Sharkboy

This year DR and I had promised ourselves we would finished Christmas shopping before November was over. Our final Christmas gift was purchased on November 29th. Mind you we still had some stocking stuffers to get, but we didn’t necessarily need to be in the crazyness of the malls for that purpose.

One week before Christmas on December 18th, I met a very good friend of mine for dinner after work. As it is custom, I meet her at the Bloor subway station and we walk to our favourite restaurant from there. Bloor station is located in a corridor full of shop that goes from The Bay through Holts Renfrew to Manulife Centre, populated by millions of shops in between… oh yeah, it’s a mall.

I arrived a little less than 10 minutes early, she is prompt and usually gets off the subway from work at 5:20pm. It was extremely busy as not only was it time for people to go home but also, one week before Christmas, the shopping was on full blast as well. I found a spot by the wall where no one was standing and where I could keep an eye out for my friend so I darted for it. There I was, standing “out” of the way, left shoulder leaning on the wall, work bag in my right hand, and left foot crossed over my right one. And less than 22 seconds later, Bang! Some lard ass bumped me, looked back, then looked at his bag to make sure they were ok, never said a word of excuses to me, and turned back to continue his race… Of course that pissed me off. But that’s when I totally realized people were in a trance, they were just like extras from Invasion of the Christmas Shopper Snatchers. I decided to conduct a little experiment.

One look at my watch told me it was 17:12. I knew I had approximately 10 minutes to do so. I decided to stay in the exact same position, still where I thought I was out of the main traffic and counted how many people would bump me, 1 point for each of them, and I wouldn’t count the point if people said something “in the direction” of an apology. It didn’t take long at all: Bang = 1, Bang = 2, Touch = 3, Bang = 4, etc. At 17:18 I saw my friend coming out of the subway doors, I stopped the exercise, it had lasted only 6 minutes. In that short period of time, in the centre of Toronto, largest populated city in Canada, I counted 11 ingrates. 11 crass people that think it’s ok to hit someone with their bags, coats, shoulders and not even say anything back. That’s an average of 2 per minute, 1 per 30 seconds. And they were all adults, no children were hurt or involved in this experiment. Counting the man that hit me before starting the experiment, that’s 12 bruisers… He was the only male to hit me.

I took solace in the fact that my shopping experience this year had not been like that at all, we were shopping before the aliens took over the shoppers. My friend arrived, we greeted each other, bitched about the rudeness of Christmas shoppers and commuters, she had had a similar version but inside a subway car. And then it was over, we were on our way to some delicious italian food, we reconnected with our lives and forgot about the discourteous manners of our fellow Torontonians #30.

Sick camp on Christmas Eve morning

Well. Christmas 2007 is over.

I’m glad.

This was a specially sad one for us as it was the very first one without my father. Plus we were all sick. Plus we got a really crappy rental car. Plus I got my very first speeding ticket. Plus I didn’t get a car for Christmas.

But we were all together for 3 days without any agenda, we rested, we played Wii, we continued DR’s education in the Art of Swearing in French through card playing, we ate VERY well, we needed for nothing. We saw Vermont in it’s most glorious beauty under a crap load of snow. There was no wait at the border. And we spend a great night with DR’s family before leaving for Vermont. And we spend a great afternoon (and delicious meal) with his mom on our way back home.

We were definitely aware of someone missing this year, but we had him all in our hearts. In our stories.

But as sad as Christmas was for us this year, nothing is sadder than this house:

DR thinks this house was decorated by thalidomide people… who just couldn’t reach. I know I’m going to hell for laughing out loud and re-telling the anecdote but COME ON… If this is the best you can do, then don’t bother and just don’t do it… especially when this is your neighbour:

When was the last time you were in a fist fight #93? A real one, with blood and all.

For me, it was in December 1975, I was 11 years old. I remember it well because it was the last day of school before the Christmas break, a Friday morning.

There was already a lot of snow in our little suburb town south of Montreal, and my mom had driven us to my aunt where we had breakfast. Soon after, together with my cousins, we put our winter ensembles and headed outside to wait for the school bus. This was not the place I normally waited for it as we lived a few streets down, it was strange territory.

Here we were, my two cousins and I making our way to the house next door, all winterized with our snow suits, boots, toques, scarves and mittens, ready to take on the cold and snow, but mostly excited as it was the last day of school for the next 2 weeks. At the bus stop, we started fooling around as kids normally do and little by little some other kids from houses around started arriving to wait for the ride. One of those kids was a chubby bully wannabe, and we didn’t really like each other much. His nickname for me was Tapette Paquette which I didn’t care for, but he was bigger than me and I didn’t make waves (by the way tapette in French means fag… and since it rhymes with my last name, I guess it made it a “clever” play on words for a low wattage type kid). No one was really paying much attention to him, my cousins and I concentrating on the snowball attack going on, we were aiming at different targets around us: stop sign, telephone pole, garbage can, manky cat, etc.

All of a sudden it started: Tapette Paquette, Tapette Paquette, Tapette Paquette…

We continued our mission with snowballs, trying to find harder targets as each of us had hit the ones we started with.

Tapette Paquette, Tapette Paquette, Tapette Paquette…

At 11 years old, you can ignore things very easily, or you can get very mad just the same. So all of a sudden, I just packed a snowball and threw it directly at the little Asshole In The Making’s face. Right smack in the pie hole. I couldn’t have done it better if I had taken target lessons.

The chanting stopped.

My cousins looked at me and one exploded in laughter, then the other, then me. I was surprisingly proud of myself. It made the chubby bully mad. He charged at me and pushed me, I pushed back, he said something like: “you’re gonna regret this Tapette Paquette”. But I don’t know what took over me that morning, I was really not a fighter, small skinny kid that I was, but I guess all the chanting had made me see red, so I hit him.

Right on the nose.

Just like that, out of nowhere, surprising everyone around, no one more than myself.

His face crunched up, he made a fist and then motioned to punch at me but missed, he did a nice “air punch” and then the whole thing was over. He saw the blood on the snow, realized it was coming out of his nose… it was flowing like a tap.

I immediately felt bad, I knew I was in trouble, if not now, definitely later at home, and to top it all, the bus was now turning the corner coming our way. Bully turned around crying, ran home and we got on the bus. Chubby Bully missed the bus, it was going to be worst than I thought.

Both my cousins cheered me on, told the story to others on the bus and I was a mini celebrity for a while.

Fortunately for me, there was no aftermath. Although the neighbour told my mom, who then told my dad, I wasn’t disciplined that afternoon after school. My dad just said not to fight anymore (I’m sure he found out what nickname chubby bully had been calling me and probably thought he deserved the bloody nose). And as for Chubby Bully, we never really talked until years later. But I once caught his younger sister stick her tongue at me.