Survival of the Most Well Read

As we face the thick of summer here in Toronto people begin fleeing by the SUV full to get away from the sticky days where the city offers no escape, not even beneath the shadow of the CN Tower.

Every Friday evening in drive-ways across town people begin loading their cars until every inch of trunk, floor, and passenger lap is covered in suitcase or food. If a foreign observer from far off Belarus or Paraguay should happen to catch this sight they might conclude that Toronto was undergoing a mass exodus, that its citizens were filling their cars with enough supplies to last them months. In fact most of us are only leaving for a weekend, and its far from a mass exodus (though try convincing yourself of this while your inching your way out of Toronto on a Friday night), rather its a trip to the cottage.

The word cottage implies different things around the world. For instance its a labourer or fisherman’s home in France, but here in Canada while some cottagers may consider themselves fishermen there is little labouring to be had. In fact few of those whose claim to ‘fisherman’ status are truthful, rather they are men who sit in a boat for three hours watching to see if anything is feeling stupid enough to bite into their hook, essentially worm life guards.

A cottage here is a word that invokes a retreat to a summer home on a lake. Its mornings spent in a canoe or afternoons in a hammock, sun tanning (pronounced: burn) and swimming in water that’s never quite as warm as your body was expecting, it was hoping for a nice little cool down but nature decided to go into a different direction and give you water that makes your goose bumps shiver.

Years ago over the August long weekend I was up at a friend’s cottage when she decided it would be fun to strap a PVC plastic tube to the back of some 300 (Sea?)Horse Power motor and take turns sitting in it.

I had a bit of an infatuation with the girl in question, who for the sake of this column we’ll call her Lizz.

Because that’s what her parents call her… and her dad still intimidates me.

Lizz walked me through the in’s and out’s of tubeing, which was basically being in the tube is good, being out of the tube is going to hurt as we’re moving at speeds that will make the water feel like concrete. At this point I decided this wasn’t my idea of a vacation, a decision that didn’t really matter as the hormonal teenager with a crush half had already decided we were doing this no matter what.

I was also told to signal with my hand if I felt the need for the boat to go faster, slower, or stop. It was comforting to know I had choices as to the speed of my death.

So I strapped on a lifejacket, grasped tightly to the sides of the tube, and suddenly I found myself tubeing, or as they call it in Texas, ‘Butthole Surfing’… please trust me on this, nothing good can come from Googling ‘Butthole Surfing’.

It was around the time the motor got itself up to speed that I realized a problem in the hand signal system, both my hands were far to busy clinging for dear life to the rope in front of me.

It appeared I had one of two choices, fall or wait till the motor runs out of gas.

I had every intention of being dragged around the lake until it began to sputter, a plan that lasted far too short.

The handle of the tube snapped, sending the rope that was tied to it hurtling away.

Or at least I assume it hurtled, myself and the tube were a little busy at the moment. When once we had been traveling the speed of the boat we had now lost all momentum, causing tube and Derek to summersault all too briefly through the air before continuing the gymnastics underwater.

Busy daydreaming about finally wooing Lizz back on land and unprepared for submersion I hadn’t really had a chance to grab a breath. I quickly became painfully aware of this, and of the disorientation the summersaults had caused. I looked frantically all around, trying to see which way led to oxygen.

In every direction there was nothing but water.

Now I’ve always had a strange fascination with books on survival skills. I love pouring over the pages of information and the diagrams. I love to sit and imagine what sort of adventurous life leads one to needing such a book. Because of this I could tell you the way to land a plane or the safest way to jump from a moving vehicle. I know how to filter water though a sock and how to build traps for food.

I can’t say I have ever had to use this information, no one really needs to know how to fend off a shark when you grow up in a neighbourhood where the biggest drama is that “Patrick, not like short Patrick but like you know, Patrick from history class, he totally cheated on Ashley with Megan, not like Megan Megan though, the curly haired Megan.”

The survival books were mere curiousities. That someone out there could be reading the same book and then actually needing to use them has never ceased to stir my imagination.

But here I was, lost and low on oxygen, as author Bill Bryson once put it, I was about to take the swim that needs no towel. I started to get a little disappointed that my life hadn’t begun flashing before me, began to feel a little cheated.

I debated what way to swim, I knew any one of these directions could lead to air, but that I only had enough of it in my lungs to allow for one choice.

Then it occurred to me, some a small tidbit, a short and dull fact I had breezed over in several books to get onto the exciting stuff: people die all the time by swimming for what way they think is up, but if you let your body go limp it’ll float its own way there.

And it worked.

Did I really need to tell you that?

Within no time I was being scooped up from the water and into the boat as we raced towards solid ground, that wondrous place where the stuff that feels like concrete is concrete, and which won’t drown you… unless of course you’ve offended someone with certain connections.

News traveled fast around the cottage and everyone soon had listened with baited breath to my story of near death.

In my imagination these action heroes, these survivalists, always just barely escape with their lives, able to live on to get the girl and whose heroic adventures are held in awe by anyone whose path he crosses.

I escaped with my life, using something I had read no less. But in real life death is a tragedy deserving of no one, near-death is just a story that you can trade in on until Bert goes to build a fire and burns his eyebrows off.

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Hanging Up Is Hard to Do

Ever since Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone we've been at odds with our phone company, well that is if we can get through to our phone company. It's a little known fact actually that a week after patenting his first telephone Alexander Graham Bell set up the first call center in order to wear down those wishing to complain about their service before they could reach Bell himself. It is yet further a little known fact that three and a half weeks after this everyone at Alexander Graham Bell's call center were laid off and their jobs outsourced to India.

He was a progressive man.

Alexander Graham Bell would soon after give the Canadian patents of his creation to his father Melville Bell and they both went to work setting up their own Bell Telephone companies. Why one of them did not have a more original idea then using their last name history may never know, but what is certain is that it'd be much harder to be mad at the sight of a bill from Melville then from Bell.

Either way the telephone spread like wildfire and before long most of North America was ringing with the news they had just won a trip to Florida from a contest they weren't entirely convinced they ever entered.

Within decades the monopoly on the telephone ended, new companies began sprouting up in North America and worldwide. Companies with names like Thus, Belgacom, and Cricket... but sadly still no Melville.

Perhaps because of this increased competition I got a call from one such company not to long ago, it went like this...

“Is this Mr. Robertson?” a woman asked me from the other end of the phone.

“Yes?” I replied with uncertainty in my voice.

“Mr. Robertson I’m calling on behalf of your phone company.”

“Okay?”

“We have received notice that you switched your long distance plan from us to another provider, is this true?”

“Yes?”

“Mr. Robertson, why did you leave us?”

“I just decided to,” I said, confident that this answer would be sufficient.

“How can I get you to come back to?”

“I really don’t…”

“Please Mr. Robertson, come back to us.”

Suddenly flashbacks of me being on the other end of this very same conversation with ex-girlfriends hit me.

“I don’t know,” I replied, still suffering from reverse déjà vu.

“Is your other plan better then ours?” the woman asked.

I waited a beat to see if she’d add, “is your new plan prettier then ours? Smarter? Humour you no matter how dorky your jokes?”

She didn’t.

“Uh, yeah.” I finally said.

“Would you mind if I ask exactly what your plan is then?” she said, suppressed resentment in her voice.

“I don’t really know offhand.”

“Well if you don’t mind me saying if this other plan of yours was so great I think you’d remember it.”

Oh, cat fight!

“I just don’t know offhand.” I said again.

“Well Mr. Robertson why don’t you tell me what it would take to bring you back to us?”

I thought about rhyming off some ridiculous rider that they’d have to submit to in order to win back my long distance charges. Maybe a cheesecake on the first of every month, camouflage coloured M&M’s, or perhaps a canary that could sing hits from the 70s, 80s, and depending on my mood, 90s.

Then I realized my TV show was back from commercials.

“Sorry, this is really a bad time for me.” I said, straining to hear what was playing in the other room.

“Mr. Robertson, please, we’re just concerned about you, we don’t want to see you paying more, we don’t want you to have to pay more then one bill.”

Was this the same company that had threatened to cut off my service for a late payment so many months ago? When had they changed their corporate message from “we don’t need you, your beneath us” to one of concern and empathy?

“Sorry,” I offered, “this really is a bad time, we’ll talk about this later.”

“Okay Mr. Robertson, but before I let you go I feel I should let you know that if any of the phone jacks in your home become broken or damaged we’ll charge you $100 dollars, unless you pay us five dollars a month”

Blackmail and threats? This really was a break-up.

I waited for the inevitable, “…and you might want to be careful next time you drive, you never know when those brakes might accidentally give out.”

When she didn’t say anything further I hung up, happy to know the phone company was still deep down the customer loathing corporation we know and love.

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Leave Them In Stitches

Not to long ago while working on a television series I ended up coming into work on a day I originally had off. This isn't unusual for the world of television which operates fast and loose with words like 'schedule' and 'hours' to the point where we make brain surgeons with constantly beeping pagers look like homebodies. Which is strange because we aren't the ones saving lives, though I suppose give us a big enough budget and we can defiantly script, cast, and shoot the illusion of life saving.

We might not make as big a difference as real doctors, but you can't argue the blood we work with is far less nausea inducing, not to mention its edible!

The work we had planned to finish the day before wasn't finished and so I came in for what promised to be a couple quick hours.

Now I will not pretend to know the inner workings of the universe, won't attempt to grasp the un-graspable, but I will tell you this: somewhere out there some flag goes up, some light begins to flash on some intergalactic dashboard the moment you suppose a job will be quick and painless and calls to action something, anything, that will prevent it from being so. This unfortunately is one such story.

A co-worker by the name of Sky and I were heading first to the west side of the city to a storage unit to pick up some stuff for the production, drive it across Toronto to the east side and deliver it to another building where one of the departments on the show had set up shop.

We diligently loaded up the rental truck, hauling object after object up the ramp until the thing was full. A heavier and more awkward job than first expected, we were all the same making fairly good time when we pulled away from the storage unit.

I'd like to think it was the rain's fault for what happened next, though any meteorologists and/or physicists reading this might argue that five minutes of light drizzle can not cause a metal ramp to get slippery. To this I say that all meteorologists and physicists who will will not keep their mouths shut should stop reading now, because it was most certainly the rain's fault.

See Sky and I were at our destination unloading a large and awkward piece of metal and I was walking backwards down the ramp when one of my feet slipped (yes, I'm sticking with slipped) and suddenly found itself involuntarily leaving the safety of the ramp. My other foot stood steadfast as the first collided with the pavement. My legs, now further apart and on completely different levels than would be advisable produced a loud ripping sound, the likes of which I had never heard before.

I looked down cautiously, fearing the tearing noise was some muscle or bone that had decided to split off from the rest of my body. It turned out to be much worse.

I had never had a pair of pants rip before, in fact I may have been going through life convinced its something that only happens in cartoons, like a falling anvil or the ability to pull a door out of ones pocket, fling it against a wall and proceed to use it. But then there I was with a large rip straight down the center of my shorts, so long and expanding that there was very little keeping the two legs connected.

I stood there dumbfounded, unsure of what to do next as Sky probably began wondering why the heavy piece of metal was not moving.

I couldn't tell from my vantage point what underwear I was wearing, and my memory of getting dressed in the morning seemed to be of no help, so I stood there, praying for a brief moment that they were an acceptable pair, ideally not anything with a bright Superman 'S' imprinted on them... not that I own such a thing.

At this time I would also like to ask a certain cashier that may at some point in her life stumble across this and who may disagree with some statement's in the last paragraph to also please stop reading and not tell tales about a certain Cidiot and his boxer purchases, which clearly flies in the face of any cold hard facts printed in this column.

So now here I was, virtually the beginning of the day with a whole lot more to go, the unnatural realization that my shorts were torn longer and wider than the Grand Canyon. Then it hit me. I was at the Wardrobe Department!

I finished unloading the large metal object that by this point had tripled in weight, I then ran into the Wardrobe Department as fast as my legs could carry me. Okay that's a lie, I slowly moved towards said building, trying to avoid moving my legs at any angle or length that would get me fired for indecent exposure.

Finding the head of wardrobe I asked him if he had a needle and thread I could borrow.

"Of course," he replied. He then asked me why.

Sheepishly I explained the events that had unfolded, he took a quick look and then beamed with a reassuring smile.

"Oh that's no problem, just take them off and we'll get someone to sew them up for you."

Now by this point you probably think the embarrassment and awkwardness is coming to an end for me. For this I say thank you for your wishful thinking, the worst though, was this...

I was sent to the bathroom to change out of my shorts so that the woman, the best in the business I was ensured, could mend them. As a substitute to wear while I waited I was given a plastic garbage bag with two holes cut in it.

A garbage bag.

I proceeded to put it on, like a cross between a large plastic diaper and something MC Hammer might have worn back when he was 2 Legit 2 Quit.

I stood for a good two minutes facing the bathroom door, bracing myself to walk out into the busy room in a garbage bag, allowing the proper amount of blood to rush to my ever reddening cheeks.

Fifteen minutes. Yes fifteen minutes I stood off to the side of the room as the woman went to work on my shorts, allowing everyone in a ten foot radius to get in as many garbage bag diaper pot shots as they could dream up. I contemplated my career choice, there are probably few brain surgeons who find themselves foregoing scrubs for the clingy comfort of a black garbage bag.

Finally the shorts were presented to me, and you know the woman really must be the best in the business as it was as if they had never ripped in the first place. I quickly waddled back to the bathroom, tightly holding the garbage bag for fear it slip off in one final embarrassing act.

"You picked a good place to rip your pants," offered a nearby wardrobe assistant as I headed for the door, "could you imagine what the Props Department would've done for you."

I could not. Though when I do visit Props I'll be sure to keep my eyes open for falling anvils, the rules of the real world and of cartoons have never felt so murky.

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Unravel Over Scrabble

The human brain can hold five times more information than the Encyclopedia Britannica; Yet for some reason when it comes to the game of Scrabble it appears I can’t spell anything with more than three letters.

Scrabble, although called a board game, is anything but a game. It is, in essence, putting your intelligence on trial; which leaves the question: Why did I ever agree to play against my girlfriend Amanda?

At the time we had just started dating, so as to how I agreed to reveal I have the spelling capacity of a six year old is still a mystery to me. Sure she, like anyone who enjoys the game of Scrabble, fed me the standard “it’s okay I’m not good at it either” line to get me to play. I have found that as a general rule anyone who says this to you about Scrabble probably carries an official Scrabble Dictionary in their back pocket.

What follows is a brief transcript of the ‘game’:

Thirty Seconds Into Game – Derek’s Mind:

This should be fun; Her and I have never played a board game together before. Should be a lot of laughs. Ha, if I rearrange these letters I can spell ‘tit’. Oh man that is funny.

One Minute Into Game – Derek’s Mind:

Okay, she spelt ‘being’, good start. I can work with that. Alright what should I do...?

Five Minutes Into Game – Derek’s Mind:

What should I do?! Come on, she’s starting to look at me funny. This is not good, stumped on first turn. Just focus, clear your mind. Don’t worry, just focus on the letters. ‘Being’, ‘being’... what can I do with the word ‘being’... well I could do ‘tit’, no I can’t do that. How would that make me look? Must think here, come on, think...

Eight Minutes Into Game – Derek’s Mind:

This is getting ridiculous. If I don’t go right now she’s going to flip out on me. Why can I not spell anything? I don’t care! I’m using 'tit' no matter how bad it makes me look.

Eight Minutes and Twenty Eight Seconds Into Game – Derek’s Mind:

Why did I ever use the word 'tit'? Look how she reacted! Man, I hate myself! Why didn’t I suggest a game of Life? I could be cruising around the game board in my little car, wife and kids in the back, with a nice big mansion, maybe being a rock star... ‘tennis’ she was able to spell the word ‘tennis’... maybe I should’ve been thinking of my next move.

Twelve Minutes Into Game – Derek’s Mind:

This is stupid, I write all the time, I’m a freaking writer for crying out loud! How can the word ‘no’ be my best option here. I’ll do it, get my turn over with, and get some really good letters for next time...

(Amanda spells the word squirrel and waits for Derek to place his word)

Fourteen Minutes Into Game – Derek’s Mind:

The brain you are attempting to use is currently away on vacation. We apologize for any inconvenience.

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Pack Rat Den-Aisle

I find myself traveling at least once a month these days, living out of a suitcase and being suckered into buying a shot glass with my name and a drawing of a local landmark on it. I’m not really sure who these novelty name items are targeted at, maybe people who suffer from random bouts of amnesia?

“Hmm, if this keychain in my pocket is correct my name must be Derek, now if only I had an overpriced coffee mug with my address on it.”

Unlike most people I enjoy the generic hotels, the three hour layovers at the airport, or rationing peanuts to last the length of the in-flight movie. For the sake of full disclosure I also enjoy the smell of tar, so there may be something slightly off about me.

This is not to say I am always immune to the discomforts of travel.

Now a lot of comedians and humourists have tackled the lack of leg room, and while this well worn topic is one we can all relate to, who hasn’t lost feeling in their legs by the time to captain turns off the seatbelt sign? And who hasn’t had the passenger in front of us recline his seat, allowing our tray table to double as a corset?

But leg room is nothing compared to the threat of the Tenant Traveler.

You may not recognize this pesky brand of passenger from name alone, so let me relate a story that happened to me not to long ago.

I had requested an aisle seat and wound up at a window, proving once again that the request seat button is about as effective as the button pedestrian’s like to pretend turns the light to ‘Walk’ faster (in fact the crosswalk buttons were disconnected sometime in the 80s when computer algorithms took over traffic control, not that this effects you. I’m sure if you continue to pound on it three or four more times the light will change, honest.)

The trip though started comfortably enough, despite the comedic cliché urge I’ll admit the leg room wasn’t bad and there was a seat between me and the woman on the aisle.

I settled in, turning my iPod up to a level that’d block out my fellow travelers while not loud enough to reveal some of my guiltier of music pleasures to the U.S.A. Woman’s Volleyball team seated behind me. Not that I am ashamed of anything in my music collection, I just didn’t want them throwing a game to Chile because they are to busy laughing at the curly haired guy on the plane who was listening to Was (Not Was)’s Walk the Dinosaur. You’re welcome Team U.S.A.

It wasn’t till around the time the in-flight movie started up - presumably something starring Mark Wahlberg or Pierce Brosnan as I can’t recall the last flight I took without one of them making up the trip’s entertainment - it wasn’t until then that the harmless woman sharing the row with me began to reveal her true colours.

She began by pulling out a bright assortment of celebrity lined magazines, apparently the only way to get fair and balanced coverage on the latest star’s divorce is to cross-reference between five different tabloids. An innocent action in and of itself, everyone likes something to flip through while traveling, but it didn’t stop there.

She started pulling out several juice boxes, an assortment of snacks.

Uh-oh, I thought as her tray table began to resemble a Vegas buffet.

Then came the electronics, the 1990s Sony Walk-Man, the laptop. Several tapes (Wikipedia the words ‘Compact Cassette’ kids, sorry to get all old on you), then a large hardcover book followed, tucked away into the now bulging seat pocket in front of her.

She was one of them, a nester, a Tenant Traveler.

I began to think about how horrible it would be to have to get up to go to the bathroom, to have to navigate my way through the woman’s home entertainment system in what under could conditions barely amounted to enough space for me to shimmy sideways… while it’d just be a complete disaster.

Sure enough moments after crossing my mind the need hit me. She was in the midst of pulling out a small pillow and a blanket from the bag she must’ve bought second-hand off Felix the Cat and suddenly all I could think about was my need to get to the bathroom.

She had set her little three hour and forty minute home and it was smack between me and the aisle.

I tried fighting it.

On screen Marky Mark (sorry again kids) appeared to be pouting about something in the rain, he wasn’t helping anything.

Like the Cidiot I am I sat there out of my depths, though I had faced her type before I had never figured out whether to let them know I needed to go by, waiting fifteen more bladder pained minutes as they packed up their camping supplies, or whether to charge like a bull, letting Pringles and Us Weekly’s land where they may.

The thought crossed my mind to open the emergency exit door beside me and go the long way around… ah yes, the emergency exit row, now you know why I wasn’t complaining about leg room.

Finally I couldn’t take it any longer, I stood up (or as up as a plane will allow you) to let the woman know I needed to go by. With a look best described as disgust she acknowledged me, bundling as much stuff as she could into her arms she made her way to the aisle, staring at me, seeing if I could somehow turn to rubber and bend my way around the tray table between the aisle and me.

I shuffled my way towards salvation, a maneuver that lasted about two seconds before I tripped on the bag she had left on the floor, staggering I sent a package of two-bite brownies flying across the aisle.

Getting my bearings again I stood up to take in the fact the volleyball team had chosen to watch me lurch around over Pierce Brosnan windsurfing.

Regaining my composure I made it to the aisle as the woman opened the overhead compartment, suddenly a jacket dropped from above, covering me in darkness. Startled I let out a scream, whipping the jacket from across my face and tossing it at a businessman. A few giggles filled the cabin.

Red faced I walked towards the back of the plane, convinced every eye was following me on my way by.

When I returned to my seat she had neatly arranged all her worldly possessions, she looked up at me, back down at her stuff, and then sighed. Across the aisle out of the corner of my eye I think I saw the business man covering his face.

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