Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Get your freak on.

I was driving to work the other day and found myself behind a van with the name "T & A Cleaning Supplies" stenciled on the back. Is it just me or is that a really unfortunate choice of initials for a company name? No? Just me? Ok.

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I'm still loving my new place for those who are wondering. It doesn't have a lot of counter space in the kitchen though so I went to Walmart to buy one of those cool microwave stand hutch things but apparently microwave stand hutch things are really expensive and so is anything even remotely close to a microwave stand hutch thing and it turned out that I could only afford a card table that was on sale so I put my microwave on that but it's really not sturdy and sort of dips in the middle so I had to put a pie plate half under the microwave so I could open the door. I think tomorrow I'm going to phone one of those home decorating magazines and ask if they want to take a picture of my kitchen because this card table/pie plate thing I got going on looks pretty fantastic. Hardly hillbilly at all.

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Today is Remembrance Day in Canada. It's the day when we remember all the men and women who fought for our country and things of that nature. Everywhere in Canada on the 11th day of the 11th month at the 11th hour, everyone stops for two minutes of silence and pays respect to those who fought for our country.

At the gym in which I work, there were posters announcing the fact that at 11:00am today, everything would stop, and we would have our two minutes of silence. "What a great idea!" I thought, and I arrived at work with a poppy on my uniform, ready to take part. In Saskatchewan, Remembrance Day is a holiday and I always go to the ceremony at the cenotaph but apparently in Ontario they don't really care about things like this for some reason because I guess it's not important anymore? I don't know. Anyways, I digress.

At about 10:55 I sat myself down in the office and started working on training programs, waiting for the music to go off in the gym to give me a cue that the moment of silence was taking place. But it never went off. And then I realized that everyone had already started because it was happening on TV. So I jumped up and stood with the others, waiting for someone to please for the love of god turn off the crappy dance hits music that plays endlessly every day, but no one did. So we all just stood there and paid our respects with Miley Cirus in the background letting us all know that there is a party in the USA over and over again. We get it Miley. There's a party.

And then, after the two minutes was over, everyone went back to their training. Until the people at the front desk realized that they had forgotten the moment of silence and somehow didn't notice everyone else in the gym standing with their heads bowed, so they decided to have the moment of silence at 11:15 instead and turned off all the lights and music and everyone else in the gym, who had done this once already, looked around at each other wondering what the hell was going on.

And then, as the topping of the Remembrance Day cake, the group exercise instructor came running out of the room where she was instructing a class, freaking out because SOMEONE TURNED OUT THE LIGHTS WHO TURNED OUT THE LIGHTS CAN SOMEONE PLEASE TURN ON THE LIGHTS?

So that was pretty much an embarrassment for all Canadians everywhere.

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Speaking of embarrassment, my brother and I went out for lunch today to Wendy's which was not my choice but whatever, so he could give me my birthday present which he had forgotten to give me on the day I moved, and I'm eating one of their craptacular salads and I just start coughing in the middle of a bite and, I'm not even kidding, had probably one of longest, loudest coughing fits of all time. I have never coughed that long or that violently in my life. I'm guessing it went on for 10 minutes. And I couldn't catch my breath and I tears were running down my face and I was gagging and wheezing and people were watching me and probably cursing me because I had brought the plague to Wendy's. It was so fucking awesome and hardly embarrassing at all. And my brother just looked like he wanted to run away. And did at one point to get me another napkin. And then, after I was finally done, I could barely talk for fear of setting myself off again and was so exhausted that I could barely carry on a conversation. So the lunch ended a bit early. Which was, I'm pretty sure, a huge relief to my brother because that meant he no longer had to sit with the coughing freak. At Wendys. *I* was the freak at Wendys.

It was a very proud day for everyone.

9 comments:

www.erinkelly.ca said...

ooooohhhh...i loved this in the way that i get the giggles at a funeral when you really should nodding your head in sorrow but instead you are trying to fight the giggles and you snort.

you are the best writer. ever.

also, what ever happened to those breadsticks you could get with salad at wendy's? because those were the point of getting the salad as far as i can remember.

www.erinkelly.ca said...

why is my website whoring itself?

www.erinkelly.ca said...

why would i use the word whoring if there is a link to my professional website?

Bronwyn said...

I love it. You're hilarious.

Anonymous said...

That gym story was hilarious.

Also, I'm pretty sure that you are the only person who ever orders salads at fast food restaurants, and it's possible that was the first salad they ever made.

That could have been why you were coughing..maybe your body was trying to reject it.

Hannah M. said...

You are hilarious, by the way.

That gym story sounds a lot like how everything went here since it was Veterans Day for us. I totally forgot about it until I arrived at work at 4 in the afternoon and someone off-handedly mentioned it to me. Even the middle school I'd been tutoring at all morning had failed to say anything! I'm so used to having my teachers remind me that entire week- college makes dates so difficult to remember!

notquiteawake said...

Thanks to everyone and welcome to Hannah! Only 88 followers to go before I break 100! Victory is mine.

Hannah M. said...

Haha thank you! And I wish you luck! Maybe after I show my roommate your blog you'll only have 87! I have a feeling she'd love it.

ginger said...

the gym story is really funny, especially the part about miley cyrus haha, but also really embarassing cause i can picture the whole thing going down. god i despise goodlife. also, laughing at your witty blog made my throat hurt alot.