Story 1. Involving the Bambi pillow case.
As I was flying back from Winnipeg to BC I had a stop-over in Calgary. I had my pillow with me. While waiting for my plane I noticed this lady who looked somewhat groggily distraught. I struck up conversation and she informed me about how miserable her flight down had been. There had been lots of turbulence. She hadn't slept at all. And now she was going to try to sleep on the deplorable airport chair. Well... I must admit that I didn't offer the pillow right away. However after 10-15 minutes I folded like a pre-pressed table cloth and offered her my pillow, which she graciously accepted with a mumbled thanks. Her flight wasn't due to leave for an hour and a half. My flight was boarding in 20 minutes. The boarding call came and I made my decision. She needs that pillow more than me. Even though that pilllow case has many memories for me... (it's seen a number of pillows pass through it during it's brief tenure on earth).. one time my brother snuck in and drew x's on bambi's eyes.. making it look like he was dead... Anyways.. I left the pillow with the lady and boarded the plane, and thought that was the last I'd see of my pillow case. Well........ as I was sitting in the plane I was talking with the gentleman beside me. He enquired of my profession. I told him about the Uni job. The travelling. Etc. He was duly impressed (though that wasn't my objective.. I was just answering his questions honestly). I also had a bit of a beard growing which makes me look a little older as well. All of a sudden! a flight attendant speaks forth from the front of the plane. "Ahem... a lady told me that someone on this plane lent her their pillow. Who's pillow is this?" (As she holds aloft my Bambi pillow in all it's glory) (and everyone sees it as, in fact, a Bambi pillow). The guy next to me makes some comment. I forget what it was now. And the flight attendant walks down the aisle. As she passes by me I say "excuse me that's my pillow". Well she looks at me and gives a little fake laugh and says "of course it is sir" as if I'm attempting a silly little joke. And then she walks on down the row with my pillow. No one claims it and she's on her way back. I say to her again. "No really. That's my pillow." She looks at me. She looks at the pillow. She gives me the pillow. The guy next to me looks at the pillow. He looks at me. He comments on the weather. (ok the weather part didn't happen). We share a chuckle about the whole thing and then fly back to Vancouver. The End.
Wow.. quite the story eh? Alright.. and one more.... since you're such a receptive audience. Or at least captive to your circumstance.
Story 2. The Loppers.
My mother has a set of pruning shears, or "loppers" as they're known around my house. She actually has a couple pairs due to the fact that the pair in question are wearing out. Well not the loppers themselves but the rubber ring that stops the wooden handles from crashing together, slamming fingers in their calamitous collision. And of course each time it happens again it hurts a little more as your fingers slowly become tenderized. Enough about the loppers, we'll come back to them in a bit.
So the other day, back in Sechelt, my brother and I were at my mother's house. We'd just gotten back from our trip to Egmont and were about to leave for Quadra Island (but I, of course, ended up detouring for a couple weeks to Hope.. another story). Anyhoo.. mi madre she comes to us with the simple request that we clear out a front garden for her. It is full of some Red Hot Pokers (plants) and a big, huge, gnarly, tough, tenacious chunk of grass 6ft tall. Kinda like a bamboo. So my bro bro is gonna dig it out and starts digging around it. Then we're gonna attempt to cut it into more manageable pieces. For which I scrounge around the yard for an older, duller, axe to chop at the dirt/roots. We are, however, faced with a predicament; namely the 6ft high stalks of grass. Well my brother says "we got any loppers kicking around?" (AHA! You thought I'd forgotten about those didn't you? Or at least were wondering when they'd come into play again). My mother tells me where to find them. I go. I find The Loppers of pain. I start cutting. You need to apply quite a bit of pressure to get those blades to slice through several fingersize stalks at once. And then *slam* *ow* *expletive* *pain*. I adjust my grip and continue. I find a way that sorta works and keep cutting. Only occasionally pinching my fingers. Then one particularly great compression is followed by a particularly great expression. My mother says "why the heck are you using those ones?" As if she'd told me there were any other. So she goes to another place and brings down another pair. I ask her why she still has the pinching loppers of doom if she has a another pair of loppers. She says it's cause Tom (my step dad) won't let her get rid of them cause they are "fixable" (yet I'll point out still unfixed). She then tells me to throw the loppers into the bush down in front of the house. It's owned by the neighbors, overgrown with blackberry prickle bushes, alders, and some other trees. Well I wind up and do a little hammer throw type spin and launch the loppers heavenward in the direction of the overgrown lot. They descend majestically from the sky and become lodged in an alder tree slowly losing it's leaves. This alder tree also happens to be right infront of the house; right infront of the big picture window my mom and Tom look out every day when they sit in their living room chairs. We raise the question "do you think he'll notice?" We decide that he hopefully won't and commence with the work once more. I go in search of another pry bar. Locate some drill steel. But bro says nah. We get the job done and the garden roughly removed.
Of course if the story were to end there it wouldn't be that good. Mediocre acutally. But thankfully, there is more.
I recived the other day, an email from my mother. The neighbor had called. The house was for sale. But before it sells my step-dad can come down and remove any trees that are blocking the view. Well.. when he comes back in he tells my mom how he'd fallen a number of trees and then came up to this alder. He started cutting it down when out of nowhere a pair of loppers fall from above and almost take his ear off! Imagine that. Of course he brought them home. They're fixable.
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