You Should'nt Smell Like That!

I don't know about you, but I absolutely hate bad smells. I could be in the greatest of moods, suddenly smell something horrible and I'm instantly angry or irritated. Here's a few examples for you to enjoy.

Smoked Meat
This scent is ok when it's coming from actual smoked meat. But when a co-worker walks by and the smell wafts into my non-ventilated office, it disgusts me. I don't even want to know why they're emitting such an odor.

Ink
Oh yeah, ink. In large quantities this smells like diarrhea. It's especially nasty on a Monday morning. This is one of the reasons that I don't like to eat breakfast.

Fish
I will spare you the details of this one. You know what I'm talking about. And if you don't, I envy you.

Vicks Vapor Rub
This makes me want to gag. I know it helps when you're ill, but you'll never catch me trying it.

Flowers
Oh I know what you're thinking, "what's wrong with the nice sweet smell of flowers?" Well, a light spray is easy to handle, but I swear, some older women have lost their sense of smell. The zing of their perfume in my nasal passage. is similar to snorting pop up your nose.

B-O
This is the worst when you're traveling on a city bus in the winter. The person walks on and the gag reflex kicks in. You can't open the window because this city is so freakin cold...and you're stuck. Stuck smelling the dirty air from some soap deprived body. Who knows what kind of nasty germs you're breathing in.

I'll add more to the list as I think of them

Hamiton to Winnipeg...45 hour journey

On Dec. 20, 2008 I boarded a plane to Hamilton. I was excited to see my family and semi-excited for the road trip back home. I love to drive and I especially love road trips. But this one would prove to be like no other I had ever been on.

The plan was that I would fly out to Hamilton, stay a day and then drive back with my dad on Dec. 21, but that last part didn't happen. I was happy in a way, because it granted me more time with family. But when Tuesday, Dec. 23 crept up, and dad's truck was in the shop, I got nervous. I wanted to be home for Christmas. Around 6pm, Aunt Lisa drove me to meet up with dad at the garage. I said my goodbyes, then dad and I went to load up the truck.

His stuff was stored at 3 different places, so it took a while to pack everything into our vehicle. By 10pm we left Hamilton. Driving was good for a few hours, until we had to pull into a truck stop after our vehicle started chugging. The smell of gas was overwhelming. I looked under the truck and saw gas pouring out from the tanks. I wasn't surprised that we had broken down and I figured we'd be there for a while. After a couple hours of trying to figure out a solution, we decided that we'd call a tow truck and a mechanic shop in the morning. Sleeping in a hotel was an option, but paying $100 for 3 hours of sleep didn't make sense to me. So we slept in the truck. It wasn't cold outside and we had blankets, so we were comfortable enough.

Christmas Eve day, we awoke. As we waited for the tow truck, dad phoned 4 or 5 people to ask them to put money in his bank account, so he could pay for repairs. I watched as he used a tiny flashlight to read out the numbers. They must like him, because he ended up with $350. The tow truck arrived at 8am, towed us for 2 minutes and dropped us off at a Ford garage in Barrie, ON. We decided to shop while we waited.

At 1pm we started to walk back to the garage. On our way, we walked by a very cheery lady who gave dad two loaves of bread. I don't know what prompted her to do this, I suspect it had something to do with dad's hobo hair. Maybe he looked hungry. Then, we arrived at the garage and they told us that the people who last "fixed" the gas tank issue, had broken a couple pieces that were slowly destroyed even more as we drove. He had fixed the problem and assured us that we were good to go. So we started driving, again...with the hope that we'd make it the whole way this time.

Now, when you drive from Hamilton to Winnipeg on the Northern route, there is a long stretch of road between Longlac and Nipagon that is curvy, and a long long way without any signs of life. We drove through the blizardy conditions with caution. I was worried about falling asleep at the wheel, so I told myself that if I ever thought "I will just close my eyes for a second" that this was the point where I would not drive anymore. That moment didn't come, but I did, for the first time in my life, start to hallucinate. I was shocked and freaked out, so I told dad that I wasn't able to drive anymore. So he took over and after 30 minutes he couldn't go any farther either. After an hours sleep we continued on our way.

After about 20 minutes, the lights started to dim, then a loud screeching sound was heard as they brightened up again. This happened over and over again. We were very worried that it was the alternator. So we stopped, rummaged for a piece of cardboard to protect the rad, tightened some bolt, greased up a belt and continued driving. Things seemed fine again, for 30 minutes. Then, the fan made grinding noises and after a short while, it stopped working.

So here we were, in the wee hours of Christmas day, on the bad stretch of road, with no heat...using debit cards to scrape the frost off the windows, trying to keep ourselves warm with pillows lining the doors and blankets wrapped around us. At one point we stopped and bought a small heater which we propped up on the dashboard with a loaf of bread and it defrosted the window enough so we could see where we were going.

In Nipagon, I couldn't feel my feet. It was so hard to walk on them and the place we stopped at was closed. But thankfully the older couple there let us warm up after they noticed the frost covered windows. For the rest of the trip, we would stop at every place possible, face the truck to the sun so the frost would melt off, and leave it running while we used the hand dryers in bathrooms to warm up our shoes, socks and feet.

By 6pm Christmas day, we were home. I realized in a hot, hot shower that I had some sort of frost bite on my driving foot. My family arrived an hour after I got home, we exchanged gifts, I told them my story and we talked a bit. Missing 2 nights of sleep, I was not myself but I was happy to see them.

When I think about this trip, I realize how strong I am and how well I can handle myself in a bad situation. I was never so scared that I cried or was out of control with worry. At times I was a little concerned, but overall, I was very calm. I know now that I have something in common with my dad. We hide our concerns in order to be strong for family. And when faced with a tough situation, we try to figure out a solution before calling for help. If I could go back and change the trip, there's only one thing I would alter. I would have bought boots in Barrie.

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.

Unwanted Conversation

In regular every day living we all encounter people. On the bus, at work, at the mall...etc. This is fine. Sometimes we say a simple hello to acknowledge someone and sometimes we have a conversation. This is also fine, as long as both people are on the same page.

For instance: when you walk by someone on your way to work. You know that if you say a simple greeting, the conversation will start and end there. So a simple "hello" is sufficient. But, when you walk into the workplace and say hello, it sometimes develops into an unwanted conversation. You say "hello" or "good morning" and then the other person begins a long drawn out conversation on something that has nothing to do with either word. I come to work, not to listen to someone talk about useless and/or unwanted information. So while the other person goes off on their tangent, I am thinking about how boring they are and hoping my face shows how annoyed I am.

On top of the boring conversation, some people add a horrid smell as they wave their arms and mix their ill smelling odor with the air you are about the breathe in. I start to hold my breath, or cover half my face with my hand. I figure that might help block some of the stench from entering my nose.

So, unwanted conversation and body stench. I think these are two of the things that irritate me most. I am at a loss because I experience both of these 5 days a week. This is clearly my reason for looking forward to weekends.

How does one avoid these things? You don't. There is no way that you can. Unless you are rude. There are two stages of rude.
Stage 1: Internal Rudeness. This is the first step to becoming rude and learning how to internalize anger. You think rude thoughts, and wish you could just blurt them out, but don't, because your parents taught you to be a nice person (highly over-rated).
Stage 2: External Rudeness: This is the second and final step to venting the anger you internalized in stage 1. You come to your breaking point and just speak your mind. This graduates from wording things nicely to being a complete ass. This stage lasts a lot longer than stage 1 for some people. But this is the stage where you accept or reject being rude as a normal part of your every day life. I accept reluctantly. I guess there's still a part me of ( a very small part), that doesn't welcome the frustration.

I am just entering Stage 2, and I think this is the rudest I have ever been. Maybe it's my age. I've come to the point where I just don't care anymore...and I don't want to. People have been irritating me my whole life. And now it's time for payback! I'm an adult, and don't take kindly to people who speak to me as if I were still in kindergarten, people who have horrible manners (eating psoriasis, picking ears with toothpicks, eating like a horse, picking their nose and then reaching to shake my hand...there are so many, I can't possibly list them all), and especially those who just keep talking as if they love the sound of their own voice and assume that you do as well.

This concludes my rant. Enjoy the rest of your people filled day and try to eek out some rudeness...you might like it. =P

Great Aunt Susan We'll Miss You

Some of my best childhood memories were from the days we spent at Great Aunt Susan and Uncle Andy's place in Lac du Bonnet. That's where I got to know Aunt Susu. But that was a long time ago, and she didn't really know who I grew up to be, until this July.

I spent some time taking her (In the photo on the left with my Grandpa Fred) to appointments in Hamilton General Hospital this summer. We talked, laughed a lot, she told me some family stories and I updated her on my mom and siblings. From talking with her and the doctors, I learned that she went through a few pacemakers over the years (one damaged a heart valve), she was on 17 medications and she liked to go fast in her wheelchair. She just wanted to get better. There were many times in that one day where she would slam her arms down because she was annoyed that she had to wait so long. She was fed up with being sick and spending all this time in the hospital.

I had a chance to speak to her a couple days before she passed. Although she couldn't speak, the doctors said she could still hear. So I said a few words to her. Hearing her struggle to breathe was very difficult. She hadn't eaten or drank anything in days and she wasn't responding to anything but her heart was still going strong. When my dad came home from visiting Winnipeg, she responded to him and others with a mumble.

At one point during her appointments I had to wheel her into a doctor's office that had wall to wall furniture. I bumped her chair into a weigh scale and she said to me "I hope you don't drive a car like you drive a wheelchair!" I choose to remember her the way she was. She was funny, sweet and such a blessing to many people.

I see the body as a house the essence of each person lives in. Once the person has breathed their last breath, the house no longer contains any part of them. An empty shell is left behind while the spirit and soul go on to better things. What's beyond life, I can't be sure. But I know as well as you do that our time here on earth is temporary. So we should make the best of it while we're here.

Tell people that you love and appreciate them constantly and never take life for granted. It's the only one you have.

Stink-ity Stank - Good Hygene Is A Must!

Some people wear deodorant or antiperspirant and some choose not to. I don't know what's worse. Using it or not using it!

What's more bearable, used deodorant sweat stank or body odor?

Sometimes I mention the issue, but that depends on the relationship I have with the person. I have no problem telling a sibling or a cousin that they need to shower. Nor do I have any issues telling my close friends that they have toilet paper stuck in the back of their pants. Or mentioning a zipper that needs to be zipped, a shirt that looks bad, a stain, a rogue booger in the nose or eye or offering a piece of gum and responding with a sarcastic "not at all" when they ask if their breath smells.

I really dislike being around smelly people. It's unpleasant. So before you leave the house today be sure to apply deodorant and brush your teeth. Or, don't talk to me. I'm not going to hear a word you're saying while I hold my breath until you're clear of my personal space bubble and I can cover up the stank that you've left behind with scented oils.