Glass Half Full

Good day to you, Loyal Reader.

In light of my recent "Ultraman" confession I've been doing some soul-searching regarding my entries up to this point.  After reviewing what I've written thus far I fear that the tales previously told may have left you with the impression that I've hated every single job I've ever had.  This is simply not so.

Truth be told I've had as many as...um, two jobs in the past that I've liked!  So, there!  To all of you that think I'm being unreasonably Emo about my main topic of discussion I lob a hearty "HAH!" in your general direction.

In thinking about these past two cherished gigs I've managed to nail down what an ideal working environment would be for me.  As a corollary, here's a list of workplace conditions I'd ideally want to avoid in the future if possible:

•  Being completely sedentary by sitting in a chair in excess of eight hours everyday.  Especially if sitting down for that long isn't by choice but because you will fail to achieve the inhumane level of production being asked of you on a daily basis if you don't.  I.E. If by getting up to pee, stretch your legs, have a quick chat with a friend or (perish forbid) eat lunch for thirty minutes makes you fall behind in your work to the point that your day is considered a complete failure you may want to seek an alternate vocation.
• I don't want my primary mode of communication to be by phone.  Now I'm not opposed to communicating my phone at all but if your new boss hands you a headset to wear from day one onward, you can officially take this as an omen (or an ottoman, I'm not sure which).  I generally hate to deal with people exclusively over the phone because (1) You can't read people very well (2) Wearing a headset for eight-plus hours every day will give you a chronic case of swamp-ear and (3) I'm not a thirteen year old girl.  Or at least I haven't been for a long, long time.  Ahem, you probably should ignore that. 
• I don't want to stare at a computer screen for hours on end.  Again, this isn't bad in short bursts but if you're zoning out on that sucker for more than two to three hours in a sitting, it's time to move on.  Especially if combined with the previous two conditions.  Every health professional I've talked to has told me that the sort of modern Dickensian sweat shop created by big business for their drones to toil in is slowly killing them.  I know for a fact that my posture is completely f#@&#$ and before I left work I had the beginnings of an nicely-developing "Mr. Burn's"-style hump from slaving away continuously at a workstation designed by former Nazi scientists who were fired from the S.S. for "excessively cruelty".
• As a grown adult I want to work in a trusting environment where my employer believes that I can think independently and apply positive tenants to my daily work experience.  These tenants include, but are not limited to, intelligence, free will, independence, wisdom, training, experience, and common sense.  I don't want to work for someone that has (theoretically) hired me for all the above reasons and then promptly demands that I sit down, shut up and "do exactly as I'm told".                 
• I don't necessarily want to be paid gobs of money.  It's been my experience that if you work in an environment where you get compensated disproportionately for a job you have no control over, it's a recipe for inevitable madness.  The robotic, practical side of your brain will pursue the perpetually dangling carrot to the point of exhaustion while the creative, active portion of your skull slowly atrophies like Joe Bonham in "Johnny Got His Gun."

Now, conversely, for the sake a maintaining a positive, "glass half full" outlook, here's a l'il sample of what I would consider to be a great working environment:

 


So basically I'm looking for face to face interaction with real-live people, the freedom to be snide to the grossly ignorant, the ability to discuss relevant topics of interest in a vaguely abusive setting and be semi-mobile at least.

That's not asking too much, is it?   I know these jobs exist; I've had two gigs in the past that I absolutely loved and embodied this philosophy somewhat.

Back when we still lived in residence at St. Mary's a buddy of mine managed to weasel his way into coordinating the student elections.  So, for every election, he'd retain his cronies (myself included) at the amazing rate of $10.00 a hour to mark names off a list and facilitate the voting process.  And by "facilitate the voting process" I mean hand someone a ballot and direct them to the slot after they'd managed to scrawl their secret "X" on it and fold it up.

The guy that ran the whole affair was a notoriously bad speller (and still is to this day).  I remember cracking up at the schedule for the first day because the name of two friends (Mike and Cheryl) had been mangled so badly it looked as if "Milk and Cereal" were working a shift together.  To this day Cheryl still answers to "Cereal" (along with "Roadie", but that's another story).

These elections were a blast.  I've always wanted to work with my friends and this was a real treat.  After someone cast their ballot at one poling station we'd have to use walkie-talkies to transmit their names to all the other stations so they could cross them off on their own lists, thus preventing them from voting again.  In the evenings when things got slow inevitably this would degenerate into the following call-ins:

"Yeah, new voter here...first name, 'Adoodie', first name 'Ahmed'."
"Head's up, people.  We got last name 'Torres', first name 'Clint'!"
"Alright, I need you to cross off 'Ocksmall', O-C-K-S-M-A-L-L, first name 'Mike'."
"Okay, I can't find this name on my list.  Last name is 'Weiner', first name 'Drew', middle initial is 'P'!"

Oh, some of the poor, naive girls we worked with.  We'd get them every time.  Sometimes it would take minutes for them to clue in and we'd just be dying on the other end of the 'talkie as they repeated the 'names' over and over again, their volume growing in direct proportion to their level of frustration:

"Mike HUNT!  Jill, can you see 'Mike Hunt' anywhere down there?  I can't find the friggin' thing at all!" 

Now that's not to say that we didn't do a great job. We actually drove up the voter turnout considerably.  It got to the point where we'd come up with all sorts of comically vaudevillian ways to get every SMU student to vote in the elections.  This obsession got so bad that one night I had a dream that we'd set up a voter station at 'Jumbo Video' and got Lenny Kravitz to play there.  When I shared the idea next day everyone laughed at me and thought  I was nuts.  Jerks. 

This goes to show a truism that big business often forgets: if you trust your people to get the job done and allow them some freedom to have a bit of fun occasionally, you'll empower them, keep their morale up and production will follow naturally.  Funny how these kernels of common sense don't seem so common sometimes. 

Like the "Festival Coast Tourism" gig that I talked about in a previous entry, the other assignment that I liked a lot could scarcely be called a job as well.  It was another make-work type project where I was hired by our local community college to compose and assemble a thousand student orientation packages and also determine the feasibility of an alumni association.

First some background info.  The "College of the North Atlantic" that at worked at has gone through so many name changes I've lost track.  From what I can remember it started out as the "Bay St. George Community College" (limiting it's range a bit) then morphed into the "Western Community College" (vague but catch-all), then became the blatantly trendy "Westviking College" and now it's known as the desperately rugged-sounding "College of the North Atlantic."

Kinda conjures up mental images of classes filled with students dressed in identical rubber boots, yellow rain slickers and Sou'wester hats with cock-eyed, pipe-smoking instructors espousing nuggets of wisdom like: "I sees he, says I to she."    

Anyhoo, I was charged as a twenty three year old kid to tackle these barely-legitimate make work projects.  Energized by the blind trust, responsibility and freedom only granted by employers who's own money they aren't spending, I launched into my duties with tremendous vigor.


Perhaps too much vigor. 


I remember my supervisor taking me aside two weeks into it and telling me: "Look you gotta slow down!  You're gonna work yourself out of a job!"

I couldn't believe what I was hearing.  My parents had it installed like software into my brain, "Matrix"-style that you never slack off doing a job.  NEVER EVER.  You kept hammering at it every second of every day of every week of every month until it's done.  You are never supposed to be IDLE.  That's just lazy.

So, once again, the things that I'd been taught about work were proving to be less than accurate.  I nearly had a mental breakdown consciously forcing myself to slow down.  It's still impossible for me to stop working or slow down until something is completed to my satisfaction.

Considerable stretches of time were spent taking stock in my surroundings. A buddy of mine had been hired in the library to do archiving and both of us had a blast trying to quantify all of the interesting characters at the school.  His supervisor, the guy who ran the library, was an interesting cat who looked like a combination of special effects wizard Dennis Muren and oddball physician Dr. Lawrence Jacoby from "Twin Peaks".  He even had the off-colored lenses for his glasses.  After being a first-hand witness to some of his quirky behavior we both concluded that doing whatever rabbit-hole academics it took to acquire a Master's Degree in Library Studies took too great a toll on the normal human mind and we hastily ruled it out as a future career path.

Another mutual friend would often stop by the school for lunch.  He'd managed to snag a summer job as a DJ at the local radio station CFSX and would regale us of how he nearly got fired for playing Led Zeppelin's "Over The Hills and Far Away" versus such corn-pone classics as Ian Tyson's horrendous "Navajo Rug" which was in heavy rotation at the time.



I guess we all had our crosses to bear.  

Speaking of music, at the time U2's much-maligned "Zooropa" album had just been released.  For some reason we became completely obsessed that summer with the song "Lemon" and made every possible opportunity to warble the lyrics to anyone within earshot.  In an inexplicable twist to residence pranks, if either of us left our office doors open (which was a disused classroom idle during the summer break) for any length of time we'd come back to find the blackboards completely covered in the song's lyrics, making the room look like the secret inner sanctum of the world wussiest serial killer.



More often than not one of our supervisors would pop in on us unexpectedly.  Can you imagine trying to have a respectable, serious conversation with a barely-legitimate authority figure while surrounded by mad scribblings like this:

Lemon
See through in the sunlight
She wore lemon
But never in the daylight
She's gonna make you cry
She's gonna make you whisper and moan
And when you're dry
She draws her water from the stone  

In between all this wacky tomfoolery I had to procure 1000 condoms for the orientation kits.  For months I  had tons of prophylactics lying around in my "office".  If (perish forbid) a girl I wanted to impress popped in to visit I had to dedicate at least ten minutes trying to convince her that I wasn't predisposed to any freaky-deaky Wilt Chamberlain-like propensities.

I also had to include a letter from our Mayor with the kit.  This story likely explains why I hate trying to do things over the phone and often have a constant state of anxiety associated with it.

So I call the Mayor's office and speak to a nice secretary that sounds like she has a problem with her adenoids.  Eventually she patches me though and this is the first thing I hear:

"A-KACHK!!!  *COUGH, COUGH, COUGH*   BLAK-HUUURRRRKKK!!!  HAWWWWWWK!!!   Snort...(sniffle)."

The voice on the other end of the line seemed to be suffering from severe emphysema.  I waited patiently as the hacking died down and then struck up again.  On an alternate phone line I hastily dialed a "9" and "1" and was poised to dial "1" again if I heard a thump hit the floor.

Eventually the cacoughany ('Cacoughany?'  Geddit?  Huh?  Dooya?  I'm tellin' ya, every one's a friggin' Maserati!) died down and I heard: "Yeah, (first initial of first name omitted)?"

"Yes, Mayor (Omitted), my name's David Pretty.  I'm calling on behalf of Western Community, er...Westviking College."

Endless awful silence.

"And I'm, uh...assembling an orientation kit for the students in September."

"Uh-huh."

Finally a sign of life!  I hung up the other line, happy that I didn't need to get a paramedic on speakerphone to try and talk me through some sort of emergency medical intervention. 

"And we'd love to have a letter of welcome from you to include in the orientation kits."

"A what!?"

"A letter, sir.  A letter signed by you that we can include in the student orientation kits welcoming them to the college and to the town."

A disproportionate span of time was once again consumed by terrible silence.  I held my breath and prepared to hang up, hoping to cut my losses and write this off as the worst crank call in recorded history.

"Yes, 'by!" the Mayor suddenly shouted, forcing me to hold the phone away from my ear for a second time.  Suddenly the man became animated as the venerable, respectable senior statesman I'd expected.  "Come on over tomorrow afternoon and I'll 'ave something for ya."

I swung by his office the following afternoon and true to his word, he'd composed a perfectly professional letter and hand-signed every one.  Although the phone conversation had been terribly awkward, the man certainly came though nicely. 

For the other part of the job I had to determine if an alumni association was feasible for the college.  I contacted a slew of other schools with already-existing alumni groups like Kwantlen College (now "Kwantlen Polytechnic University", Ooooooooo!  Fancy!) to see just how they'd determined the likelihood of first setting one up.  They were very helpful, sending back survey templates that they'd mailed out to graduates in an attempt to gauge interest, determine what activities and privileges they'd like to see and if they'd be willing to pay a small dues to ramp up their benefits.

I composed the package, got it approved, procured the mailers and return postage, then fired it off to about two-hundred graduates.  And then waited.  And waited.  And waited some more. 

Barely any of them came back.   

At the time I wasn't really that surprised.  The economic recession at the time had hit Newfoundlanders particularly hard.  It must have been galling for many graduates to have invested their time and money in a practical trade only to see no career results materialize upon graduation.  Hell, if I was them and got a survey in the mail asking them to confront their folly and if they'd be willing to pay dues for what amounted to wound-worthy salt, I would have turfed that f#@%^& thing as well.

Regardless of the reason, I was stuck.  What the hell was I going to do?  As per my own supervisor's advice I'd taken my sweet time getting to this stage in the work term and within a week or so I had to go in front of a board of directors with the results.

I went to my supervisor and he told me all the right things: "Well, you did your part. It's not your fault that people didn't respond.  The questionnaire you sent to them wasn't particularly long or difficult to answer.  It was the exact same format that other schools have used to good results.  I'd say work with what you got back and don't worry about it."

Even still, the meeting with the higher-ups was pretty awkward.

"So, what was the survey return percentage?"

"Um...about thirty percent."

"Okay.  And what percentage of people who responded wanted to join an alumni association?"

"Er...about the same."

"And your conclusion?"

Yeah, as if that wasn't self evident.

"I'm afraid that there just isn't enough interest at this time to justify establishing an alumni association for Bay St....er, Westviking College just yet." 

Uneasy exchanged glances followed but I saw in this a chance to be optimistic.  Glass half full, as it were.    

"But, perhaps mail isn't the best way to correspond with alumni about this sort of thing.  For the past two years at St. Mary's I've been using this thing called 'email' to keep in touch with friends.  I'm fully confident that there's tremendous potential here and one of these days you'll use more sophisticated and easy ways to reach these people and for them to reply to you.  In light of this and how enthusiastic the responses were from  those people that actually did respond I just sense that the college will have an alumni association sooner rather than later."

Their collective faces brightened considerably.  The mood in the room seemed to relax.  

"Well, we thank you very much for your diligent and honest efforts, Mr. Pretty.    We'll take your report into consideration and we wish you all the best in your upcoming year at St. Mary's."

And that was that.  

Y'know I kid about this stuff but I think it's quite telling that in many ways I had more trust, responsibility and opportunities to be creative and self-determining in a workplace as a twenty three year old kid than I did as a man close to forty years old in his last "real" well-paying gig.  In tune with this entry's title I'm trying to stay positive here but I gotta tell you that experiences like this really set me up with unrealistic expectations for what was to come.

But still I remain your humble, eternally positive, potential servant.

Drink?

EPIC:  http://www.cna.nl.ca/alumni/

BONUS EPIC: http://www.penny-arcade.com/patv/pa-the-series/
As another example of a dream workplace, if Mike and/or Jerry ever see this and want to hire me I can tell them right now that I can string a sentence together, have sales experience and work cheap.

BONUSER (?) EPIC:



FAIL:  http://www.usabilitynews.com/news/article2528.asp Maybe I did better than I thought?

Ultraman

Hello, Loyal Reader.

I fear that, despite the trusting nature of our mutual relationship thus far, I haven't been completely upfront and honest with you.  Although we've come a long way together in this short span of time, I must confess to keeping a pretty big secret from you.  Do you want to hear it?  Are you ready?  Here it comes...

I was once a superhero. 

No lie.  You've seen the movie "Kick-Ass", right?  Well, for a few crazy months just before leaving for my first year of university I was a full-fledged, card-carrying, bona-fide superhero. 

In my guise as "Ultraman" I would do my duty to speed the citizens of my small town on their way.

"Faster than a mink on Quaaludes!
More powerful than a parade float!
Able to leap concrete islands with a grunt and a muttered curse!

Look! Down there in the parking lot!
It's a smurf with a thyroid issue! It's a lost member of Blue Man Group! No, it's ULTRAMAN!

Yes, it's Ultraman - very strange visitor from another mental world who came to work at a gas station to earn just enough scratch to get the f#@% out of Dodge in September.  With powers and abilities of sarcasm and contempt far beyond those of mortal men.  Ultraman - who can change the course of mighty vehicles, depress steel nozzles with his bare hands, and who, disguised as David Pretty, mild mannered future university student, fights the never ending battle for Happy Motoring, Clean Windshields and the Atlantic Canadian Way!"

Okay, I hear some of you skeptics out there saying "But Dave, you weren't a superhero at all!  Sounds like you were just some lame gas-station attendant."   To which I would reply: "Oh yeah?  What would you call a dude who goes to work in a uniformed jumpsuit in the hottest days of the year, replete with headgear, goggles, and the whole magilla?  Someone who can speed motorists safely on their way with the power to clear their vision?  Who can keep mighty machines on the road with just a squirt of his life-giving fluid?" 

Look, just because I didn't have powers or any sort of motivation it doesn't give you the right be judgmental...

Okay, so I was a lame gas station attendant...happy now?

For a few months one summer, I worked at "Ultramar".  I had to wear a blue "Ultramar" cap and a matching blue pair of "Ultramar" overalls.  I also wore dark sunglasses as much as possible to avoid being recognized.

Generally, though, it wasn't too bad, especially if you worked an early shift.  You'd open up, set up your float, drag all of  the stealable loose display stuff back out and fill up the squeegee buckets.   During the day you'd pump gas, sweep the grounds, change oil, wash windows, and sell crap in the convenience store.  At some point in time you'd check your dips (heh, heh) by taking a long marked stick and dropping it down into the underground fuel wells, presumably to make sure no-one was weezing the gas.   

In the first of what would prove to be a long line of corporate-inspired stupid decisions I'd have to suffer through, every time I pumped gas for a customer I was told to that I had to clean their windshields and offer to check their oil.  When it wasn't busy I'd actually try and do this as much as possible in the remote chance that someone might actually give you a tip,  Unfortunately, this turned out to be about as likely as being hit in the shin by lightning while playing shuffleboard in your basement.  

In fact, the most common tip from I got from customers was "Move your f#@$%^$ ass!!!"  Eventually after being stung so often, I'd just pump the gas and let the rest go.     


What made the job really crappy was my supervisor, a redneck guy named...hmmmm, what can I call him?  Cletus.  Yeah, we'll call him Cletus, since that's actually a shade more fitting than his real name.  Anyhoo, Bubba seemed resentful that I'd been hired on there since I didn't fit the ideal male physical template for working at a gas station.  I was slight of build, wore glasses and still possessed the lion's share of my own teeth.   He made it his goal to make my life hellish.  Which would have been considerably more effective if I actually gave two s#!^$.

 "Lissen, buddy!" he told me one day.  "I needs you to go get the ladder, climb up there and change the price of the gas on the sign!"  Apparently this was long before the advent of those suction-cup "extend-o-arms" you see guys using to change the signs at service stations nowadays.  

After taking one look at the height I'd be scaling to and the condition of the ladder I'd be using I said to him: "Dude, I don't do heights."  

He turned a few shades of fuchsia and said "Well it gotta be done!"  

"Not by me it doesn't," I shot back.  "No-where in my job description does it say that I have to climb fifteen to twenty feet up on a crappy ladder only to fall and die reaching to replace a decimal point.  I'm not gonna contribute to the mortality rate of student workers.  You do it!"  

He was super-pissed climbing up there laden down with an armful of plastic letters and numbers like a petulant kindergarten kid.

He had more attempted humiliations planned for me.  One day on the way out Cooter breezed by me and said: "Lissen, I needs you to go over to the Golden 'G' Dairy bar later on today."  

Now this wasn't an odd request since if the gas station even needed change, one of us would just run over to the owners other business and they'd hook us up.  But it was still early in the day and normally if we needed change it was an immediate task.  Something was different this time.  He was looking way too pleased with himself as he tore off.  

With my voice dripping with suspicion I managed to ask him "Why?" just before he left earshot.  

He shouted back "We need you to be the 'Birthday Bear'!"  

 I gawked after him for a bit, completely baffled by the the request. After he was gone I turned to one of my co-workers and asked "What the f#@% is the 'Birthday Bear'?"   

The guy just chuckled and said: "They must have a birthday at the 'G' this afternoon.  You just go over there and they dress you up in this bear costume and you dance around for the kids.  It's not too bad.  No one can see who you are since your head is covered the whole time.  All of us had to do it when we first started here."  

Really?  I thought.  Interesting... 

Well, I fumed and stewed and formulated my carefully crafted rebuttal so that when Enos showed up and told me, "'Well?  What are ya waitin' for?  Git over there!" I sprung my carefully constructed riposte.  

"No f#$%&@# way," I told him.

He spluttered for a bit and then flew into me.

"They needs someone over there right now and the new guy always goes!"

"Well, this new guy ain't going anywhere."

"Why?!" he demanded as if I'd had the gall to pass up his Huck Finn-style white washing offer.

"Look, there's no way in God's green earth I'm gonna dress up in some moist, foul-smelling, ratty bear costume only to die of heat prostration while being punched in the balls by a pack of hypoglycemic rug rats.  It just isn't happening."

He turned to the other guys but every single one of them shot him down in turn, as if they were bolstered by my open rebellion.  I could hear his bitter mutterings all the way down the street as he crawled like a Dead Man Walking down to the Dairy Bar.  

Later on he returned smelling like sweat and spoiled ice cream.

"So, how was that?" one of the guys asked him.

"It wasn't that bad," he pouted, shooting me the stink-eye.  

I knew he was fed up with me at that point because next week Roscoe transferred to the "Ultramar" out in Stephenville Crossing.  I didn't complain for three reasons:

1.  I'd be away from Skeeter for good.
2.  The risk of someone recognizing me was diminished. 
3. I got to work with a cute blond girl who liked drawing and horses.

We made a great team.  She would handle most of the cash-related crap and I'd do all the gas-stuff.    

Speaking of, while pumping gas, in order to save time, you'd often lock the handle and let the pump work automatically as you cleaned a customer's windshield.  Well, perish forbid you ever got distracted (like, say, by a cute blond co-worker) because you risked turning the entire gas station into the lowest level of Dante's Inferno.

There were a few downsides about working in the 'Zing (as we called it).  You wouldn't believe how many people pulled up and asked for $5.00 worth of gas.   In this day and age that wouldn't be enough fuel to get an Escalade to the edge of the parking lot...

"Bolters" were also more common out there.  You'd set up the auto pump for a customer and then clean their windshields but just before you brought the squeegee back, the a**hole would tear off, sometimes leaving the still-pouring gas hose snaking around on the ground.  And, hey! guess who had clean up and pay for that when it happened?  Yours truly.

In between failing to get morons to pay for their gas, selling beer to someone illegally on a Sunday by mistake, and cleaning hundreds of dead flies out of the pan of the soft-serve ice cream machine (hey, we were next to a swamp, whattaya gonna do?!) we spent hours talking about our future plans when we left town.  I remember trying my damnedest to get her to break up with her skeezy boyfriend but it didn't work.  They guy's probably an investment banker by now, so, who knows, it probably worked out for her.

Despite my griping and how poorly I was paid for this, it seemed like more honest work than my last job (which paid a comparable fortune).  

But that's a story for another occasion.

So, the next time you're getting full service at an "Ultramar" gas bar, when that member of the "Ultraman Corps" gives you back your receipt be sure to tell them "Thank you, Ultraman!  You're my hero!"
 
I'm willing to wager they'll really appreciate it.  

EPIC: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNb7o6x7hEU        
                        
FAIL:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-jWcISnl-M


And here's this week's comic:

BONUS FAIL: http://www.bestweekever.tv/2010-05-26/shreks-mint-ogre-load/

"It's a Different World" = Understatement

Grab your room key and orientation kit, frosh...er, Diligent Reader, it's time to go "Back To School", Rodney Dangerfield-style, yo!

I'm still amazed by how much living we packed into those intense two years while living on the 18'th floor of the Loyola Building at St. Mary's University.  When you spend two full years waking up every morning not having a clue as to what's going to happen on any given day it kinda makes life in the inevitable "real world" seem kinda mundane in comparison.

For a kid who was terrified of strangers, residence was the best shock therapy money could buy.  But almost to a fault.  It was like taking someone diagnosed with hydrophobia and acrophobia up into a helicopter and pushing them out the door into Great Slave Lake.  And they're wearing an anvil pendant.  Not a pendant celebrating the Canadian metal band "Anvil", I'm talking about a pendant with an actual real-sized anvil attached to it. 'Sho'nuff. 

Here are just a few of my recollections coupled with some sage advice gleaned from living in residence.  It's been heavily edited to spare the innocent and whatever the polar opposite of innocent might be:

•  While being packed in like lemmings with twenty-five other dudes you quickly lose any tolerance for crap music.  To this day I still want Squeeze, Steve Miller and Vanilla Ice all dead.
• It's my understanding that "froshing" or "hazing" new students has become a thing of the past in this era of "1 (800) SUE-4-CASH", which is a bit of a shame.  If you go through something like that with a bunch of other guys you end up feeling as if you've done a tour of Da Nang together.  In our case it wasn't so bad anyway.  It only involved wearing bedsheets, drinking blindness-inducing cheap wine and being forced to play terrible dexterity games.  There were no acts of anal/grape transportation or sheep buggery but one dude did end up dancing on top of a table in the cafeteria singing "Joy and Pain" for what it's worth. 
• Any first-year student stupid enough to talk about "Daddy's yacht", drop a 40 ouncer of rum, habitually lick people, or throw the shoes of upperclassmen into a garbage can ran the risk of being branded with the dreaded "permafrosh" label, meaning you're status of being the scum of the earth would likely carry over into the following year.  Curiously some people who were particularly soft in the head didn't seem to care about this...
• Have you ever watched any iteration of the "Degrassi" series?  If so, do you think the shows are kinda lame because the writer's idea of character development is just saddling every person with some sort of crippling hang-up, addiction, disease, mental disorder or psychosis?  Well, I'm here to tell you that this is actually based more on reality than you will ever know.
• You know you've arrived as a Frosh in residence when you're civilian self is destroyed and then reborn with a nickname.  Until this occurs you are essentially a non-entity.  For the record I had three: Pretty-Boy (kinda obvious), Conan (ironic) and Serge (self-inflicted).  To this day, I still answer to Pretty-Boy.  In fact, I'm thinking of actually making it my real legal name.  Whataya think?
• Someone with a Howie Mandel-like fear of germs would likely commit ritual seppuku within five minutes of moving into residence.  The flip side is, your immune system will become stronger than Wolverine's if you manage to survive your first year.  I remember being unable to locate our garbage can in the common room one day because it was buried under a mound of trash in the corner.  It was like a friggin' snowdrift.  Riding the elevators, it was important never to have physical contact with the elevator buttons for fear of contracting a pox that made cholera look like hay fever.  It was critical to bring a pencil along with you wherever you went since the elevator buttons could read the contact of pencil's eraser tip better than any part of a plastic stick pen.  Standard procedure then dictated that you burn the pencil. 
• Eventually the common room morphed into a trophy room designed to house a motley assortment of ill-begotten booty procured during late-night stumblings back from downtown.  By the time Christmas exams rolled around, the place looked like the nest of some giant magpie.  It was filled with traffic cones, welcome mats, construction site signs, decaying pumpkins, newspaper vending machines and *Sweet Jesus* carpet taken from the front steps of a Buddhist temple.  Needless to say some of these people have earned themselves a lifetime of very bad karma.  You know who you are. 
• When your hand was forced by necessity, laundry was always a tedious and expensive affair for destitute students.  The machines ran on tickets which you could purchase at the security desk for about 50 cents a pop. Some people would try to "stick it to the man" by purchasing one ticket, putting a long multi-layer strip of tape on the end, inserting it into the machine, and then pulling it back with the tape just as the washer or dryer activated.  The success rate was about 8% but on those rare times when it worked you felt like Malcolm Friggin' X.  Often you wouldn't be able to pull the ticket out in time, it would feed through and then break the machine since they were incapable of processing a  four-foot long trail of tape through it's delicate inner workings.  
• Pets were never a good idea in residence, especially a ferret.  Barely domesticated as it is, ferrets "go native" in a residence environment within a span of about twenty minutes.  Often you'd catch a glimpse of the oft-uncaged beast running down the hallway with half of a pizza slice in it's mouth.  Then you'd wake up next morning and find the bloated creature curled up asleep in your sock drawer using a piece of crust for a pillow.  And as if pranks weren't enough to worry about, often you'd return to your unattended room only to find that the l'il jeezler has left a special "surprise" for you in the corner.  This happened so often to me that one day I got pissed off, located a stiff piece of cardboard, scraped up the "present" and then flicked it onto the owner's door.  A week later the owner gave the ferret away to our floor's long-suffering but very nurturing maid.    
• The Bermudians that lived on the floor got a lot of mileage out of calling us Americans until we started to refer to them as "Cubans" and that kinda stopped.    
• Trips downtown were often made between Wednesday and Saturday night inclusively (assuming you had enough scratch and your liver could take the abuse). Friday's were generally avoided since that night downtown was often rife with embarrassing, crusty, working-class older farts who were looking to blow of some steam after a long work week.  And now I'm one of those people.  How sad is that?
• We always tried to gravitate to clubs where half our floor-mates and their friends worked.  Have you ever been standing in a lineup to get into a bar in February weather and some jack-holes just bomb by, cut the lineup and walk right in?  Well, don't knock it 'til you've tried it, pal...
• Scientists maintain that the lowest form of life is the one-celled amoeba.  I insist that it's actually organ donors who steal tips off bars to pay for drinks.  Pardon me while I update my "Douchebag" list...
• Knowing all the bartenders also has it's perks when twenty-thousand people are all trying to get drinks at the south end of "Happy Hour".  Being able to signal your intent from twelve people back with a simple hand gesture only to have the corresponding amount of tasty beverages waiting for you when you got up to the bar was a pretty sweet peach.  
• Having said that, it was also wise to bounce around to as many "Happy-Hour" events that local clubs could provide.  Conversely, it was always prudent to avoid places where knives were used to settle disputes.  It's also important to keep in mind that if a club is so packed with people that they feel the need to substitute bathroom floors, sinks and garbage cans for urinals you're likely much safer at a "Great White" concert.   
•  It's not advisable that shots are the last drinks of the evening, especially if they sound like snippets of color commentary that Joe Rogan might use during a UFC event . ("Yeah, could I get a 'T.K.O.', a 'Brain Hemorrhage' a 'Sh** Disturber' and a 'Rape Choke'?  Thanks!")   And, for the record, three "Snakebites" in a row is never advisable.    
• If a cop car pulls over to the side of the road and and asks where you're going with two chairs stolen from a frat house party make sure that when you tell them "St. Mary's University" you're actually going in the right direction.  It wasn't me, by the way.  I'll be saying that a lot, so get used to it.
• Which reminds me, a friend of mind considered the drunk tank to be "a great place to meet colorful characters".  That is, until they started to fine him $50.00 after his third trip in.   
• Try to avoid going downtown with what I call "trouble magnets".  Especially insidious are those friends of yours that are all sweetness and light and then turn into Kiefer Sutherland just as soon as they've had a few.  One dude we'd go out with had a nasty predilection for walking on the tops of parked cars instead of using the sidewalk.  Just out of the blue.  When sober, he was the meekest, nicest guy on the planet.  "Hey, Jimbo!  Remember last night when you stuck your entire arm up that elephant's a**?  No?  Ooookay, then."
•  After all the bars have shut down, buy a slice at Pizza Corner, find a good seat along the wall and watch the fights begin.  Bonus points if someone gets put the through "King of Donair's" plate glass window.  Remember: no wagering!   
• Stick around when someone invariably makes the boast: "Pfffft!  I don't know what the big deal is with tequila!"  Check back in a few hours to gloat when you find them face down on the bathroom floor in a puddle of their own filth.
• Remember: cheap food is the best food.  At the start of the year it's imperative that you pick the most inexpensive meal plan possible.  You will run out of points, but at the end of the year, students with excess points will start dumping them at half-value.  Cha-CHING!   
• The cafeteria's meals were often made by people who couldn't successfully get into a can of "Spaghetti-O's" let alone make a fresh, tasty, nutritious meal.  There's a reason why "deep-fried vegetables" sounds like an oxymoron, moron!  Pub food, takeout and frozen dinners purchased at the in-house "Mini Mart" (which you can heat up to a vaguely edible state with your illegal but ever-so-handy in-room hot pot or toaster oven) will be indispensable.  Expect a revolving diet of clubhouse sandwiches, chicken fingers, wings, burgers, fries, Kraft Dinner, Mr. Noodles, steaks, pizza and donairs.  Actually, if not for the "Midtown Tavern" I likely would have starved to death in my first year.   
• In the evenings the cafeteria would convert into the "Coffee House" and start to serve the aforementioned pub grub instead of aborted attempts at liver and onions.  We went to the "Coffee House" pretty much every night to stay alive but not once did I actually see someone get coffee.  Weird...
• Take advantage of Spring Breaks by road-tripping to exotic locations like Bangor, Maine (?) and St. John's, Newfoundland (!?!).  Amuse yourselves and other drivers you pass on the highway by wearing matching Viking helmets and beating each other with foam-covered baseball bats.  Try not to cause anyone to drive off the road as they gawk at you.  
• Drive off-campus students completely bat-s#!^ insane with jealousy by going to class in January wearing flip-flops, a thong and a tank top.
• "You say we're making too much noise for you to study in your room?  Poor muffin!  The f#@%*&^ 'Hilton's' that way, pal!"
• The cockroaches in the basement level of Loyola never found a way out of there, thank f#@&.  Although they were admittedly pretty teeny, if I'd ever seen one in my room I would have committed homicide, genocide and suicide in that order.  
• At the start of the year you'd "interview" to be partnered with a sister floor.  Although many people will try and tell you that this is done primarily to "bolster cross-gender harmony", the cynic in me says that it was just an elaborate icebreaker to expedite an inevitable spate of disastrous hook-ups that created toxic levels of enmity.  As a side note: I'm alarmed that girls can actually be impressed with a cheesy a capella version of the super-creepy tune "Every Breath You Take" by The Police.  Gals, read those lyrics!  That tune is like a warm-up song for crazed stalkers.  "The Police" indeed...
• If you wanted to be popular with the ladies, you mustn't decorate your dorm room with posters of hot chicks, cars and/or hockey players.  If it's attention from the ladies ye be seekin', than make sure you don't have a television in your room, locate the nearest store that sells "Pier 1"-style import stuff and buy up as many incense holders, candles, Buddha statues, tribal face masks, fabric throws, native tapestries, bells, gongs and other crap you can afford.  This will make you appear exotic and worldly even when you say pervy stuff like "Hey, baby, wanna see my blowgun?"  Trust me when I tell you this, because I did the former and got nowhere while someone I lived with on the floor did the latter to considerably more impressive effect.  
• On the rare occasion that a floor-mate has actually procured real, live female company it's perfectly acceptable to set up a sound system just outside his door to blast the following tune as loud as possible in an impromptu serenade: 

• If you actually manage to pick up a girl and your room is on the corner of the building, word to the wise: Close your friggin' drapes. 
• Single moms in the family section of Loyola often got kinda...lonely.  We'll leave it at that.  
• If this doesn't work you can just drunk-dial ex-girlfriends and chain smoke while playing power ballads in the background like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eu2DA4I4TGw.  Good times!  
• Regardless of how skilled a debater you are, you can't procure the services of a hooker with a meal card.  IT WASN'T ME, I SWEAR!
• Try and visit the worst strip club on the planet at least once on the occasion of a now-legal buddy's birthday.  Try to find a club where the "girls" all appear to have adenoids and sport pronounced bullet wounds covered with patches while creepy Japanese businessmen in wheelchairs lurking close to the stage survive the "thrills" by taking periodic hits from an oxygen tank, Frank Booth-style.  Um, on second thought, just skip this one...    
• "So, you say you don't like to play cards, huh?  Shut up, sit the f#@& down and deal..."
• Playing Sega Genesis NHL 92 for four hours a day in lieu of attending classes or studying is a perfectly acceptable way to spend time.
• It's also perfectly acceptable to make an amateur horror film with rented video equipment, especially  during final exam week.   
• Lighting farts is NOT acceptable and can often result in third degree burns to regions of the body where burns aught not to be.  And, no, this was also not me! 
• If you insist on practicing karate in your room don't expect to get your damage deposit back.
• The same goes for wrestling.        
• Speaking of wrestling, why not set up a wrestling league to pass the time?  If you're too scared to actually wrestle (as well you should be) you can always become the federation commissionaire and preside over matches between such legendary grapplers as "The White Shadow", "The BBC" (Billionaire Boys Club), "The Insane Worrier", "The Islander" and my own personal favorite, "C. Bopper Tomahawk."  Invite your sister floor over to alternately impress them and/or prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that you're all "Coo-Coo for Cocoa-Puffs".  Let me tell ya, you haven't lived until you've been power-slammed on a residence bed (and not in a good way).             

And that's just a small sampling of what I can remember that's also remotely acceptable for discussion during the "Family Hour".  Good times...

We only spent two years on campus because we couldn't cope with the next generation of frosh that came in. Our behavior was childish to be sure, but also child-like in it's relative innocence.  Some of the new guys moving onto the floor were really destructive to the fraternal atmosphere he'd fostered so carefully so we eventually decided to move off campus.  The disparity in maturity levels still amazes me even with just a few years of age difference. 

Because of (or in spite of) what you just read, I feel bad for people that go to university but don't choose to live in residence.  Every single day I'd witness something that challenged my faith in the human race and not two seconds later, I'd see something that reconfirmed it.  To say that it was it was "A Different World" was indeed an understatement.  Although there was considerable strife at times, there was rarely a dull moment.

It was the most exciting and surreal time of my life and in some crazy way, I miss it terribly.

EPIC:  http://www.smu.ca/administration/resoffic/reslife.html  The sanitized version of my beloved home for two years...

FAIL: http://www.break.com/index/dorm-fireworks-prank-epic-fail.html  Mercifully it was never quite this crazy, but close...

Revenge is a Dish Best Served with Vasoline

Hello, Kind Reader.

I lived on the 18'th Floor of the Loyola Building at St. Mary University for two years. During this time I was privy to the most elaborate, cruel and imaginative pranks ever devised by the twisted human psyche.

If you kept your door shut too long or (God forbid) left your room unattended with your door open you were fair game for any of the following plagues:

1. The Manila.  Locate a manila envelope, preferably one the size of a sleeping bag.  Fill it with shaving cream and optional bits of flotsam and jetsam (paper clips, instant rice, gerbil poo), slip the opening of the envelope under the door and then stomp on it as hard as you can.   Ker-BLAMMO!
2. Put Vasoline on your buddy's knob!  Wow, that sounded really bad but it's not what you think.  Coat the outside door knob with vasoline or K-Y jelly and send your friend scrambling for a towel.   "Eeeeeewww!  What the f#@$ was that?!"
3. The Teep-Grenade.  Soak several rolls of toilet paper in a bucket of warm water.  Find as many people as possible to grab a handful of the goop.  Let excess water run off until you have a snowballish consistency.  Pelt it at door of favored target, preferably while victim is sleeping (to scare witless) or home for the weekend (to facilitate sufficient drying time).  Side note, creative types can have fun with the relief-map possibilities here.  Add paint to really ramp up the "F#@%-you" factor!
4. New digs. While room is left unattended move the entire contents into the elevator.  Press buttons for every floor and watch as progressively fewer things appear ever time the doors open up again!  Neato!        
5. "The Force Field".  Place clear shrink wrap over the top of a toilet under the seat.  'Nuff said.  Especially effective overnight or early morning if a few casual (or not so casual) beverages have been consumed the prior evening.
6. The Illustrated Man.  Spray a beer bottle with Lysol rendering the ink in the label liquidy and transferable.  Roll bottle on exposed skin of a passed-out buddy and he'll wake up thinking he got the worst tattoo(s) in recorded history.  Extra disorientation points: wake victim up by blasting Leonard Cohen's "First We Take Manhattan" from nearby stereo.    
7. "Soupy Sales, meet Ben & Jerry".  Get ice cream for desert at the cafeteria.  Tell one of your more gullible floor mates that "My ice cream smells funny."  As he leans in for a whiff, plaster it into his mush.
8. Pennywise the Prank.  While the victim is inside room cram as many pennies as possible between the door and it's frame thus preventing the dweller from turning the knob to get out.  Combines nicely with an inside job # 2 to really ramp up the cabin fever.
9. Welcome to Empire Theaters!  This is one of the worst and it's usually only reserved for really hated types that make the grievous error of leaving their door open.  Proceed to Mini Mart and purchase as many packs of microwavable popcorn with the scant few points left on your meal card.  Cook up approximately three to six-thousand bags and empty the contents all around the target's room until popcorn is knee-high.  If time permits, place popcorn in desk drawers, socks, CD players, and milk cartons to really underscore the asshole factor.
10. Display Model.  Handcuff victim to convenient metal handle provided inside the elevator.  Combine with a certain amount of nudity for that certain "je ne sais quoi".
11. The Leaner.  Fill a bucket with water (merciful) or some other more heinous liquid (the mind reels!) and lean it against the victim's door.  Pound on the door emergency-style, stand back a few paces and watch the hilarity ensue!  Want to see how a floor mate would cope in the last few reels of  "Titanic"?   Fill up a garbage can for the truly epic, appropriately-dubbed "King Kong Leaner."   

And people wonder why I was "Mr. Seen and Not Heard" my first year in residence!  I saw first hand the destruction creatively evil people have wrought and, scared s#!^less, reasoned that if I kept my mouth shut and didn't do anything particularly brash or stupid I wouldn't get pranked back to the Stone Age.  I may not have been the center of attention but at least I kept my nose clean and kept my damage deposit.  

EPIC: http://www.pranksite.com/  Now play nice, kids!

FAIL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rL0PdJhRKE

The Sex Tester

Salutations, Kind Reader.

This one's from a few years back but it still gives me a chuckle...

So my girlfriend and I are in a mall standing outside a comic book shop. She spies one of those stupid "Sex Tester" machines, which allows the insecure and/or the vain to part with 25 cents to have their hopes and/or fears validated by random flashing lights.

"I gotta try that," says she.

She goes through the ritual: the laying of hands, the sacrifice of the quarter.

The lights dance for what seems like forever. I am rapt, attentive...yet more skeptical than Barbara Walters at a James Van Praagh psychic reading.

It finally comes to a stop.

On "CELIBATE".

She reels away from the devil machine, white as a sheet. My next move is inevitable, as sure as Van Helsing in the final reel of "Dracula".

The coin. The hand. The seizure-inducing display of lights.

It comes to rest...

I'm "DREAMING".

Absolutely friggin' eerie.

EPIC: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Ax_VuNTcZw&NR=1

FAIL: http://www.break.com/index/psychic-drawing-fail.html

Here's this week's comic:

Plane Crazy Part II

And a fine day to you, Kind Reader.

Some grief comes from traveling with my fellow Newfoundlanders who generally like to avoid air travel at all costs.  When forced to fly they often appraise the aircraft with a level of skepticism exhibited only by "The Amazing Randi" when asked to test drive a flying carpet.  And, in some ways, I think they're justified.

The second to last time I flew into Deer Lake it was pretty intense.  It was a Dash-8 again and we were thrown around a lot coming in for a landing.  There were quite a few audible exclamations and the guy sitting next to me acted as if he were listening to some irresistible jig, the heel of his foot beating out a continuous ode to terror.

My experience on the way back was particularly odd, but this time it had nothing to do with the weather.   The plane was filled with teenagers escorted by teachers, bringing to mind such cozy relationships as Kate Austen and Edward Mars on "LOST". Anyhoo, I just assumed that they were part of some team, class or band. 

I'm window-seat bound towards the front of the plane next to a short-haired kid with his head down.  I stood there in the aisle for a bit waiting for him to acknowledge my presence.  I really need for him to move in order for me to sit down.  I shuffle around obviously.  Nothing.  I tried clearing my throat. Zip.  I grazed him slightly with my coat.  Zilch.      

Eventually I blurt out: "Uh, excuse me, but I think I'm supposed to be sitting by the window."  He mutters "Yeah, okay" but doesn't budge, forcing me to pull a Tyler Durden and either give him the crotch or the ass.  I leerily opted for the former if only because this allowed me an incrementally precious amount of additional clearance.

Not two seconds after being seated he asked me: "So, you're sitting here, are you?" and I thought to myself: 'Hmmm, odd question.  I thought we'd covered that already.'  I managed a  grateful-sounding "Yeah, thanks" and then struggled to shoe-horn my bag under the seat in front of me. The bag ended up on top of what I thought were drum sticks until I realize it's a collapsible cane.  So, he wasn't being a rude prick after all!  He's blind!  Well, color me an asshole! 

I finally get a good look at him.  He resembled a youthful combination of Henry Rollins and "Sling Blade".  His  eyes were clearly atrophied.  Before the plane took off the flight attendant came over to address him personally.  His slightly-to-the-left-of-center responses made me wonder if there wasn't a less obvious issue he was struggling with. The guy across the aisle began chatting with him but soon stopped when the kid starts reaming off "Rain Man"-like stats about aircraft makes and models.  "Mr. Friendly" gets a bit freaked out by this and spent the rest of the flight watching me try and contend with him with growing amusement.    

Mercifully we got airborne without a hitch.  I tried to feign sleep but since he couldn't see my terrible performance, he started lobbing questions at me.  At first his comments were restricted to observations about how "smooth" the flight was, to the point where he seemed to be in a state of nirvana. 

I soon got the impression that he'd been through some rough flights before on aircraft like Dash-8's and was likely relieved by the relative stability of the small jet we're on. I initially agree with him about his dubious appraisals of the Dash-8's but inadvertently piss him off later when he asked my opinion of "power saws".  I told him that I didn't know very much about "power saws", not realizing until later that this was his nickname for Dash-8's based entirely on the noise that they make (please see Part I).

As I'm trying to puzzle out his cryptic references, he's reaming off aircraft model numbers, asking if I've ever flown on any of them.  I tried to explain that I'd been on a lot of different planes but never remember their names, (gosh darn it!)   While all this is happening people seated within earshot are staring at me, waiting for me to give an answer that might cause him to snap and beat me to death with his folding lunch tray. I thank the powers that be for the complete absence of turbulence since I think that would have set him off. 

All the while he seems on the verge of tears of happiness because the flight is so "smooth".  The stewardess came by several times just to make sure he's alright but apparently she had no idea that I even existed. Things took a decidedly more surreal turn when he started talking about a flight he took out west.  He starts name-dropping "celebrities" that were on the same flight, none of whom I recognize. 

Before I can reply he asks me if I have kids.  Before I can answer he tells me that his dog just died.  Before I can offer sympathies he tells me he's going to Halifax for a "co-op".  Before I can get an elaboration he asks me to speculate as to what sound his cat would likely make if it were here on the plane with us.  Before I can give my best "See N' Say" aircraft-trapped cat yowl he begins to panic because the stewardess (who's name and the name of all of her sister he can recall in a flash) doesn't return in a timely manner to pick up his drink glass.

I try another Oscar-worthy stab at sleep-fakery.  It half-works and the awkward Q&A ceased for a bit. 

I almost feel envy for the poor guy when the landing gear came down and there was no indication of solid ground below us due to the heavy fog.  I fact, I didn't even know we we're landing until the runway appeared out of nowhere ten feet below us. He grilled me with questions about the sound the landing gear made and the time it will take for us to nuzzle up to the terminal.  I felt like mashing the call attendant button and telling the stewardess "Hey! You're trained for this, you talk him through it!" 

Even after the entire plane had nearly cleared out he was still sitting there, making no effort whatsoever to get up.  Now, I'm not asking him to get off the plane by himself, just stand up and let me leave.  When I told him I was coming through all he did was shift his legs back incrementally.  I wedged my way past (ass option this time) and fled from the increasingly claustrophobic quarters with relief.

Now I've avoided flying home for Christmas the last two years since weather played major havoc with my last trip back to Halifax three years ago.  At that time I was diverted to St. John's and my luggage went M.I.A. for nine days.  This disaster made up my mind that I'd visit my folks back home in Newfoundland only during the summer months since the weather should be considerably better. "Should be" being the operative words there.   

Taking a flight at 4:30 kinda sucks since you tend to hang around all day feeling anxious.  There was little obvious reason for this on my last flight back from Deer Lake to Halifax since it was a beautiful day, weather wise, in Deer Lake.  We showed up a good hour before our flight was slated to leave and breezed through the nigh-deserted airport's prerequisite steps for departure.  We achieve gate-proximity within a few minutes (not much of a challenge since all five gates at the Deer Lake airport are within twenty meters of one other) and took a seat by the window to watch our plane come in.

As we began to board in earnest, my considerably more significant other noticed that her distinctive aqua-blue suitcase had been taken off the plane and was now back on the baggage cart. As I handed my boarding pass to the gatekeeper I asked him what's the deal was with the bag and he replied:

"Well, the weather in Halifax is really bad with heavy fog and electrical storms.  We may have to take on extra fuel. If we do that, we have to compensate by bumping some bags."

Before I could formulate the appropriate rebuttal he plowed on with a perfectly-groomed customer-service honed spiel:

"If your bag doesn't arrive at your final destination just fill out a missing claim form at the other end.  We have another flight going out to Halifax this evening.  Your bag will be on that flight for sure, and we'll delivered right to your door, free off charge."  

"The last time that happened it took nine days for our suitcases to arrive!" I said, managing to finally managing to wedge in a protest.

"Oh no, that won't happen this time," the gatekeeper assured us while waving us through.  "Now if you'll just step on board we'll be underway shortly."

We walked out to the plane, wistfully looking at our bag sitting forlorn on the cart like Lassie.  For some reason the troubling cause for it being left behind was distant in our thoughts.  But, lo and behold, we got some good news not long after.  We were seated close enough to the (mercifully doored) cockpit to hear the captain tell the ground crew to put the rest of the luggage back on the plane.  We cheered our small victory as the now-empty baggage cart pulled away.   

The flight itself was textbook.  To borrow a descriptor from an old buddy of mine, I'd even call it "smooth". We got lurched around a bit going up but soon the seat belt sign was off, and I was contentedly listening to Black Sabbath and reading "Pillars of the Earth" while being served juice and flax corn chips.

We made great time and soon heard the announcement that we'll be landing in twenty minutes.  We stowed our gear, strapped in and felt the distinctive sensation of descent as the landing gear popped.  Nonplussed by the total lack of visibility below us and the flare of lightning in the distance, the good old Dash-8 began a bumpy plunge deeper into the pea-soup fog bank.    

The cabin suddenly went very dark.  An uncomfortable amount of time passed without seeing tarmac lights and feeling that distinctive, cathartic sensation of touchdown.  The bounce started to get worse and my already-skittish fellow Newfoundlanders began to murmur oaths of surprise and divine requests for deliverance.

Then, all of a sudden, the plane lurched into a power climb like a Japanese Zero that had reconsidered the whole "kamikaze" plan at the last second.  We climbed and climbed for what seems like an eternity and the "powersaws" sounded as if they were straining to get us back up to cruising altitude.  The landing gear was pulled back into the belly of the plane like rubber and steel testicles. 

This was not good.  I'd never experienced anything like this before.  Eventually the captain of the plane came on the P.A. system and explained that the unusually thick fog and strong cross-winds (only in the Maritimes, folks) were preventing us from landing in Halifax at that time.  We were now en route to an alternate airport to land, refuel and wait for further instructions. 

And what was that alternate airport, you ask? Not Moncton or Charlottetown, which would likely have only been about a half-hour away.  That would make sense!    We we're headed to Stephenville.

Now I was privy to some inside knowledge that many of my other passengers weren't aware of.  Namely:

1. Stephenville, being virtually closed, likely had limited to non-existent air traffic control, runway and terminal staff.
2. All the excess baggage was put back on board instead of taking on extra fuel.   

On the morose trip back I'm left to ponder the absurdity of all this.  As I explained in Part I of this tale, service to Stephenville has been progressively scaled back over the years with the more distant and less-resourceful Deer Lake airport taking up the slack.  That means that to go home and come back I can no longer directly fly in and out of Stephenville where my parents actually live.  Nooooo, they have to shlep two hours to Deer Lake to pick my ass up and drive me back out there to go home. Yet now Stephenville's airport was suddenly good enough to pull our collective asses out of the fire?

I waited and waited for the captain to switch off the seat belt sign but it didn't happen.  This wasn't good at all.  I'd promised my acorn-sized bladder, which started to pester me for attention as early as mid-flight, that we'd be on the ground soon, sparing us both a trip to the bathroom.  I knew the Dash-8 washrooms made the "Little Ease" cell in the Tower of London look like a tennis court but now I was a-burstin' and knew there was no choice.

The eyes of our strapped-in Diane Wiest lookalike stewardess finally betrayed a promise of emotion as I unhooked my buckle and popped out of my seat.

"Is there any way I can use the washroom?  I really thought we'd be on the ground by now!"

The sleeping pill in a uniform told me me: "Well, the seat belt sign is on so you shouldn't even be up..."

I heave a sigh and began to crawl back to my seat, predicting an eventuality wherein my fellow travelers will soon become very uncomfortable with my presence on the same aircraft they're on.

"Wait!" she says, picking up on my consternation.  "I can't force you to go back to your seat.  I just have to give you a formal warning."

I spun on my heels and rushed past her.

"Thank you!  Thank you! I won't take long," I enthused, blatantly lying through my teeth.

Now folks, I won't go into the gory details here but when the 'ole bladderino reaches a certain capacity it takes a certain amount of, shall we say, patient coaxing to complete the venting process.  This is difficult enough under the best of circumstances let alone whilst being bounced around in a broom closet after being told that standing upright right now is technically illegal.

I eventually squeeze out my ballast and beetle my way back to my seat, thanking the flight attendant liberally as I pass by.  Her facial expression makes me consider the possibility that someone force-fed her a lemon while I was sequestered in the "Chamber of Pee and Fear".        

My harrowing experience is so bad that I'm even leery to except free beer which the stewardess begins to provide for our inconvenience.  Undaunted by my horrifying example, some of my fellow travelers begin the marination process in earnest, perhaps hoping that they won't feel anything when our fuel-deprived plane eventually crashes in a veil of fog. 

I get a chance to see something I haven't seen since my university days: a landing at Stephenville airport.  The conditions are crystal clear and despite some turbulence our pitch is well accomplished.  Mercifully the co-pilot allows us to use cell phones to inform loved ones about delays and then lets us roam free-range out on the tarmac to stretch our legs. Of course, I take this as a rare photo opportunity:
 

Eventually the uber-cool co-pilot re-appears, pouring over a handful of important-looking documents.  He even allows people without phones to use his own cell to get in touch with family members.  The dude gets major props for being so understanding and keeping us informed about what's going on. 

Eventually we're herded back aboard the plane.  Everybody takes the opportunity to use the washroom before we take off and soon the aroma between the Urine Coffin and the cabin proper is indistinguishable.

We're soon told via an announcement that we're going to try Halifax again.  If that doesn't work we're off to Moncton, than, if neccessary, back to Stephenville (!).

The flight back was pretty tense. I preoccupied myself by losing twenty-six straight games of Solitaire on my iPod. The free beer continued to flow but the unknowns in our immediate future made me gun shy.  Others didn't share my trepidations and by the end of it I'm sure some of my fellow passengers are so pickled even their dental records would have burned up at point of impact.             

The hour-long flight felt like it took a week.  The seat belt sign stayed on for the entire flight and it was considerably more bumpy that second time out. Eventually we heard the announcement that we'd be landing soon but nothing we see gives any indication that this attempt will result in a different result. 

It's was very dark out, the fog seemed preternaturally thick and the winds kicked the crap out of us as we descended. This time, however, the landing gear came down and strip lights appeared from out of nowhere.  I'm surprised there wasn't a round of applause as we touched down ever so gently.  I reckon that this probably had lot to do with the fact that for a lot of my fellow travelers this was only just the first leg of an increasingly long journey.

When the plane door cracked open the half-dozen people seated in front of us jumped up anxiously.  A woman standing right in front of us instinctively surged ahead, forcing the stewardess to ask for patience. 

"She's just afraid yer gonna take off again!" one of the more inebriated passengers shouted, giving incarnation to all of our collective thoughts  

Inside the terminal at the baggage carousel our suitcases made an unexpected but welcome quick appearance.  I'm was grateful that after a brief cab ride we'd soon be home. It's was close to 10 pm by the time we landed.  Our flight had left at 4:30 and we should have been in Halifax only an hour later.

Was I pissed off?  Not really.  Certainly not nearly as upset as many people who were on that plane.  It wasn't Air Canada's fault that the weather was shite.  Frankly, I think they made the right call.

Remember back in April when beloved Polish President Lech Kaczynski was killed in a plane crash?  Well, the flight recorders recently revealed that the pilots decided to land in heavy fog despite multiple warnings from air traffic controllers about poor visibility.

As I said in Part I, I fly not because I like it but because it allows me to see places in this world that are not easily reached as well as spend extra time with loved ones instead of wasting time in travel.  To cope with this I've developed a Zen-like philosophy about air travel: Always be a leaf in a river.  Use this as your mantra next time as you check bags, clear security and make your way to your next gate. 

I promise you, you'll have more piece of mind and it'll make your journey infinitely more tolerable. 

EPIC: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPe2yVQR9f0

 FAIL: http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/pilots-were-warned-in-polish-crash/407431.html

Plane Crazy Part I

Hello, Gentle Readers.

My mother is terrified of flying.  I've been trying for years to convince her that there's nothing to be afraid of.  Unfortunately just as I'm putting the finishing touches on a highly convincing pro-flight argument, something awful happens that destroys my line of reasoning like a toddler versus a house built entirely out of Garfield playing cards.

It's not like I love to fly, it's just that it's a necessary evil.  If I want to continue to see cool stuff on this awesome planet, I just have to accept the fact that I'll constantly be subjected to nosy questions, abuse of my property, legal molestation and being immobilized for hours in a pressure-sealed flying tin can subsisting on hermetically-preserved, individual-portion-sized gruel servings that even Gil Grissom would be hard pressed to identify.

I got acclimated to this strange process in my constant travels back and forth between home (Stephenville, Newfoundland) and university (Halifax, Nova Scotia for those Kind Readers with short-term memories).  Despite some hairy occasions courtesy of Maritime winter weather and annoying pit stops in Sydney, I began to regard these one-to-two-hour flights as mere milk runs.

These routes were almost always served by a squadron of Dash-8 aircraft.  Here's a snap to show you just how friggin' tiny they are:

Whoops!  This might be a bit more apropos:

Or maybe not.

Now, aviation experts can drone on and on about safety records but to me these planes represent the lowest common denominator for air travel.   Here are my top five reasons to avoid flying on a Dash-8:

1. The thing skips along air pockets like a Japanese Zero.  
2. Your most elaborate in-fight meal is likely to be a pack of carbon-datable corn chips.
3. People of girth tend to spill readily into your personal space.
4. The bathroom is the size of a broom closet which can only hold one broom.  A very small broom.  Like a "Swiffer".  But only if you're good with, like, spacial relationships and crap. 
5. The prop engines are so loud you might as well strap two power saws to your head for the duration of your flight. 

Now I don't want to complain too readily about these sturdy little planes, since they've always delivered me to my intended destination physically (if not mentally) intact.  Plus I soon learned that it could be worse. 

When the Stephenville airport began to fall on hard times, "Canadian Airlines" began to scale back their services and eventually backed out entirely.  This resulted in more humble carriers moving in to pick up the slack.  One was "Air Labrador", who used aircraft even smaller than the Dash-8.  Whereas the Dash- 8 has two double-row seats separated by the aisle, this one has a single aisle and then one double-row.  Ladies and gentleman, I give you, the De Havilland Dash-6 Twin Otter:

Crap, sorry.

When I boarded this thing for the first time I was alarmed that there wasn't much in the way of safety protocols.  Not two seconds after we were seated the "stewardess" threw some pre-made Tim Horton sandwiches at us (overhand) and we were off.  I examined the lunch with tremendous caution, since the bread and lettuce looked kinda "vintage".  As the old woman sitting next to me tore into her sammy like a rabid wolverine, I looked towards the front of the plane and was horrified to realize that there was no cabin door to the cockpit!

I watched in horror as the pilot and his co-conspirator began to mouth-wrestle their own whole-wheat ham and swiss sandwiches while piloting this friggin' plane!  It was worse than the bus driver and the "Roll Up The Rim" cup!  After the oral orgy, they bundled up the bag, wrapper, napkins and the rest of the garbage and just crammed it behind their seat.  A stray Pepsi can popped free and rolled around in the aisle for a bit until the stewardess picked it up.  I felt like I was driving around in the back seat of a buddy's Mazda RX Dash-8 instead of some sophisticated aircraft.   Scary stuff.

When it came time for sales conferences or work contest trips I mercifully got to move up to bigger aircraft.  The downside is that the company I worked for often booked the most inefficient, devious and hare-brained itinerary you could possibly devise, likely for the sake of saving a few shekels. When you fly from Halifax to Toronto to Miami to San Juan things are bound to fall apart.

One piece of sage advice to people who haven't flown a lot: go to the airport early, make sure you've got a seat assignment on your boarding pass and don't rest until you've reached your next gate.  Back when I wasn't so experienced a flier I often made the mistake of trusting the staff to actually, y'know, take care of me and stuff. The truth is: they don't care! 

One time I took my boarding pass from the check-in girl and didn't notice the absence of a certain electronic "LR" code and seat assignment for my connecting flight.  I got to the connector queue way ahead of schedule but just as I was about to board the plane, security sent me packing to the front desk because my boarding pass wasn't coded properly.  I shlepped all the way back, battled to get a seat assignment and then ran back to the plane "Amazing Race"-style.

For the record, wheeled carry-on's are only convenient when you're not running like Usain Bolt and dragging your bags on the non-wheeled side.

But most of the time, my issues with flying are with going home and/or coming back, especially since the Stephenville airport has all but shut down.  "Beloved" Newfoundland politician John Crosbie bought up a crap-load of land around the Deer Lake airport and when it came time for either Deer Lake or Stephenville to expand their operations, guess which one got the contract?  Yes, despite the fact that Deer Lake's runway needed to be extended and Stephenville already had an American-built runway large enough to accommodate an emergency space shuttle landing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephenville_International_Airport), Stephenville got screwed.

Well, that's all for now, folks!  More flights of fancy next time on "You Can't Get There From Here"!     

Thanks for reading...

EPIC: http://www.cyjt.com/

FAIL: http://www.independenttraveler.com/resources/article.cfm?AID=645&category=1