Life

Confessions of an Undercounter Lurker

/ Diane Henders / 18 Comments

I’m an ice cream addict, and my nephew recently offered to let me hide under the Dairy Queen counter so he could feed me any treats he’d made wrong.  Little did he know that lurking under counters is not a new activity for me.  (And I didn’t enlighten him.  There are some things a fifteen-year-old doesn’t need to know.)

If you’d told me twenty years ago that I’d spend a substantial amount of time on my knees under co-workers’ desks, I’d probably have slapped you.  And a few years later, I’d have had to apologize.  Because I ended up doing exactly that.

Wait a minute.  If you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking, not exactly that.  Jeez.

For a lot of years, the joke around the office was, “If you can’t find Diane, look under your desk”.  I was working as a network administrator, and I spent far too much time hunched under desks, connecting and disconnecting various computer-related plugs and cables.

Aside from the carnivorous dust bunnies, I didn’t mind having to crawl around on the floor frequently.  I hate dressing up, and it gave me an excuse to never wear a skirt to work (or any particularly nice clothes, for that matter).

And it was peaceful down there.  Nice and dark and quiet.  Sometimes it was tempting to just hole up for the day and spout incomprehensible technical jargon if challenged.  Kind of like a deranged techno-troglodyte:  “Back!  Back, I say!  Or I’ll ping your IP ‘til your CAT5 sizzles like an electrocuted snake!  I’ll FDISK your drive ‘til it can’t find its FAT with both hands!  RAM!  FAP!  Buwahahaha!”

I can’t understand why my coworkers always seemed… wary.

I’ve actually hidden under a desk to avoid people, too.  I prefer to call it “a clever strategic decision”, not “cowardice”, but you can form your own judgement.

I was hiding from my ex-husband.  Who had just encountered my brand-new boyfriend at the door to my house.  There was a dog and a bag of cherries involved.  Let’s just say it was complicated.

I couldn’t decide whether it would be worse to make an appearance and potentially exacerbate the situation, or to get caught huddling under my desk.  How do you explain hiding like a kid, when you’re thirty-three years old?  “Um, I just dropped something…”  Ten minutes ago, when the doorbell rang for the first time.  Yeah, right.

Anyway, I didn’t get caught, both the dog and the cherries ended up where they belonged, and both males departed unscathed, if not unruffled.  I like to think I made the right decision on that one.

I’m going to skip the Dairy Queen gig, though.  Wouldn’t want this undercounter thing to become a habit.

Any other lurkers out there?

Update:

As Charles points out in the comments, you can’t just leave a situation with an ex-husband, new boyfriend, a dog, and a bag of cherries without explanation.  So go for it.  Use your imagination, and drop your best explanation of “what *might* have been” in the comments below.  I’ll pick a winner next Wednesday and send out a (probably not so) magnificent prize.

I Look Great… Ouch!

/ Diane Henders / 11 Comments

Last week, an acquaintance told me, “You look ten years younger now than when I first met you!”  I basked in the glorious glow of the compliment until I realized that:

  • This meant I looked like shit three years ago; and
  • She didn’t mention how old I actually look now.  Only that I look younger than I did, which is not much comfort if I looked like a desiccated old bat three years ago.  So maybe I look like a dewy, well-hydrated old bat now.

The analytical mind isn’t always a good thing.

Don’t get me wrong, it was a wonderful compliment.  I’m still basking in it.  I prefer to assume she meant it the way I took it:  “You look great!”

However.

When you were in your teens and twenties, did your friends ever say “You look great” when they ran into you by chance?  No, of course not.  Not unless you’d actually put on a dress and makeup for the first time in five years.  But that’s probably just me.  That’s not my point.

My point is, one day I’m schlepping along in my usual jeans and T-shirt.  Hair is what it always is.  No makeup, as usual.  I run into Bobby Jo from high school, and she squeals, “You look great!”

They’re the words of doom.  The beginning of the end.  They don’t mean “You look great”.  They mean “You look great for your age”.

That happened for the first time when I was in my late thirties, and it was a rude shock to realize that I was, in fact, aging whether I wanted to or not.  Although the alternative to getting older is… meh, not so appealing.

A decade or so later, I’ve (almost) accepted the fact that I’m middle-aged, and now I’m delighted to hear “You look great”.  Or any compliment, for that matter.  I write them down in a special file and save them.  I’d like to add “just kidding” so I don’t look too pathetic.  But then I’d be lying.

Just to rage against the dying of the light, I started working out seriously about four years ago.  Finally got back into shape, and popped for some professionally done bikini photos to prove it.  It’s amazing what some artful lighting and a good camera angle will do.  Not to mention sucking in my gut so hard the top of my head just about blew off.  I looked seriously constipated in a lot of the proofs.

But there were some good ones, too.  For a brief few minutes, I looked great, and it’s recorded for posterity.

I don’t like the word “aging”, so I’ve decided to not to use it.  I’m getting… um… experienced.  Seasoned.  Ripened.  Maturing like a bottle of fine wine.  (Why can’t I think of any non-food-related references?  Now I’m hungry.)

But at least I look great.  For my age.

I’m Canadian, I Swear

/ Diane Henders / 30 Comments

*F-BOMB ALERT* – CONTAINS (more) COARSE LANGUAGE (than usual)

Think I’ll get that printed on a T-shirt, along with a maple leaf.

Studies show (and I want to know who got paid for this one) that Canadians swear more than Americans, Brits, or Europeans.  We’re not merely foul-mouthed, we’re world-champion spewers of profanity and obscenity.

Unless we’re around people we don’t know.  Then we wouldn’t say shit if we had a mouthful of it.  ‘Cause, well, we’re polite, eh?  (Unless we’re rioting after hockey games, but that’s different.)

If I had a nickel for every time I said something vulgar, profane, or obscene in front of my friends, I could quit my job and live forever more on the proceeds.  But if I’m with strangers, I don’t swear.  There’s some bizarre internal filter that simply won’t let that language out.  Instead, it all gets saved up for the next time some fucking moron cuts me off in traffic.

I’m not the only one who does this, either.  The same study showed that it’s a Canadian trait to be restrained in public but a potty-mouth when with friends.  Guess they weren’t listening the day our Culture Minister publicly referred to Canadian television as “shit”.

This blog is an exception to the “not in front of strangers” rule.  We’re all friends here, right?  And I wouldn’t want the language in my books to come as a complete shock.  But still, I post the F-bomb alert.  Other bloggers just let ‘er rip, but I’m too… Canadian.

I’m not sure why we collectively possess such a deep well of profanity.  Maybe it’s because we’re trying so hard to be polite to every dipshit we meet that it just has to come out somewhere.

Maybe it’s the beaver jokes.  As you may know, the beaver is our national animal, causing no end of hilarity to those with dirty minds (which would be most of us).  It’s really hard to avoid a little coarse language under the circumstances.

Or maybe it’s our weather.  Let’s face it, when you live in a country where a third of the land mass has continuous permafrost, profanity seems like an unavoidable consequence.  In the southern areas, schools close when the temperature dips to -40 degrees Celsius.  If it’s only -38, well, suck it up, ya pansy-ass kids, and walk to the bus.  The swearing habit starts early here.

For those who aren’t familiar with Canada, I should mention that we do, in fact, have summer.  You can tell it’s summer when the grass turns a funny green colour, and enormous squadrons of mosquitoes attempt to carry you away if you venture outside.  But that only lasts about ten minutes, and then it’s back to fucking winter.

I’m exaggerating.  We actually do have other seasons on the prairies, called “goddamn hail again”, “holy shit, tornadoes”, and “sumbitch heat and humidity”.

Or, if we don’t know you:  “How about that weather, eh?”

Any other potty-mouths out there?  What are the seasons in your neck of the woods?

Ride A Cowboy!

/ Diane Henders / 3 Comments

The Stampede is on in Calgary this week, so the medical clinics are bracing for the annual surge in syphilis cases.  No, I’m not making this up.

Forget your sensuous blues, your hard-pumping rock, and your suave, sophisticated classical music.  The true aphrodisiac is cowboy boots and country music.  Apparently, something about the Stampede just strips off your inhibitions, rolls them up in a ball, and kicks them under the seat, steaming up the windows and rocking the pick-me-up truck.

Except for those people who get direct economic benefit from the Stampede, like western-wear vendors and penicillin manufacturers, most Calgarians fall into one of two camps:  those who love the Stampede, and those who loathe it.

I’m firmly in the “Love the Stampede” category.  No, it’s not because I partake in the randy rodeo.  It’s because during the ten days of the Calgary Stampede (inexplicably referred to as “Stampede Week”), the entire atmosphere of the city changes.

All the suited-up, buttoned-down businesspeople vanish from the downtown core, to be replaced by swaggering folks in western boots, shirts, and faded jeans.  The smell of horseshit and pancake syrup floats on the air, and country music blares from every restaurant and lounge, regardless of its musical orientation prior to Stampede Week.  Bales, rough wooden fences, and hand-daubed signs drawling, “Howdy” crowd the lobbies of the sleek highrise office buildings.

Every morning, there’s a free pancake breakfast somewhere.  Just go downtown at 7:30 in the morning, listen for the music, and follow the smell of bacon and syrup.  Every afternoon, there are dozens of Stampede parties.  No need to follow your nose; you can hear them from across town and navigate toward them by following the trail of inebriated cowboy wannabes staggering along whooping, “Yaaaa-hoooo!”.

Some suggestions for safe Stampeding:

  • Don’t stand close to anybody in an enclosed space.  You’ll get drunk just from the fumes wafting off them.
  • Don’t light a match, either.  One of the staple foods at Stampede parties is baked beans.  Flammable fumes abound.
  • Use protection.  Or, if you really want the gift that keeps on giving, try http://www.plentyofsyph.com/.

Stampede strips away food inhibitions, too.  Fifty-one weeks out of the year, the thought of eating a corn dog makes me gag.  During Stampede week, I salivate uncontrollably at the mere thought.

Also, after dedicated research, I have determined that there is, in fact, no upper limit to the number of mini-doughnuts I’m capable of eating at one sitting during Stampede. A couple of years ago, I topped out at twenty-five, but that was only because the bag was empty.  If there had been more, I would’ve eaten them.

If your tastes are a little more adventurous, there’s a bar down on 10th Avenue where you can eat prairie oysters.  (For the uninitiated, prairie oysters are bull testicles.  Or… ex-bulls’ testicles, I guess.)  Mmmm-mmm good!

And the midway vendors vie each year to offer the newest, oddest foods.  A few years ago, it was deep-fried Coke.  I haven’t been down to the grounds yet this year, but I hear they have deep-fried Pop-Tarts.

Hell, those aren’t new.  You can find them after any Stampede party.  Just follow the sound of hiccups and look for the Daisy Dukes.

It’s Stampede time!  Save a horse, ride a cowboy!  Yaaa-hooo!

Camping’s Out

/ Diane Henders / 8 Comments

The long weekend is over, and I’m sitting at my desk, scratching the mosquito bites on my butt.  No, I wasn’t having that much fun out in the bush.  The little suckers were ferocious this weekend, and they bit right through my jeans.

We used to camp almost every long weekend.  Get a bunch of people together, grab a few adjoining sites at a campground in the mountains, and pitch a tent village.  The site in the middle was designated the “main” site, where all the cooking and socializing took place.

If we forgot to pack some critical piece of camping gear, there was always somebody in the group who’d lend us theirs.  The sites on either side provided a buffer zone between us and the other yahoos in the campground.  We sat around the campfire swigging cold beer and shooting the shit in the evenings while the mountains glowed around us.  Occasional bursts of laughter rose from other campsites, but the echoing silence of the Rockies always lay in the background, almost a presence in itself.

As we got older, though, the attraction waned.  The other yahoos in the campground got, well, yahooier.  (Honest.  Parks Canada backs us up on this one.  It has nothing to do with our age.)  The parks started to charge fees for a fire permit and a tiny bundle of soggy firewood.  The campgrounds were so teeming with humanity that the sites got packed closer and closer together, until the neighbours were only a few feet away.  We all attempted to “enjoy nature” while radios blared and children screamed and dogs barked and passing cars raised clouds of gravel dust that settled on us in a layer resembling the ash from Pompeii.

And driving the TransCanada Highway between Calgary and the Rockies was like taking part in a gong-show amateur hour at Race City Speedway.  By the time I made it home from my “relaxing” weekend in the mountains, my shoulders were up around my ears and my language was melting the steering wheel.

So one long weekend, we just… didn’t go.

It was quieter and less crowded in the city.  Everybody else was out there in the campgrounds searching for the elusive “wilderness experience”.  A few years later, we bought a tiny piece of treed property in the country, and we’ve been enjoying our own private wilderness ever since.

I hear there are fire bans and liquor bans in the national park campgrounds now.  I know it’s no fun to lie awake at night wondering if your neighbours are going to burn down the forest (and you) with their giant conflagration.  Obnoxious drunks bellowing at the tops of their lungs at three o’clock in the morning are vastly overrated.

But at the same time, I feel sad that a lot of people won’t have the opportunity to look up at the alpenglow and laugh around a campfire with some cold beer and good friends.  It’s really too bad that the sins of the few have once again resulted in a loss of freedom for the many.

Eh, sonny, let me tell you about the good old days…

Sigh.

How Do I “Like” Thee?

/ Diane Henders / 17 Comments

Last week’s post was based on some interesting conversations about “appreciating” people besides one’s significant other.  That got me thinking, which is usually dangerous.

A few days ago, I was at the gym, surreptitiously ogling the magnificent upper body development of a couple of half-naked guys.  And no, I’m not going to tell you where I work out.  That’s my eye-candy.  I don’t share well.

The point is, I enjoyed looking, and I wasn’t the least bit interested in doing anything else.  But it made me wonder:  would they want to know I was appreciating them?

If the situation was reversed, I’d like to know.  Then again, I’m at the time of my life when being appreciated for anything pretty much makes my day.  (You:  “That’s an unusually-shaped freckle.”  Me:  “Thank you!”  *beams*)

I don’t want to go back to the days when we lived with the fact that we’d get groped and leered at and propositioned wherever we went.  I’m not talking about appreciating people to the point where you sidle up to them and lovingly run your sweaty tongue down their neck.  I’m pretty sure that kind of thing needs to be restricted to your significant other.  Preferably in private.  ‘Cause, y’know, the rest of us don’t really want to see that.

But how about a no-harm, no-foul code word that just means “I appreciate you”?  The equivalent of a “Like” button, minus the contact with sweaty anatomical bits.

I’m not just talking about appreciating members of the opposite sex, either.  I’m talking about appreciating anyone you find attractive, physically or otherwise.  Personally, when I notice an attractive person of any age or gender, my brain says, “Nice!”

I realize that this is not particularly eloquent, but it’s versatile.  It can be applied with equal appropriateness to the old lady who smiles at me with joy written in every wrinkle, and the hot hunk in his well-filled jeans.  Though in the latter case, I find that extra vowels and/or syllables may get added.  “Niiiiiice!”  And sometimes, “Ni-yi-yi-yi-yice!!”  But that might just be me. And I usually remember to use my inside voice.

How would it feel if you were out getting groceries one day, and a total stranger walked up to you, smiled, and said “Like!”  And then walked away.  No innuendos, no pressure, no lingering drool.  Just simple, innocent appreciation.

True, you wouldn’t know whether you were being appreciated for your face, your shoes, your kindness in allowing them to precede you through the lineup, or the fact that they’ve never before seen a person who’s capable of causing a landslide of produce by removing a single apple.  But it wouldn’t matter.  Just like Facebook, you don’t know exactly why you’re being “Liked”, but it gives you a warm fuzzy feeling anyway.

I realize this is a ridiculously naive and possibly dangerous idea.  I know that some people wouldn’t appreciate being “Liked”, no matter how innocent it might be.  And I know there are far too many people out there with no sense of appropriateness or boundaries, so it couldn’t possibly work.

But… I kinda wish it could.

What do you think?  Would you like to be “Liked”?

Better Left Unanalyzed

/ Diane Henders / 20 Comments

I’ve just been reading a fascinating dialogue between Charles Gulotta at Mostly Bright Ideas (Better Left Unsaid, Part 1), and Priya at Partial View (Better Left Unsaid, Part 2).  Go and read both posts, along with all the comments.  It’s well worth it.  I’ll wait.

Now that you’re back, here’s my two cents worth. 

I was intrigued by the fact that both Priya and Charles seem to use the words “attraction” and “appreciation” interchangeably.  I think there’s a fundamental difference between the two.  Appreciation is window-shopping.  It’s harmless, enjoyable, and free.  Attraction is walking into the store to buy.  Attraction can cost you big. 

It doesn’t bother me a bit if my husband appreciates, or is attracted to, another woman, celebrity or otherwise.  My husband and I are both geeks, so our minds work a little differently than the rest of the world. 

Geeks believe that all issues can be resolved using a flowchart.  Look below for my take on the whole “Better Left Unsaid” discussion, if you dare.

WARNING:  Viewer discretion is advised.  This flowchart reveals the horrifying inner workings of the geek mind.  May cause warping, distension, or catastrophic failure of normal brains. 

Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Die-Hard Bob Seger Fan

/ Diane Henders / 12 Comments

This past week, I was in Toronto to see Bob Seger in concert.  For me, Bob Seger has always been (and probably will always be) the complete package.  The music, the lyrics, the voice – nobody else quite measures up.

I’ve been a fan for a few decades, but this is the first time I’ve ever seen him live.  When I found out he was coming to Toronto, I bought my concert ticket and booked my flight from Calgary ASAP.  Could I afford it?  Not really.  Did I think twice about it?  Hell, no.  He’s saying that this might be his last tour, and I was willing to do whatever it took to see him.

Little did I know.

First, there was the cost of the concert ticket and the plane ticket, as well as taking four days off to get to a Tuesday-night concert on the other side of the country.  No problem.

Trying to save a bit of money, I stayed with a friend in her studio apartment.  I slept in a narrow walkway on the floor, on a makeshift bed of two cushions scavenged from the loveseat.  I’m 5’10”.  The loveseat?  About 4’6”.  But it was fine once I stuffed a chair cushion under my feet.

Her two cats had never witnessed someone sleeping on the floor.  I was thoroughly and frequently inspected.  I sleep on my back, which would be an unimportant piece of information unless you also know that the cats’ climbing tree was right beside the spot where I slept.  You don’t know the meaning of “rude awakening” until a six-pound cat drops from a great height to land on your unprotected belly at three o’clock in the morning.  Lucky thing I really like cats.

My friend kindly offered to pick me up after the concert, reasoning that it would be difficult to catch a cab downtown at that hour on a Tuesday night.  I stood at the corner of Bay Street and the Gardiner Expressway waiting for her, watching the long line of cabs whisk all the other concert-goers home.  The parking lot across the street emptied.  Soon I stood completely alone in the darkness in an unfamiliar city.  It was okay.  I only had one proposition, and he graciously took no for an answer.

On the way home, I was singled out for the “random” physical search at the airport.  Four out of the last five times I’ve flown, I’ve been chosen for this search, so I have to question the randomness of the selection process.  Normally, I’d be mildly flattered that they can’t keep their hands off my body, but… really?

I figure the Airport Authority is missing a huge customer-service opportunity here.  If I have to get groped, they should offer me a lineup of attractive security guys to choose from.  Getting felt up could at least be an enjoyable experience.

As my plane descended in Calgary, I kept glancing out the window and seeing only whiteness.  “Must be low overcast,” I said to myself.  The jolt of wheels on landing strip alerted me to the fact that there really was only whiteness out there.  A foot of snow had fallen the previous night.  I wore runners.

It was the best trip ever.

Seriously.  I loved every minute of the concert.  He put on a great show, and the joy of being there was well worth a few minor inconveniences.  I didn’t come down from my concert high (non-chemically-induced, thank-you) for days.  Hell, I’d pay good money to hear Bob Seger sing anything.  Even “Happy Birthday”.

Any other Seger fans out there?  What’s your best/worst concert experience?