grime off of my teeth. I generally brush before I eat breakfast because first thing in the morning, I have the worst breath in the world. Death breath is what I like to call it.

I rummage through my clean clothes to find that everything is wrinkled. But I don't particularly care, since I'm just going to work. My co-workers wont notice, they're too busy trying to figure out how to wrap their heads around basic computer skills.

I walk to work in my MP3 music bubble knowing once I step foot into the office, I will likely be bombarded with unwanted conversation, sad unfunny jokes and awkward smells.
Still in the bubble, I walk in the door and chuckle inside at my co-workers. They still don't understand that headphones disable a persons ability to hear anything but what's coming through the electronic device in their pocket.

As I begin to work on five jobs at once, the printer/maintenance guy approaches my office. He's nice but the combination of being over 60 and Mennonite means that he is not funny and he loves to tell the same jokes over and over. He also has some of the worst manners I've ever seen. Once, in mid sentence he picked his psoriasis, looked at it and ate it. He also has no understanding of personal space. He tells me about something work related and then drags on the conversation. It is at this point that I continue to work and he gets noticeably irritated. I continue to type and revel in his annoyance of me, thinking about how "it's about time" that I annoy him for the countless times he has done so to me.

He finally leaves and then the secretary acts as though the world is going to end. A window has popped up on her computer asking her if she wants to install updates. She proceeds to frantically ask me what to do, reading off every word and number in the window. I tell her what to do (usually more than once) and then change my Facebook status to reflect the level of irritated that I am at. She continues to have these stroke outs a few more times during the day and towards the end, I just tell her I don't know. What I really want to say is "if you don't know how to use your computer, maybe you should get a different job. I don't have time to deal with your crap 5 times a day." And teaching her or the other guy does nothing. They just ask me the same things the next day, and the next day and the next day.

As lunch time rolls around I decide if I'm eating out or not, in order to avoid having to lose my appetite from watching the scab eater scarf down his lunch like there's no tomorrow. Once it's 4:30 I am dying to dive into my music bubble once again, to change over to the "real me" that was suppressed all day so I didn't lash out at incompetence or repetitiveness.

After 20 minutes of bubble time I am home. I hug my man and start dinner so I can satisfy the appetite of my favorite person of the day, Jeremy. We eat and chat a bit about our days, ignore a few telemarketing calls and sit down for some evening relaxation. I pull out the DDR mats to fill my exercise craving and then get ready for bed. I then drift off to dreamland to the sound of a Friends episode, hoping that I wont wake up countless times from overly imaginative dreams.