Insecurity Sticker

The classic teen movie moment is that of a guy and a girl making out, clothing begins to come off and then suddenly the intimate mood is killed as the guy begins battling the bra clasp (index between skin and fabric, thumb against eye of clasp, then brace and push, no, no brace, brace and push, brace… forget it). This common theme in movies and TV shows tells us one thing: clearly Hollywood writers have trouble maneuvering their way around a bra. It’s an awkward moment played up for laughs, and it nearly always kills the mood.

Myself, well I managed to pull all this off before underwear even made an appearance.

Flashback several years ago to a wide-eyed college freshman version of myself wining and dining a girl I had met on campus. Though there was no wine, or dining really, as a college student it was more ‘sit in a dorm room and try to avoid spending any money’ but that’s not as commonly used a phrase as wine and dine.

My suave (for a wide-eyed college freshman) plan was to have the girl over to watch a horror movie, one that would help bring us closer together. Now I suppose for the sake of full disclosure I’m forced to admit I don’t like horror movies, I mean I wouldn’t go so far as to say I’m a wimp but let’s just say E.T. scared me as a kid and it’s been downhill since then.

To correct the fact that none of my light-hearted comedy collection would cause a girl to cling to me out of fear, though to be fair the collective works of Tim Allen do have some frightful stabs at humour, I went over to a friend’s place, an avid horror fan that could steer me in the right direction.

I was promptly handed a copy of the film Se7en which he had just bought, so new it hadn’t even been removed from its packaging.

The original plan was to pre-screen the film by myself, in broad daylight, preferably with heavy use of the fast forward button… Alright, fine! Maybe a little bit of a wimp. Happy?

This plan was ruined by that crazy ‘going to classes’ notion they try to force on you while attending higher education, and so that evening she arrived before I even had time to crack the shrink wrap.

The evening began perfectly, the romantic chemistry bubbling in every word, every action. The room had that perfect mood lighting and it was quickly becoming clear it would be a night to remember.

“Why don’t we watch this now?” she asked as she picked up Se7en, a coy smile accenting the question.

Over eager I practically tore it from her hands without a word. Fumbling I took a few passes before I caught the corner of the shrink wrap.

“Ah, there we go,” I said beaming confidently as I unwrapped the movie that would have her cowering into me within minutes.

“You know I’ve always wanted to see this, I hear it’s really scary.” Her words, causing that confident beam to only brighten.

I tried opening the case, it wouldn’t budge. Examining it I realized I forgot the security sticker across the top.

“Security sticker,” I explained, trying to pull off the cheesy fake laugh to cover one’s mistake. She laughed back, humouring me.

I tried sliding my nail under the sticker but the industrial grade glue would have none of that. I stood there in front of this girl, watching me work away at the sticker with the vigor of an old woman after investing her pension in scratch-off tickets.

“Need… help?” she asked after several minutes of awkward silence.

“No, no I think I am getting it.”

“There’s usually like a little thing on it that says ‘pull’” she said in what I imagine was meant to be helpful, but by the time the sound reached my ear I was convinced she was mocking my ability to remove a simple sticker.

She was right though, there was a pull tab. And so, as instructed, I pulled.

And it was working!

The sticker began to stubbornly peel away from the case and as I prepared to look skyward and thank God I suddenly noticed I was pulling an increasingly smaller strip of sticker, till suddenly the sliver of security device had separated itself from the rest of the sticker.

“You’ve got to be kidding me!” I exclaimed, causing her to raise her head from the magazine she had found on my bedside table.

“Huh?” she asked, or something like it. I was to distracted by the fact she was flipping through my copy of that months Canadian Geographic… I could’ve sworn I had hid those.

“Did you look for that pull tab?” she asked.

“Yes!” I practically screamed, catching myself I took a breath.

“I tried the pull tab, the tab didn’t work. I pulled it. The sticker is still here.”

She went back to examining the evidence of how big a geek she had agreed to go on a date with.

I needed to open this and open it fast. I needed something to quickly slice the thing open. I bolted to the kitchen to find a knife.

They were all encrusted with left over food and mold.

I took a moment to stand there and look at the sink while cursing my roommates.

I ran back into the room and began searching for my scissors, no luck. I grabbed a pen and began sliding it across the groove of the case, it did nothing, but I now had a nice tracing of the case hidden by sticker.

I looked for anything that might work… anything. But for some reason my room seemed to have been sanitized for someone on suicide watch. Desperate I grabbed a penny; I don’t think I need to tell you how successful this was.

Every perfectly planned moment of the night was quickly crumbling around me. I began frantically scratching on the worlds stickiest of stickers. Frustration rising.

She crossed over to me.

“Let me try,” my pride said to refuse. My desperation said let her. Desperation won.

She slid her finger under the sticker, no success. She tried again, and again. Finally it began to peel; she was doing it, but then.

“Wait! No, no stop!” I shouted.

“What?!” she stopped dead in her tracts.

“You are ripping the DVD sleeve!”

“No I’m not Derek, it’s just the sticker.”

“No, you’re ripping the case. You’re wrecking the case!”

“You know what, forget it!” she said, tossing the DVD onto my bed. “Maybe I should just go.”

“Hey, look, no…” I began, trying to figure out what way to peddle. “I appreciate what you were doing, but you were clearly ripping the actual case. That sort of just, you know, well you were wrecking the DVD.”

It would be weeks before I ended up seeing Se7en, for the time being I popped Zoolander into the DVD player and curled up in bed alone.

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From Russia With Febreeze

Awhile back I was getting out of my shower when I suddenly became aware that someone else was in the room.

Dressed in tight denim shorts and a tank top that seemed to threaten to show a little more then the mid in mid-drift, she was a complete stranger.

“Can I get to work?” she asked, casually, as if nothing was out of the ordinary about the situation.

“Uh… What?” I said, demonstrating my superior intellect.

“Can I get started?”

“Okay hold on… who are you? Why are you here?”

“I was hired to be here?” she said, a look of confusion crossing her face.

Slowly the wheels of my groggy mind began to turn. Skimpy attire, hired…

“Hold on! You're not -- I mean -- you must have the wrong house.”

She recited my address to me.

I paused, what was going on here?

“I just really am wanting to get started” she said, her thickly accented English breaking the silence.

What was going on here? Who would’ve hired her? Was this some sort of practical joke? And why hadn't I thought to reach for my towel yet? Something somewhere in my gut told me it'd probably be smart answering that last question first.

“So now I get started, yes?” she asked, moving towards me.

I staggered back, trying to keep my eyes on her face, trying to keep my mind focused. I shot my hands up, motioning for her to stop.

“Okay now, now, now hold on -- I just, I mean, no, sorry, this can’t, no.”

“What?” she punctuated with questioning eye brows.

“I’m sorry, this can’t happen. I mean, it's nothing personal, just like, well, I’d never do it with… I mean, umm, it’s just… how do I put this?” I stammered.

“What’s wrong?” she said, taking another step towards me.

“I’d-never-pay-for-sex!” I blurted out.

She stopped in her tracks; a stare of shock and outrage replaced the now familiar confusion.

Thing are a little awkward these days whenever she comes by to do her job, I guess I would ask the guy to send someone else over, someone its a little less tense around, but she's the kind of girl who doesn't rest till the jobs done and who will work her hands to the bone. I just really wish someone told me they hired a maid.

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The Once and Future Pogster

Before college taught me how not to be fit I used to participated in my share of sports. Baseball to hockey, skiing to beach volleyball, I enjoyed them all, and walked away with my share of trophies and ribbons. I should note the latter of which were for such things as track and swimming, I’m not talking about the blue ribbon for best piece of cheese in the county fair. I don’t really know how you measure the quality of a piece of cheese, I imagine that if we dug deeper it’d all be a payola scam, but who wants to tarnish the beauty of a bunch of forty year old men in overalls competing over Gouda?

I digress.

Sports were a part of my life growing up, I enjoyed them and dreamed of one day being an Olympian or a professional baseball player, yet one by one I left each athletic venture for one reason or another. Life got busy, my skills peaked, or in the case of football the line for equipment was taking to long.

There was one sport though whose departure was sudden and unexpected. I was faced with a choice between it and my family’s happiness. A difficult choice at any age, least to a child. That sport? Pogs.

Okay, okay hold up, before you stop reading, I recognize that Pogs are not regarded as a sport but as a fad, despite the fact it involves about the same amount of muscles as driving a car around a track.

Pogs began in the early 1930s as a game played with milk caps down in Hawaii (probably what the geeky kids did on shore while everyone else was surfing). The idea was that both players started with their own set of milk caps (aka Pogs) and a larger, heavier Pog known as a slammer. With all the Pogs face down each player takes a turn throwing his or her slammer at the pile of Pogs, winning each one that flipped face up. At the end of the game when there are no more Pogs to flip, whoever had scored the most face up was the winner.

Though originating some five decades earlier, Pogs did not become a fad until the 1990s, when companies realized they could sell small pieces of cardboard to children at five hundred times the price of a circle of cardboard.

My rise in the ‘sport’ of Pogs came unexpectedly. Like most kids I enjoyed playing with them almost as much as I enjoyed buying them. Then one day I entered a tournament with a friend, and like a young Wayne Gretzky I burst onto the scene out of nowhere, bringing with me my own style that defeated opponent after opponent… right, sorry, I had to pause there for a second and remind myself I was talking about lamented paper.

Then it happened, a letter in the mail inviting me to the championship match, in a few short wins I could be crowned Pog Champion, my moment had come. Fame and girls would follow.

It was somewhere in the midst of these fantasies that my family informed me we were supposed to be on vacation that week, but not wanting to get in the way of my future Olympic Pogster aspirations they would skip the trip for me.

I now had a decision to make. Here’s how it played out in…

My Imagination

A young Derek Robertson steps to the podium, the press looking on as he taps the microphone in front of him. Somewhere backstage a sound man shudders.

“I’d like to make a brief statement. I am officially and regretfully stepping down before the championship match of Pogs.”

The crowd reacts in a murmur of shock, flashbulbs begin to pop. Derek raises his hands for silence and the room listens.

“I’ll miss the sound of slammer hitting Pog, the roar of the four or five people in the crowd. But ladies and gentlemen I stand before you today and say I will be back! For as long as people are collecting Beanie Babies, as long as they are still dancing the Macarena, Pogs will live on!”

A reporter raises a hand.

“Mr. Robertson, Melvin Artledge, ESPN 2, what prompted your unexpected leave mere weeks before the Pog championship?”

“It wasn’t an easy decision Melvin, but in the end I look forward to dedicating more time to my family, and to the crush I have on that girl who plays Alex Mack. Also as some of you know I was recently awarded duel custody of a Tamagotchi digital pet and I look forward to spending more time with her… or him, not quite sure, those pixels are pretty small.”

“Mr. Robertson, Mr. Robertson, over here, Zack Boyd, TSN. What about the rumours that this sudden departure from the game is over claims of an irregular, possibly illegal slamming style?”

“Listen, Zack is it? These baseless claims have been dogging me since I first began tournament play. No ref has ever called me on it, nobody has proven any misdeed, to think I’d step down now, because of that…”

Derek begins a manly, sports-hero-at-the-end-of-his-career cry.

“I’m, I’m… No more questions.” Quickly Derek leaves the stage as reporters shout after him, the flashbulbs again going off.

And here’s how it played out in…

Reality

“I guess I’ll skip the championship, maybe I’ll do it again next year?” I said.

“Okay,” said my mum.

Little did I know that several schools across North America, Australia and England would begin banning the game for fear of children gambling. This would lead to a domino effect that saw a Hawaiian milk company fear negative association with teaching kids to gamble, and in response they launched lawsuits at any company using the name Pog. Before long it was all over, the fad, and with it my chances of one day being crowned Pog champion.

I still have my Pogs tucked away in a box somewhere, waiting to one day be dusted off, reeking of that trademark basement/attic smell as I show my future children. I’ll tell them the story of my run at Pog championship, perhaps getting a little misty eyed at glory days gone by.

“I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender…”

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A Cidiot By Any Other Name

There's a town in Minnesota that my girlfriend calls home.

A town on the banks of the mighty Mississippi, with friendly locals and... I better stop myself before Mark Twain's estate is asking for royalties.

It’s a place built on the history of nearly going to war with a group of Native blueberry salesmen. A town built on the back of the railroad. A town built on the back of the lumber industry.

It’s the kind of place where family and the high school football team are king, a place blessed with scenic wooded areas and more then it’s share of Minnesota's ten thousand lakes (the state actually has 11,842 lakes but they rounded it down to ten thousand for tax purposes.)

The natural beauty of the region calls to the people of nearby cities. Drawing them in every summer they come in their campers, SUV's, and hummers, clogging and congesting the streets, beaches, and ultimately after learning beer and 250 worth of horse power don't mix, the emergency rooms.

Granted when your town swells to triple its size and the end of the weekend means traffic jams at all exits, you tend to regard these visitors with a little disdain.

And so the first time I flew down to Minnesota I was greeted by my girlfriend's family sitting on the porch, musing over the havoc the tourists were wreaking this particular weekend, or as they called them, cidiots.

Cidiot: A city dweller in the country, a fish out of water, or as my girlfriend’s family would more colourfully put it: a person who left what little brains they had back in the city.

I laughed along at the stories of mishaps caused by ghostly pale city dwellers that got their brand new fishing lures hooked into themselves.

Then it hit me.

I was born in the heart of downtown Toronto, largest city in Canada, fifth largest in North America. I grew up riding the subway and eating dinner from a street vendor hocking hot dogs.

Sure for college I suddenly found myself attending a school in the midst of a cow pasture, but not without graduating before fleeing from a drug sniffing dog I confused for a wolf (an explanation for running that only made the campus security guard more suspicious).

To make matter’s worse, I once got a fish hook stuck in me…

Fine, I’ll say it, stuck in my butt.

Being in front of my girlfriend’s parents for the first time, sitting on their front deck as the dog ran around the edge of the woods, breathing in pine scented air (and no, my city dwelling friends, not horrible pine car freshener, I’m talking the real thing.) Sitting there sipping lemonade in a rocking chair… okay perhaps the lemonade part is made up by my big city stereotyping mind, but they’ve got two rocking chairs!

Sitting there I realized, I am a cidiot.

I feed off the hustle of the city, the countless faces with countless stories. The sight of a Starbucks on every corner feels like home, and yeah, so what if I call the smallest of streams a river, at least I understand the difference between a Grande and a Venti.

So maybe I am a cidiot I thought, is that so bad? Is it wrong to not know how to tie a knot or know the difference between poison oak and poison ivy if Wikipedia isn’t a fingers length away?

When you’re from a sheltered little corner of a big city, the world that isn’t a subway stop away may often surprise you. Even more so if it’s beyond taking the subway then catching the 192 bus.

So yes, the world is a misadventure waiting to happen when you grew up in a John Hughes film, but it is a misadventure that I invite you along on every Tuesday for the next few weeks, months, or years.

My name is Derek Robertson, I am a stand-up comedian, screenwriter and director, and these are the Confessions of a Cidiot.

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