It's tourist season in Victoria. This means that on any given day I'm less than three tire rotations away from getting out of my vehicle and beating a Clydesdale horse to death with my bare hands, while a carriage full of horrified Japanese people snap pictures with their camera phones.
Getting stuck behind the slow-moving horses and carriages while on my way home and needing to pee is one thing, but it's the tourists themselves that can really push me over the edge. Particularly the tourists who arrive by cruise ship.
Perhaps it's dropping anchor alongside an island that gives these visitors a feeling of needing to conquer the local primitives. They haven't arrived in a city - they're at a destination, and they will photograph the sights regardless of whether you might be trying to walk, run, drive or just make it past the crowd taking pictures of the shrubs outside of your apartment door.
Cruise ship tourists are a different breed altogether.
I was feeling slightly bad for my fits of rage over these cruisers invading my neighborhood so I stopped and offered to take a picture for a very attractive guy and his grandmother with the ocean in the background. He was very tall, and his grandmother was very short so they were laughing and having difficulties taking a self-portrait.
After noticing the situation my good nature, and libido, led me to offer my services. They were very happy I could take a picture of them both and within seconds I had done my good deed and handed back the camera.
I was just about to strike up a conversation when the young guy dipped the little old lady backward and they began making-out. If I had ever doubted that the cruise ships drop off some bizarre fanny-packed disasters straight into my neighborhood, I never will again.
They annoy me, they overcrowd me and they need to stop taking pictures of random flowers. But I have to say...there is one little old lady in a pink polyester pantsuit who's surely back aboard some floating monstrosity right now, who is my new personal hero. She's welcome back to my city any time - just as long as she tells me how she does it..
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Monday, July 21, 2008
The Neighbor
I have some bathroom related issues that I'm fairly well-known for. I don't like others hearing me pee, so in the early stages of any relationship I come close to kidney failure because I will hold it rather than let a guy hear me pee, regardless of how intimate we might have been together just minutes earlier. And it goes without saying that I would sooner actually explode than face the prospect of...well...I can't even say it. If number one is an issue than number two is off the agenda entirely.
Surprisingly, I'm fine with actually sitting in a public bathroom stall unlike some people I know. I won't hover or waste valuable time draping the toilet with a protective tissue barrier. If I can't visibly see it, then I don't want to worry about it. Also, I just don't have the strength in my quads to hover over a toilet and clutch my purse in my lap at the same time, but brava to those who do.
The other bathroom related issues I have are currently being tested on a weekly basis. Unlike the bathrooms in the last office I worked in, our washrooms are not unpleasant. There are six bathroom stalls with automatic flushers and all is usually right with the world. I will always choose a stall at one far end or another -- it's just what I do.
And at least once a week, some other woman will enter the washroom and take the stall right next to mine. She has four eligible toilets to choose from that do not put her in close enough proximity to tap my toe with hers, and yet if I'm in there, she wants to be near me. This bothers me.
Even though I can't actually see her feet, I know it's the same person, every time. I know this because of the humming, and the speed in which she does her business. She's got to wear pants with velcro because she starts peeing no sooner than the stall door is closed and locked. It's as if she had no clothes on to bother with at all, but that just can't be right.
She pees like she's part of a relay race. It happens fast. The only way I think she can pee any faster is if it were in capsule form. It's brief, but powerful and throughout the entire disintegration of her bladder she hums. Just one note. This disturbs me.
And then she's gone. As the toilets are autoflush she storms out of the stall as quickly as she arrives and just leaves, not even bothering to make sure it flushes. And she never washes her hands.
There I am, minding my own business as quietly as I possibly can when suddenly I'm hijacked by some kind of humming/peeing/personal space invading/personal hygiene avoiding bandit.
She's never there longer than I am so I can't wait around to see who she is. I can never see her shoes and I can't recognize her voice in her oddly meditative humming.
We're never finished at the same time because I pee at a normal rate of speed and usually have some sort of fastening devices to contend with at the end.
Every time it happens I'm slightly shaken. Which probably makes me as weird as she is.
Surprisingly, I'm fine with actually sitting in a public bathroom stall unlike some people I know. I won't hover or waste valuable time draping the toilet with a protective tissue barrier. If I can't visibly see it, then I don't want to worry about it. Also, I just don't have the strength in my quads to hover over a toilet and clutch my purse in my lap at the same time, but brava to those who do.
The other bathroom related issues I have are currently being tested on a weekly basis. Unlike the bathrooms in the last office I worked in, our washrooms are not unpleasant. There are six bathroom stalls with automatic flushers and all is usually right with the world. I will always choose a stall at one far end or another -- it's just what I do.
And at least once a week, some other woman will enter the washroom and take the stall right next to mine. She has four eligible toilets to choose from that do not put her in close enough proximity to tap my toe with hers, and yet if I'm in there, she wants to be near me. This bothers me.
Even though I can't actually see her feet, I know it's the same person, every time. I know this because of the humming, and the speed in which she does her business. She's got to wear pants with velcro because she starts peeing no sooner than the stall door is closed and locked. It's as if she had no clothes on to bother with at all, but that just can't be right.
She pees like she's part of a relay race. It happens fast. The only way I think she can pee any faster is if it were in capsule form. It's brief, but powerful and throughout the entire disintegration of her bladder she hums. Just one note. This disturbs me.
And then she's gone. As the toilets are autoflush she storms out of the stall as quickly as she arrives and just leaves, not even bothering to make sure it flushes. And she never washes her hands.
There I am, minding my own business as quietly as I possibly can when suddenly I'm hijacked by some kind of humming/peeing/personal space invading/personal hygiene avoiding bandit.
She's never there longer than I am so I can't wait around to see who she is. I can never see her shoes and I can't recognize her voice in her oddly meditative humming.
We're never finished at the same time because I pee at a normal rate of speed and usually have some sort of fastening devices to contend with at the end.
Every time it happens I'm slightly shaken. Which probably makes me as weird as she is.
Saturday, July 19, 2008
E-Harmony Sucks
The commercials finally got to me, and I had to admit that sleeping with the guy who stole my vibrator has been an ill-advised decision. Regardless of why, I signed up for E-Harmony. And it sucks.
For all those who wonder what magic E-Harmony weaves to match people based on a billion points of compatibility, I can now tell you. The survey you have to fill out takes just enough time to make you wonder when you'll regret losing those precious minutes you'll never get back.
The questions are probing, and by probing I literally mean you'll feel like your underpants have crawled way up your ass. For example:
The people I enjoy spending time with most are:
For all those who wonder what magic E-Harmony weaves to match people based on a billion points of compatibility, I can now tell you. The survey you have to fill out takes just enough time to make you wonder when you'll regret losing those precious minutes you'll never get back.
The questions are probing, and by probing I literally mean you'll feel like your underpants have crawled way up your ass. For example:
The people I enjoy spending time with most are:
- Friends and family
- The corpses I've most recently buried in my yard
- Anybody who will talk to me
- Whoever it is who slides my food through the slot in the door
So it's really not difficult to ace the survey is what I'm saying. Assuming everybody else can out-think the survey, it's not difficult to get matches regardless of who you are.
Once a 'match' has been made, you get an email telling you that a computer program feels you would be highly compatible with a 41 year old, 5'6, retail sales clerk in Brampton, Ontario who has two beautiful children.
Let's assume you're a 32 year old, 5'11, professional in Victoria BC who would want children only to harvest their organs. However, you do both enjoy spending time with friends and family so who knows? Maybe you two crazy kids might just make it!
Occasionally you'll get an email congratulating you that a match has requested communication. E-Harmony is stricter than the Amish when it comes to allowing open communication between the sexes. You simply can not begin emailing back and forth.
If you want to communicate with one of your matches you have to send them five even more probing questions that they answer and send back. I'm not sure what happens after that because I haven't been able to figure that out.
I have figured out that there is a particular type of man who finds me most alluring. He is bald. He is much older. He is short. He has at least 2.5 children and I make more money than he does. Based on the E-Harmony matches who want to probe me further - this is my kind of man.
I hate you E-Harmony.
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