Day 47
Today I decided that I needed to give in and buy food. It's not that I am trying anorexia (I wish I had the discipline) it's that I am too lazy to carry my food stuffs. After a morning of lying around and whining to myself about not having a car I put on my cheap, ugly headphones and started out. The bus was taking forever so I walked the two miles to the Save on Foods (fancy-ass Canadian supermarket) and just as I was crossing the street to the store the bus pulled up.
Shopping in Canada isn't too different from shopping in the U.S. except everything is two dollars more expensive, there are no Targets and the check out lines are ridiculous. It's usually not that there are more than two or three people ahead of you but the workers ring up only two items per minute. Why this is I will never understand.
The checkout line I had chosen had two people ahead of me with medium-sized loads of items. But, I still had time to read and re-read the cover of all 12 magazines on the rack and all of the gum/candy labels and run back into the store to get extra brie (I know the Europeans are rubbing off on me) and it still wasn't my turn. I wished that I still smoked, as if that would've done me any good seeing as I gave it up, couldn't afford a pack in Canada anyhow (I'm already buying brie for god sakes that's like 50 bucks) and even if I had a cigarette I couldn't light it up in the store. So, I did what any American would do I rolled my eyes, huffed and puffed, refused to smile when the cashier and lady ahead of me looked my way and vowed to never, ever go back. But, I am now enrolled in their awards program, goddamnit.
So, I realized that I lied about yesterday. It wasn't the actual Canadian Thanksgiving Day, that was today. Oops, so hard to tell when fake holidays are happening. Anyway, the place I live at had a thanksgiving dinner and it was pathetic. There was no wine and the brussel sprouts were overcooked (thus ending my addiction to the little green monsters). The good thing though was that the Tofurky was so freaking creepy (it had a rind on it and things that I assume are spices that looked like baby cockroaches inside of it) that I almost begged for meat which is making my trek back to eating innocent animals just a little easier. Again, there was no thanks-giving and improv praying. But, maybe I am just bitter because I lost both of my arm wrestling matches (right and left) to a tall guy who weighs 97 pounds.
My entire life I had a feeling that cable television was awesome, though as a kid I was content to watch Jenny Jones and The Price is Right I knew that there was something else out there, something better. Tonight my point was proven. A group of my friends gather every week to watch House (which to my research is a regular network televison show). After convincing me that it was not too medical-ly AND that it was "hilarious" I sat down to watch an episode. Turns out that it wasn't that funny and within the first ten minutes they were drilling holes into a child's head. Plus, nobody, not even the people who watch the show every week, knew what was going on most of the time.
After the show everyone disbanded and grumbled about having missed last week's episode and blamed their misunderstandings on that. But, why would the producers/writers make a show that people wouldn't understand, people like me watching the show for the first time? Anyway, enough ranting the only other person left in the room was a guy who lives down the hall from me and we did what any two people from the U.S would do with a TV, channel surf. And guess what, we had cable television!
We flipped through sporting events, Rush Limbaugh, old movies, rappers, and cooking shows. It was like a dream come true (sorry cliched phrase, come on you know I'm a hack), I finally have cable television. Where else can you watch two guys try and cook a steak by putting it in a vaccum-sealed packet, dropping it into a garbage can, and blowing it up? (didn't work) After flipping around we settled on the program, Intervention on A & E.
The story started out with a girl shooting up. Every two minutes, between interviews with family members and the odd "family friend", words would pop up on the screen like:
"Three years before Brittney was born she had a sister who was abducted, raped, and killed."
"When Brittney was 12 she was sexually molested by a relative."
"At 13, Brittney started smoking pot and taking Xanax."
"At 15, Brittney was gang raped by her drug dealer and 5 other men."
We were riveted. Both of us conducted a running commentary like Regis and Kelly at the Macy's Parade. We guessed what would happen next and tried to tell both Brittney and her family members what to do. In the end Brittney finally went to rehab, here are the words:
"Brittney's mom is now seeing a therapist and a psychiatrist."
"Brittney only stayed in rehab for three weeks."
Next up we found a channel showing, "Sleepless in Seattle." I haven't seen this movie since I was like 13 (when I started smoking pot and taking Xanax). My neighbor and I watched the dinner scene and the following scene where the main female character goes to the attic with her mom to try on an old wedding dress (that, btw, rips, haha). My neighbor started telling me that the main character, Annie, was trying to convince herself that getting married to whatever his name was was the right thing to do. And that she had been the type of girl to believe in true love and now thought she had to settle. I was awed when a few minutes later my neighbor's predictions had been actualized. Then I remembered that I am supposed to be a writer and should've known what was coming based on dialogue and body language. I am frightfully ignorant.
Anyway, my neighbor got a call and decided to call it a night. I watched Sleepless in Seattle and thought about an article I had read recently on screenwriting about how all films are really just old, classic tales. This was true with Sleepless, the idea of fate/destiny versus reality and taking risks in the name of true love. But, what a good screenwriter does is bring the little extras/details to the story to make it fresh. Something that was achieved here particularly through the child characters. The 8 year old son said words like, "sex" and "ho" and it was hilarious. It made me want to have a whole bunch of kids so I can teach them naughty words. And the little girl character (the son's friend) was way ahead of her time as she was making up texting type lingo abbreviations like:
MFEO: Made for Each Other
HNG: Hello and Goodbye
YOH: Your Only Hope
After the cheesy end credits I too left the TV room. But, I thought about it and it seems to me that every successive thing that I watched got better and better. Just think if I had stayed for a few days, I wonder what kind of awesome thing I would be watching. God, I love cable.
-Canadian Castaway
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