Dear Canadian Armed Forces,
I am not so pleased to inform you that I have located three battalions of trained mutant attack mosquitoes that escaped from one of your labs. Said insects are now residing on my property near the Alta/Sask border. Please contact me and I will make arrangements to have them returned to you as expeditiously as possible.
Cordially,
Sean McCormick
And when the scariest sumbitchin’ storm you’ve experienced in years knocks down a bunch of trees next to your home in the middle of the night, grab the chainsaw and turn them into firewood. There’s nothing like having a fire, roasting some wieners, toasting some marshmallows, cranking up the tunes, and doing a bit of two-stepping to some classic country on some dewy grass.
There are days when I wonder why the @#$% I moved out here. This wasn’t one of them.
I ordered a Tranzeo TR-CPQ-19F for a customer this week. The company notified me by e-mail that they had sent the item by Canada Post, expedited, on Wednesday afternoon. Two days later, Friday afternoon, I find myself in possession of said equipment.
Was my package lost or stolen by a Canada Post employee or contractor? No. Did Canada Post need to bounce the package back and forth between Edmonton and Calgary almost a dozen times? No. Did Canada Post need to let a herd of elephants trample on my package prior to delivery? No.
It’s amazing how much better my business runs without UPS around.
This afternoon it was so warm out that I would have gone for a walk if it weren’t for the fact that sunshine and migraines mix about as well as politics and ethics.
This evening, on the way home from a service call, I was treated to the dual spectre of light snow combined with a frenetic electrical storm. Then it rained. Then I drove through hail so thick that I couldn’t get above 40 kph between Monitor Hill and Deleff’s Hill. Now it’s snowing like a bugger and there’s at least 4 cm on the ground in the yard so far. We’ll probably hit plus ten tomorrow afternoon and the yard will become one ginormous mud bog again.
Bleh.
“So, have you started calving out yet?”
“Beg your pardon?”
“I said, have you started calving out yet?”
“No. I’m not a farmer.”
“Oh. Well you look like one wearing that jacket.”
“Thanks. I think.”
“So, are you putting your daughter in dance lessons?”
“Hell no.”
“Why not? She’d love it!”
“Because I already did my time as a Mormon and I’ve sworn off joining any new cults in the future.”
** This only makes sense if you’ve met some of the parents of the kids who are in the dance program in Consort. They make the hockey parents look tame.
One of my new co-workers is always commenting that so-and-so “has a horse shoe up their ass”. She’s probably made this comment over fifty times in the week or so we’ve been working together. Now, there’s only one way you can know something like this about a person, which means that she has…well…she has inside knowledge, so to speak.
Ew.
For all those who have e-mailed in to ask, no, I haven’t been abducted by aliens. It’s not from a lack of effort on my part, however. I and my towel have been faithfully camping out by the new crop circles found by Provost waiting for the arrival of Our Alien Overloards. So far, nada.
No mutilated cattle, no anal probes (being molested by passing oil patch workers doesn’t count), not even a single lousy tracking implant to show for all those cold wet nights in the field. I did manage to catch a cold and now my towel has mildew, but that’s it.
I really oughta sue Discovery Channel.
The night before:
“Did you put the dog in the shop?”
“I thought you put him in.”
“No, he’s still outside.”
“He didn’t come and greet me when I got home.”
“Are you gonna put him in?”
“Nah, he’ll be okay outside for one night.”
The morning after:
“Hon, wake up.”
“Nnnnnnnnnnnnngh….what?”
“I think the dog treed a porcupine.”
“Why?”
“The fool’s got a bunch of quills stuck in his nose.”
“Oh, fuck.”
Playing horse shoes has to be the most exhausting thing I’ve ever done. I’m bruised. I’m sore. My muscles are all screaming from the exertion. All this and we haven’t even started the actual game yet.
Boy is it hard to get shoes off a horse.