Nonsense and What Not: The Perils of Kim

The Night I Lost My Money and Embarassed Susan

Sat, 29 Dec 2012 18:24:00 -0800

I recently got ridiculously drunk off a small amount of alcohol when I went to Kelowna to visit Susan. It was one of my worst drinking endeavours to date. But I’m sure it’ll be funny for other people to read about it.

One of the first things we needed to do when I arrived was go to the liquor store. We grabbed some vodka and a 6 pack of Granville Island King’s Winter Ale because it’s delicious AND because it was supposed to have cardboard mustaches inside in honour of Movember. There were two, so we could each wear one in public. We went out for sushi for dinner and while delicious, I clearly need to eat something more substantial when I drink. Clearly.

The night started off like many others - a couple vodka/waters and a couple beer. Upon opening the box of Granville Island, we found that we hadn’t received the promised cardboard mustaches! I called Granville Island (in Vancouver) and she offered for me to come and pick some up. Being as how we were in Kelowna, this simply wouldn’t work. I was distraught and did not get free beer. I was honestly no more than 5 drinks in when I realized that I was fucking drunk. Well, holy shit. Usually getting drunk is a real commitment for me. We’re talking like 15-20+ drinks. And I’m not bragging; it’s expensive. And then there’s those nights I can drink like there’s no tomorrow and still not be drunk. This was more like a high school drinking escapade.

So Susan and I decided to go out. Ryan (Susan’s bf) was working and would meet us after. I vaguely remember getting in the cab. We arrived at our destination and I looked in my wallet for money - which HAD to be there because Susan had just paid me for something - but oh look, no money. Where the hell did it go?

We tried to go into this pub called Doc’s, unsuccessful attempt thanks entirely to hurling drunk insults at the bouncer. Apparently it was cold out and I thought that he was abusing his role as a bouncer to feel powerful and make us wait outside in the winter air. I let him know this loudly. I also called him a weiner and then tried to blame it on the (male) person behind me. Either the bouncer told us we weren’t coming in or Susan decided we should bow out before I got punched in the face. Good call either way.

We went in somewhere else, I have no idea what it was called. Apparently when we walked in, I announced loudly “I need to puke” then went to the bathroom. I think I did puke, but I can’t be certain. When I came back Ryan was there, I was too drunk to acknowledge him. He said a police officer had arrived and was giving him sympathetic looks when he realized he was with Susan and I. She was loud, I was in drunk pain. What a combination. I think the cop was ok with our display because Ryan was sober and driving us home.

We left shortly after, probably because I decided to lay down on the bar. A move that is generally frowned upon. But before I did that, I emptied ALL the garbage out of my purse and asked the bartender to throw it away. Clearly something that need be done while wasted. Susan was fairly embarassed that I did this.

On the way back to the car, I whined incessantly about being cold - which Susan and Ryan still harass me about. Then I laid down in the backseat and continued to bitch about being cold until we got home. We went into the underground parking of their apartment building, and into the room where the elevator is. I started feeling super sick and just walked away from Susan and Ryan, projectile vomited in the staircase (twice) and came back. Awful. I’m sorry to whoever had to clean that up.

I woke up the next morning with no pants on and with a blanket on me. I also ended up finding the money I “lost” when I changed the next day, I had shoved it in my bra, but then still took my purse to the bar. Go figure. All I can say is that I had a maximum of 6 drinks that night and I was ridiculously hungover the next day. Bad experience.

Photo

Sat, 29 Dec 2012 18:00:18 -0800

Bombers Football Is Serious Business

Sun, 09 Dec 2012 17:41:50 -0800

So this summer I managed to effectively ruin a Winnipeg Blue Bombers game. How? You ask. Well I guess “ruin” is a fairly bold statement but I did manage to decrease the game’s enjoyment for at least one whole section.

See the problem began when I arrived at the airport. I flew from Sudbury to Winnipeg for my cousin Jodi’s wedding. My cousin Adam picked me up at the airport and had a cooler filled with booze waiting for me. Bad idea. I got in at 2 p.m. and had demolished at least 3 Palm Bay by the time we got to his house, which isn’t a particularly far ride from the airport. The drinking continued. Some of Adam’s friends came over to his house and had drinks with us prior to the game. By the time we were ready to go, I was wasted.

One of Adam’s friends drove us to the stadium. I remember sitting on someone’s lap in the back and being really loud. I remember I was drinking wine out of a solo cup in the car and someone said something funny which caused me to sneeze wine all over the dash of the car. Gross. I remember pulling into the parking lot. I remember noticing that the sole of my sandal was coming off on the way into the stadium, so I ripped it off and threw it in a plant. A hot dog vendor found that pretty funny.

We arrived part way through the first quarter. Beer was cheap, so I got 2 more. I probably didn’t need them. In any case, by half time I’d had about 6 and by the end of the third, at least 8. That’s when I started to get fidgety. I started absent mindedly playing with the guy in front of me’s hat. Flicking it and stuff. I don’t know why, I don’t know what the hell I was thinking. But it pissed him off. He turned around and told my cousin’s friend that if I did it again, he’d punch him (the friend). So my cousin’s friend (Rick) grabbed my hand and knocked the guy’s hat off with it. True to his word, the guy jumped up and the two started fighting. They were rolling around in the bleachers, the guy swung at Rick and missed, hitting me in the face. In my drunken state, I thought it to be a good idea to punch the guy back. Not a good idea, in retrospect. After that, I felt someone grab me under my armpits and pull me out of the fight. Of course security came and took Rick and the guy out. We knew they’d be back for the rest of us shortly. Before we left voluntarily, some drunk chick a few rows behind yelled “Who fights at a Bombers game???” and chucked a full cup of beer at us, missed, and hit a family sitting a couple of rows in front of us.

We all left and somehow got into a bar. We drank more. A table got broken. Rick got in another fight. I went home earlier than everyone else and I believe it wa 3 a.m. Jodi woke me up at 8 the next morning and I thought I was going to die. It took all my effort to sit in her vehicle and not puke while we did wedding running around stuff. I was successful.

But I learned a valuable lesson: Football games are awesome.

My day at work by minute.

Thu, 10 Mar 2011 10:50:00 -0800

My day:

8:36 Walk into office (6 minutes late, yes)
8:40 Hang up coat, sit down, turn on computer
8:45 Check voicemail
8:50 Check email
8:57 Scowl at schedule boss has left on my desk, expecting me to type and format
9:00 Beckoned for staff meeting
9:35 Exit staff meeting, attempt to beeline for kitchen to make coffee
9:40 Intercepted by someone who needs me to print off some tax sheet for them
9:45 Head to kitchen to make coffee (finally)
9:55 thatsmyboss.com
10:05 posting comment

10:15 – went to kitchen, made oatmeal, refilled coffee

10:25 – returned to desk, emailed friend re: tanning at lunch

10:30 – checked beachcreeps.com, spent some time on Facebook

10:50 – boss came around the corner and asked me for the millionth time what time our meeting starts on Monday (5:15 every week for the last 5 months)

10:55 – go pee

11:00 – return to desk, respond to friend’s email re: tanning at lunch

11:10 – make two changes to existing sponsorship letter, send to boss for approval

11:30 – boss plops an informational sheet on my desk with certain words circled. I understand why some are circled, others I do not.

11:40 – scouring amazon.ca for possible deals on random things I like to buy

11:50 – ensure paycheck has been deposited into my account

11:58 – leave for lunch

12:55 – return from lunch

1:00 – begin typing this comment

1:06 – posting

1:15 – Get more coffee. It’s a long Thursday
1:25 – Idly flip through informational sheet wondering why the hell “agencies” is circled on every page
1:35 – Decide I’ve had enough of listening to the hens in the cubicle behind me chatter, go out to car, acquire iPod, return to desk, begin listening to music.
1:41 – Post

1:45 – Post my day so far on my blog. Think that I should post stuff on my blog more often because it passes time.
1:47 – Reply to text messages
1:50 – Co-worker shows me where flavoured coffee stash is hidden. I feel glad.
1:55 – Reading comments on thatsmyboss.com again
1:59 – Apply hand lotion

2:10 - Visit to boss’ office re: sponsorship letters

2:15 - Sponsorship letters approved

2:16 - Return to desk

2:17 - Check out lamebook.com

2:30 - Call local hardware stores to find out the name of the owner so I can properly address aforementioned sponsorship letters

2:35 - Go pee

2:45 - Approached by Natalie, who has to pick her daughter up at school thus is taking a late lunch. I must cover the front desk while she is gone.

2:48 - Report to front desk.

2:49 - Find out there’s lasagna in the fridge.

2:52 - Heating up plate of lasagna

2:54 - Return to front desk

3:00 - Phone rings, I answer and take a message for Natalie.

3:05 - Take a gander on notalwaysright.com

3:12 - Talk to Ashley on the phone regarding posters.

3:15 - Phone rings. I give the caller a different phone number to call.

3:20 - Return to notalwaysright.com

3:31 - Update my post.

3:34 - Natalie has returned

3:35 - False alarm. She’s leaving again. I must remain here.

3:36 - Phone rings. I give the caller a different phone number to call.

3:39 - A lady comes in. Wants to pay an invoice. I have no idea what she’s talking about so I go get my boss. My boss changes her invoice for her. I stare at her blankly.

3:41 - My boss asks me to write her a receipt. Simple enough. I write it. I put her cash in an envelope and give it to Tammi, Queen of Finances.

3:43 - Make changes to schedule given to me this morning. Printing schedule.

3:47 - Post schedule on the wall, return to front desk. Look at gqpets.com Wonder why my dog hasn’t been posted, he’s very handsome.

3:55 - Check cell phone, return text messages.

4:00 - Natalie returns. I give her phone messages in an incoherent fashion but eventually convey everything she needs to know.

4:05 - Go into Katherine & Emily’s office to get a Werther’s and a Tootsie Roll. Laugh about a comment I made earlier in the day. Return to my desk.

4:10 - Check emails that I received while covering Natalie’s desk.

4:15 - Return emails, scheduling meeting for tomorrow afternoon.

4:20 - Wander back to the front because I have nothing better to do. Send a couple texts, tell Natalie a couple things.

4:24 - Return to my desk. Post this, which will be followed by shutting down my computer.

4:25 - Go pee

4:27 - Return to desk, get coat, leave.

Year of the Rabbit, I loathe thee.

Wed, 09 Feb 2011 11:12:00 -0800

This morning I walked into my place of employment feeling particularly unrested. I’ve recently decided that I must have RLS: Restless Leg Syndrome. I don’t genuinely believe that, but my feet have definite temperature control issues. One minute they’ll be freezing; the next minute they’ll be burning hot. They can’t decide what they want. Under the blankets or not. It’s frustrating. I also kept waking up last night. Not because of my feet though. One time I was thirsty, one time I had to pee, one time my arm hurt.

Anyway, enough about my interrupted sleep. I arrived at work at 8:30 this morning, made a tea, checked my emails, fiddled with my space heater, went around the office and talked to the other employees, and then was bombarded with a task. “Bombarded” might not be the best term, since I had been emailed about completing the task in question and was well aware that it was on my agenda. I don’t feel particularly social in the morning. Ever. I feel as though I’m in a vegetative state until about 11, and mostly just go through the motions of my day until that point. Being reassigned a task that I just read about at the beginning of my shift is unappealing to me at anytime, but even more so before lunch break.

My manager approached. I heard her feet shuffling on the other side of my cubicle and waited for the inevitable “SOOO Kim….” followed by instructions to complete this or that, or whatever. She asked if I had received the email with instructions to complete the aforementioned task. I replied that I had indeed. She reiterated everything that was in the email anyway.

I should probably explain the task before I go any further. A few weeks ago, I had been asked to create business card sized descriptions of the Year of the Rabbit in recognition of Chinese New Year. I was to use a predetermined description off the internet and include a picture of a golden rabbit. Apparently this year is special and different and unique because it’s the year of the golden rabbit, not a wooden rabbit or a grass rabbit or any other kind. So I went about my merry way, created these business card sized descriptions (keep in mind that the text I was to use was predetermined. Hand-picked by my boss herself. I was not to modify or change it, simply copy and paste and make it all fit on a business card sized piece of cardstock). I did what I was asked and proudly turned in the completed cards to my boss.

”Why is it so small?” she asked.

”It had to be to fit on the card,” was my reply.

It was two paragraphs of text. I had to use size 6 font to fit it on the business card, as instructed. It was small, but legible. It was also a giant pain to get it to all fit on, not be cut off, and get the picture of the rabbit on the card as well.

“Well make it bigger,” she stated.

I stood at attention, saluted, said “Aye, aye, boss” and returned to my work space.

I made the cards bigger and increased the font to a 10. They didn’t really fit well on the page and took a while to alter so that they all looked the same. I considered using the ever-professional Comic Sans font in a passive aggressive manner, but decided against it. My cards were approved on my second-go-round. Task complete.

I thought I’d never have to see those cards again after that day. I saved my work on the computer’s server so if she needed more, she could access them an print them herself. I got tasked again a week or so ago to make more cards: aka - print them. Today my task was to make more of these damn cards. However, today she wanted the company logo emblazoned on the back of the card “perfectly centered.”

I told her “No problem, I’ll do my best to centre it because of the size the descriptions had to be.”

Her reply, “Why aren’t they business card sized? That’s what I originally wanted.”

*Silence*

Nothing Beats Roof Climbing in the Floating City

Wed, 22 Sep 2010 13:17:55 -0700

My trip to Europe wasn’t anything like I expected. It was way more awesome. It opened up a whole new world and made me realize that I want to be a world explorer. I want to see everything, eat new food, and drink many many types of alcohol.

During my time in Italy, I was introduced to Grappa. It’s not good. It’s actually probably the worst alcohol I’ve ever had, aside from the aforementioned Absinthe and Everclear because those two are unnaturally disgusting. Basically what I’m saying is that for a 40% alcohol, this stuff was absolutely unbearable. However it was also very cheap. Needless to say, the exchange rate came and bit me in the ass anyway, and I almost cried when I saw my bank statement (and realized I was completely out of money in Prague)… But hey, I like to budget where I can and I figured I’d be able to handle the horrific taste of Grappa…

So for the duration of my time in Europe, I did a Contiki tour. Someone on the tour boldly stated that “If anyone did Contiki for a year straight, they’d probably die.” I can confirm this because I felt absolutely haggard after three weeks. I actually never puked while on Contiki, but on the third day, I had a stomachache so horribly bad that I was legitimately convinced I wouldn’t drink again on the tour. That was my own fault for staying up all night in Paris. Not because I was partying, but because it was so friggin cold that sitting by a bathroom heater was more appealing than sleeping in a freezing cold tent.

Yes, I said tent. We camped. And early May in Europe isn’t warm, let me tell you. It was decidedly more pleasant once we hit the French Riviera, Italy, and such but those first few nights were awful. The coldest place we hit was in the Swiss Alps, but luckily we got upgraded to a cabin for those nights; I’ve never been so thankful for shelter and the shower was probably the best thing in the world. The showers in Paris were fairly drafty and open, so the cold air kept blowing in *shudder.* Just thinking about it makes me cold. It’s hard to believe that we went from 6 degree weather to 30 degree weather in the span of 5 days. I got a cold, naturally.

In any case, the night in Paris was legendary, a story for another time. Venice was more legendary. First of all, I must add that all of our campsites were located out of the cities, so they were somewhat of a trek to get to. Therefore, staying in town to go to a bar or club at night resulted in a lengthy and often expensive cab ride back to our makeshift home. Except in Prague where there money is hilarious and worth far less than ours…

Venice was amazing. It was beautifully warm out, and we were warned before we got to the campsite that the bar there was fantastic, and since the weather was so nice it would be packed. We were not disappointed. The first night was a precursor to the ridiculousness that was about to unfold the following evening. Only a handful of us (out of tour group of 45) went to the bar that night; did some jagerbombs, and drank some Grappa. BLECH. I honestly think I’ll pass on any future opportunities to drink Grappa that might arise because the stuff is putrid. Things got a little crazy that night for a couple people on the tour. I kept it contained. Robin, however, did not. (Pics will be posted). I remember him talking about ‘casual drinks’ and sipping on a scotch on the rocks in a sophisticated manner… and less than an hour later, dancing shirtless on the table in the bar with Matt (another Contikier) and some kids who looked about 14 years old.

These kids didn’t speak English. They were from somewhere in Switzerland and spoke only French and German, and a few English words here and there. I don’t know how Robin communicated with them but soon after he did, the kids were also shirtless and rocking out on the table. Weird. Weirder unfolded shortly after. A gay couple entered the bar and joined the table fiesta, and they too were soon shirtless. At this point Robin noticed the awkwardness of the situation IE) Dancing shirtless with underage boys and a gay couple and proceeded to get off the table. Nevertheless, this was hilarious and watching it happen as an innocent (relatively sober) bystander made it even better.

It was shortly thereafter that some asshole told one of the 14 year olds that I thought he was hot. Let me paint a picture for you. This kid is about 6 feet tall, 250 pounds, and has a Justin Bieber haircut. He also didn’t understand English. I found out later that Matt had been the culprit and informed him of my desire for him through a series of points and pelvic thrusts. So I have this kid following me around, asking me questions I don’t understand, and saying unconjugated English phrases that don’t make sense. I fled.

I didn’t let the events of the previous night affect my BIG night in Europe. I think everyone on the tour had one huge night that resulted in them feeling like a total bag of shit the next day and this was mine; except I was seemingly immune to hangovers in Europe and it was awesome. I will briefly recap some of the big nights my fellow adventurers had:

1. Robbie Tallon - He actually had a couple of big nights. The first being in Florence when he got wasted at the Red Garter and ended up causing us to miss a cab because he ran down the street after some American girls. He then disappeared upon return to the campsite, came back with a rum and coke that he gave to me, then seemingly went trekking through bushes and shubbery. He awoke the next morning covered in scratches head to toe, unaware of his Mantracker-esque campsite techniques.

Robbie’s second big night is also worthy of mentioning, mostly because it was his birthday. We discovered that in Munich, Germany, one can purchase a wristband for 5 Euro that entitles them to access a variety of clubs, all contained in one fenced-off traffic-free area of the city. Of course we hit up that opportunity. Without spoiling too much of the story, Robbie ended up techno dancing and thinking he lost his camera. Another blog-worthy night.

2. Josh Wong - Most people on the Contiki would have listed Josh’s BIG night as number one on the tour. Why? Because he ended up in the hospital with drunk-related injuries. He was the only one on tour that ended up hospitalized. While it’s funny now, it certainly wasn’t at the time. What happened? Well, I didn’t witness it first hand but it was also in Florence… We went to the Red Garter for a karaoke night and they served extremely potent drinks using the ‘free pour’ method, so you never really know exactly how much booze you’re getting. They also had a happy hour thing that went until 10 p.m. and pitchers were unsafely cheap. Josh found out the unsafe part first hand. Sources say he drank three full pitchers of vodka cranberry, plus some other drink. In any case, he ended up wasted and running down the cobblestone streets of Florence toward the bus. He got his foot stuck in a stone and went down like a ton of bricks. His foot swelled up to the point that everyone thought it was broken. Off to the hospital. Josh arrives at the hospital, completely incoherent and yelling… the Italian hospital staff doesn’t understand him, the situation spirals downhill. Turns out our little Joshy boy had extremely high blood alcohol content. Tsk tsk. But he was back on his foot (pun!) in no time, and finished the tour.

3. Mariah Sherwood, Chloe Smith, Teja Delgado - These three had their big night at the five-story club in Prague. Essentially they got ultra wasted, partied all night, and caught the 6 a.m. train back to the campsite. Bravo ladies.

I must point out that all of the aforementioned individuals are Canadian. We truly do it up harder than anyone. I won’t deny that others had big nights but the biggest go in our honor. Sorry to anyone I missed.

My big night was in Venice. After a day of exploring the amazing floating city, we came back to a barbeque and each table had a jug of free red wine. There were eight tables in total. I sat with Robbie, Chloe, Teja, Mariah, and Lauren. We easily polished our jug, and then began receiving donations from other tables who preferred beer or something else to wine. People started systematically leaving the table due to the influx in mosquitoes, and soon there were just four of us drinking the wine. I would have stayed at that table through a mosquito storm for free red wine. Some people just don’t have their priorities straight. We ended up polishing about five jugs between us and were feeling pretty good and it was still happy hour at our campsite.

This is where the Grappa comes in. Another pal Marc and his fiance Julia showed up at the table with a 26 of Grappa in hand. He poured shots for all of us. It smelled awful but I’m not one to turn down shots. BAM! Awful. I did another one. I hit my limit at 3 but Amy (who you wouldn’t peg for it by looking at her) is a machine and downed many. She claimed she didn’t mind the bitter, disgusting flavour of the Grappa but I have no idea how this can possible be true.

Wine and shots completed, we realized it was still happy hour at our campsite. During happy hour, Bacardi Breezers are sold for 3 Euro for 2. So 1 Euro 50 each, which is awesome. Robbie and I each got four and powered them before going to the bar. Bacardi Breezers. Not just a man’s drink. Hmmmm…Off to the bar we went.

The bar was busy once again, and of course my 14 year old suitor was present. The following commenced, the nonsense words… I had no idea what this kid was talking about but sure as shit I wanted to kill Matt. Our tour manager James had come out this night, and he immediately saw what was unfolding between myself and this 14 year old Romeo. No idea what he said but the kid left me alone for the rest of the night. Mariah and I proceeded to do what we had deemed our signature Jagerbombs, and the night was back on track.

More table dancing and shots took place and soon we were back outside in the mosquito-infested air. I was doing my signature ‘interacting with everyone’ routine. The mix of wine, Grappa, Bacardi Breezers, and Jagerbombs made me feel super. Super enough that I deemed myself able to climb on the roof of the bar. Before you get too impressed, I must note that the roof wasn’t very high and was easily accessible by climbing on an adjacent booth. Any idiot could get on it. I don’t know why I was the only one that night.

In true Kim form, I had my brainstorm moment where I was silent, assessing the situation to determine if going on the roof seemed reasonable or absolutely ludicrous. I can’t remember a particular time when such an assessment actually resulted in me deeming an idea to be a bad one. Oftentimes I think such epitomes are awesome and end up carrying them out no matter the outcome. On the roof I went.

I don’t recall a struggle getting up there; like I said, it was pretty low and easy to get on. I’ve climbed way more challenging apparatuses in my time. My time on the roof was short-lived, however. Apparently I had made myself a safety risk and was being ordered by both bartenders to get down immediately. I told them that if they provided me with a jagerbomb on the roof, I’d get down. They declined. I didn’t budge. They told me if I didn’t get down, there’d be no more jagerbombs, period. (haha only in Europe do they threaten to cut you off from one particular drink). Tour Manager James climbed up and carried me off the roof. Fun over. Or was it?

I ended up being ‘allowed’ another jagerbomb and somehow ended up with some red drink that I left on the bar (a surprisingly good decision or I probably would have ended my yak-free streak). They closed the bar at 1:15 that night instead of 2:30-3… some people blamed my climbing on the roof, since I kept saying I was going to do it again. I don’t think that’s why, because I could have climbed up anyway, even with the bar closed. Instead, I decided I wanted to run along the top of a hedge.

These hedges were about 8 feet tall but I figured (I blame the Grappa) that I could run off the stairs, jump, and land on top of the hedges. The stairs weren’t that tall, and they weren’t remotely close to the hedges so this idea just flat out sucked. But I tried anyway. The only success I had with this drunken display was getting a stick in the stomach and giving myself a cut that scarred. At least I brought something memorable back from Europe, right?

It took me three tries to get into the right tent. I ended up shining a flashlight in three tents that weren’t mine and waking people up. I wasn’t that popular the next morning. I had been talking really loud at 3:30 a.m. as well. I woke up 3 hours later for our departure to Vienna. It was a long bus ride, and I slept most of it. The two nights in Vienna were quiet ones, and my liver thanked me for it.

Life Takes You Funny Places... And Lets You Bring Back Funny Alcohol

Fri, 17 Sep 2010 13:30:33 -0700

So essentially I haven’t posted in ages. The last time I wrote, I was upset that I was missing a night of fun in Sicamous with my friends back home in B.C. There still is a second part to my Nostalgic Moose story, and I intended to tell it when I posted next. However, so many amusing stories have unfolded in the meantime that I’d be doing the world a disservice to not immediately share them.

My life has changed immensely, and more entertaining, funny-when-drunk friends have entered it. More amazingly hilarious stories featuring the B.C. crew will unfold in the future, no doubt, especially when Jenn gets married in Mexico in May. Poor poor resort, not knowing what they’re getting themselves into by letting our group get all-inclusive packages. If I don’t end up behind the bar in a coconut bra with a pair of maracas, the trip wasn’t a success, as far as I’m concerned.

In any case, I’ve stayed in Sudbury and learned to deal with their over-abundance of Tim Horton’s locations, and under-abundance of Starbucks stores. I’ve moved into a house with Ashley, Blake, and Tyler. Tyler and I recently bought ourselves a puppy. His name is Zeke and he likes beer so he can stay as far as I’m concerned. The thing I like most about the three people I live with is that they also enjoy drinking and seem to think I’m funny when I do so. Anyone that approves of my braindead drunk humor is a winner in my books.

I also went to Europe this year. Eleven countries. My friend Robbie who did the Contiki tour with me was fairly surprised that I kept it somewhat contained on the trip… until Venice. But that’s a story in itself. What you need to know about my European adventure at this point is that we did a tour of an Absinthe factory in Vienna, Austria. This place sold every type of Absinthe and Absinthe-related products you could probably imagine. The real stuff with wormwood, etc., not that green crap they sell in liquor stores here. At the end of the tour we, of course, had the opportunity to buy Absinthe. This included a wooden box that came with a bottle of the strongest Absinthe, sugar, and an Absinthe spoon…

I learned something new at the factory. Apparently when one consumes Absinthe, the correct way to do so is by heating up sugar on the Absinthe spoon and pouring the alcohol through it into the shot glass. This makes it taste better, and apparently “causes it not to burn” when swallowed. However, being Canadian and having consumed Everclear Grain Alcohol (95% 190 Proof) on more than one occasion, I naturally assumed Absinthe was weak sauce and declined the opportunity to buy the set. I loudly declared to the rest of the group that I’d just shoot it straight. And last weekend, that is what I did.

First of all, I’d like to note that having a bottle of real Absinthe and a bottle of Everclear (both unopened) in the same house is a bad idea. There is absolutely no reason this is necessary, and should be strongly cautioned against. However, since I’m ridiculously entertaining at the best of times, I feel the need to have two abnormally potent bottles of booze on the bar.

Tyler’s been looking forward to opening the Absinthe since I unveiled it to him. Technically, it IS his… I brought it back for him. This past weekend was Blake’s birthday. The initial plan to unveil it was on my 26th birthday on August 2nd; but that ended up being a terrible day, I had a pulled back muscle (sure sign that I’m aging rapidly) and Tyler had mono. Awesome birthday. Therefore, we silently decided to forego the booze, and did the honors on Blake’s birthday instead.

I’m going to be honest, I wasn’t in the mood to party at first last Saturday. As Tyler so graciously put it, I was “genderly” sick. Too much information? Too bad. I stayed in bed till about 7:30 and then decided I was being lame and I should go mingle for a bit and have a “couple” drinks. A tactic that often doesn’t work well for me. I began with my signature 26 of vodka. Ashley was also drinking a 26 of vodka; I believe our other friend Chelsea may have been as well. I mingled a little and started drinking faster; typical Kim style.

I remember feeling a bit buzzed and telling some guy that Che Guevara was my hero, since he was wearing his picture on his shirt, and then Tyler and I proceeding to tell him about every piece of Che Guevara merchandise I acquired in Cuba and thereafter. I remember people watching Fubar. I remember Christine dropping by to say hi. I remember the shot glass crisis of earlier in the evening; where we discovered that for some reason we didn’t have any. Luckily Blake’s mom gave us some amethyst-colored goblets (which we initially mocked) that seemed to fill the void. I remember Ashley doing jagerbombs outside…

Most of all, I remember the decision to crack the Absinthe. Tyler had, in fact, come up to me early in the evening (before any of us were super trashed) and asked if it seemed like a good idea to drink some Absinthe later. Now that I’m reflecting on this question, it seems like a better answer would have been…Wait…Who am I kidding? Of course it was a good idea. Moving on…

The time was upon us. The decision to consume the Absinthe had been made and was about to be finalized. We were gathered around the bar. I was so drunk already that I only remember myself, Tyler, Ashley, Blake, Deacon, Chelsea, and Cody standing there. There were others, I’m sure of it. There were a wise few that didn’t partake in our adventure. I was not one of the wise, thankfully, otherwise the story would be far less comical.

Tyler felt compelled to measure the shots, and he did so in some disgusting, old, used, retired, plastic shot glass he found laying behind the bar. He rinsed it out, and that literally means he “rinsed it out” aka - ran a little bit of water through it that probably did absolutely nothing in terms of cleansing. Soon thereafter, the shots were ready. Fluorescent green, glowing. It appeared to be a warm, invited liquid. It smelled different, unlike anything we had experienced before. It tasted……absolutely horrible.

We all finished our shots, and literally a second after, all we saw was Blake running to the toilet to puke immediately. Tyler was in the midst of stating “Wow, that was so much worse than I thought…” and Blake was already on his knees with his head in the toilet. I don’t remember what I did, but I wandered off briefly and when I returned, Tyler was holding the Everclear in his hand, thrusting it toward the ceiling, making declarative statements about drinking it. For some reason, I felt cocky, grabbed the bottle and chugged a good amount (at least a shot, if not a little more) from it. I must have mentioned Everclear somewhere else in this blog, but if for some weird reason I didn’t, know this: it vaporizes immediately after drinking it.

Tyler and Deacon can also be bowed to, they did a shot as well. I honestly thought I was going to puke, so I immediately went to the washroom after taking the shot, but I didn’t puke. Instead, I broke the flapper chain on the inside of the toilet. From there, the state of our bathroom deteriorated beyond all recognition. We kept flushing the toilet using only the flapper until it clogged (everyone else ended up puking later on except Deacon and I so I’m sure that didn’t help either).

After I broke the chain, I decided to be industrious and see what was going on in the tank (like I have any idea how to plumb a toilet), so I took everything off the back except a glass air freshener filled with smelly bead things. Needless to say, the bead things went EVERYWHERE on the floor. I began scrambling to pick them up, and as I leaned over, I smacked my head on the side of the toilet tank.

I have no idea what happened after that. I woke up the next morning at 7:30 a.m. feeling like absolute shit, still fully clothed, and with a giant goose egg on my head. Tyler told me a couple hours later that I had a huge bruise. It took me a while to remember the toilet repair incident, but once I did, it all made sense. Turns out, Tyler had puked, but chosen the sink as his receptacle so it was filled with barf (and clogged beyond all hope with puke, crap, and a lot of my hair. gross).

Will I drink Absinthe again? Yes. Will I drink Everclear again? Yes. Both on the same night? Probably, and I hope the result is as entertaining.

Kim Out.

This picture is a precursor to The Nostalgic Moose Part 2.0...

Fri, 26 Mar 2010 10:36:00 -0700

This picture is a precursor to The Nostalgic Moose Part 2.0 Yes, there was booze. Yes, Jake got cut off at 10 p.m. Yes, there was karaoke. Yes, there was a random car.

The Nostalgic Moose Part 1.0

Fri, 26 Mar 2010 10:27:00 -0700

Recently Susan and Ryan returned from their year abroad. As mentioned in an earlier blog about the infamous Alberta Drinkathons, my world was shattered when they left and I basically had to carry on the legacy of Drinkathon alone in 2009. It was pretty much a summer-long endeavour, almost like I thought booze doesn’t exist in Ontario so I had to drink myself into a spiral so intense that I’d hate alcohol for 8 months and not care that I was living in a state similar to the 1930’s era of Prohibition. Clearly, I’m an idiot, and the nonsense hasn’t ceased one bit since my cross-country re-location.

Back to the story. Before moving back to Canmore, Alberta, Susan and Ryan spent some time in Sicamous with Susan’s mom, who we have refered to only as ‘Margie’ for as long as I can remember, and her wee dog, Paddy. I was, of course, jealous that I couldn’t attend since I’m in Ontario but instead of dwelling on that, I’ve decided to blog about times past in The Moose and all the trouble we’ve caused. Obviously, heading to somewhere that no one knows us is trouble all in itself but The Moose is an entirely different microcosm in Interior British Columbia. Things are legal there that aren’t anywhere else in the province; NAY, the country and I like it. Fireworks are readily available at every local corner store, booze can be purchased at the grocery store, and it seems that no one cares if I’m stumbling drunk and/or drinking on the street at odd hours, such as before sunset and close to sunrise. Two visits to Canmore stand out in my mind: One on Christmas Day 2007 and one on spring break, 2008. Both were epic; both were drunken, both separate blog posts.

I remember Christmas Day, 2007 clearly. We had planned to go out to Sicamous, since Susan and Ryan were there visiting Margie over the holidays. Jake didn’t want to go. I convinced him. Going was a good choice. This round was a Kim & Jake only trip, but no less legendary without the other Happy Tree Friends (Jenn & Rob). However, the trip started off grim. Sicamous is about a two-ish hour drive from Kamloops (depending on how much we speed, obv.) and I realized about an hour in that I had forgotten my alcohol. No big deal because we could just stop along the way at one of the many cold beer and wine stores that litter south central B.C., right? WRONG! Christmas Day, people…And although I know there was at least one liquor store that was open in Kamloops (for the hardcores *cough*cough*), there were none ready and waiting for business along the highway to Sicamous.

Naturally, Jake figured that Margie would have some liquor at her place, and assured me that if she didn’t, the night wouldn’t be a total loss anyway. I was unconvinced. Images flashed through my mind of a sober night with my two drunk friends, and Margie who might also be drunk, as they laughed at nonsense and rolled around on the floor while I flipped through bad Christmas specials on t.v., unenthused. For the record, I’m not sure of the last time that any of my friends actually ‘rolled on the floor’ while drunk but I know I’ve done it so I’m trying to make it out that I’m not the only drunk loser to do this for some stupid ass reason while over the age of 16. So I sulked the rest of the ride, throwing out various “What if?” statements. I think I might have even suggested turning around at one point. Jake refused, naturally. I was still in the midst of my “I HATE BEER!” phase or else I’m sure Jake would have graciously donated 4 or 5 of his 24 pack of Kokanee.

We arrived and I literally beelined into the house in search of alcohol. My greeting was probably something along the lines of “HIIFORGOTBOOZEHOWAREYOUINEEDBOOZEISTHEREANYHEREICANDRINKPLEEEASE?”

Margie directed me to a cabinet and presented me with a bottle of wine, along with a disclaimer “I don’t know how long it’s been in there.” Now, I’ll drink a lot of things. I have drank a lot of things. I’ve made shit mixes with everything imaginable in them. I’ve licked vodka off a wooden serving platter, jager off a bar, and tequila off of other people. But when I went to open this bottle of wine, the cork literally crumbled into the bottle. I considered straining it. I considered drinking the cork. I considered putting a sive-like contraption on the mouth of my bottle to catch most of the cork that was sailing around inside my bottle. My friends talked me out of all these ideas, mostly because the wine smelled quite similar to vinegar and arsenic. They were certain I’d die or at least vomit profusely if I decided to ingest it.

My hope crumbled. I was spending Christmas sober with a bunch of drunkies. Susan and Ryan offered to share a bit of their Fireball, but they had a limited quantity, so it was unfair to seize the bottle and slam it. I’m a lot of things, but I’m not a quitter. I think that what I did next is an excellent example of my perseverance, a skill that will ultimately make me successful in the long run. I literally scoured every single one of Margies cupboards. I was certain she must be harboring a vast stash of alcohol somewhere. And I needed it. I NEEDED IT. (I’m being a bit dramatic, but I’m sure you all knew that). Low and behold, what did I find? Some plastic wrap, parchment paper, a turkey baster (hehe), some plastic thingee for washing dishes….ANNNNNNND: A bottle of Baileys and a bottle of rum, both over half.

I was in business! Margie gave me her blessing to drink the alcoholic jackpot I had found, again claiming “I don’t know how long that’s been in there OR where it came from…” (yeah right)…but I figured since rum doesn’t go bad (does it?) I’d be fiiiine. Essentially we sat around, bullshitted, played some SlapJack, and drank, until we got the wonderful idea while we were loaded to go explore Sicamous. I was feeling a good buzz. Enough to do basically anything that seemed entertaining that was suggested to me, but not a stumbling, slurring mess. In other words, we were going to wreck havoc.

Sicamous is pretty small, but it’s big enough that causing mischief and escaping incarceration is definitely possible, especially around midnight on Christmas Day. The walk started out pretty uneventful, but things looked up when we found a stationary train car in the town center lit up with Christmas lights. What better way to be festive than to rearrange the light pattern? Being an experienced train climber (see Blog Post about Jumping Trains) I led the brigade in climbing on to the train and ultimately destroying the light pattern some poor, dedicated Sicamous employee probably spent hours creating. Was my light pattern better? Absolutely not. But it was definitely more creative in that instead of lining the rails of the train, I chose to basically net the conductor statue in ALL the lights so it looked like a giant, lit up web wrap. I bet that was a bitch to take off. Sorry to whomever had to do that.

Next up: we find a wide open readerboard sign. What does this mean? Well, friends, I’ll tell you. This means that we could switch around the letters. The messages we wrote required about a grade 4 mentality and consisted of nonsense such as “I smell poop” and “Bums are furry.” But hey, we had to work with the letters available to us. After about two to three hours worth of work, most of the signs in the Sicamous business area had ridiculous, some obsence, messages. Merry Christmas, Sicamous. I’m actually surprised we didn’t get caught during our sign changing spree. If it hadn’t been Christmas Day (well, shortly thereafter by now), 1 in the morning, or winter, getting caught and stopped in our mischief-making tracks would have been a guarantee.

Since we didn’t get caught, it was almost an open invitation to keep creating nonsense. Something you should know is that Sicamous is the Houseboat Capital of Canada. Lame you say? WRONG! Awesome. Especially in the winter when all the houseboats are docked in basically the center of town. All of the houseboats also have slides. You guessed it, we went wintertime houseboat sliding. All the slides and ladders were covered in snow but that didn’t stop us. I remember going feet first, headfirst, backward; and all the while sipping my noxious rum and whatever combination from a Fitness Water bottle. I don’t know how long we were sliding for but I distinctly remember hearing Susan yell “FUCK ME!” At first I thought we were busted and imagined calling my mom from a one-cell jail in Sicamous on Christmas explaining that I was in shit for breaking and entering a houseboat yard for the purpose of sliding. The situation was far less critical. Susan hit her tailbone on the end of the slide and claimed she was paralyzed. Someone must have heard her yell because we distinctly heard someone shout “That’s private property” before we escorted ourselves out of the yard. The only thing that ensued after that was listening to Susan whine for literally the entire walk back to Margie’s place. She was sure she shattered it. The walk felt like an enternity. The next visit to Sicamous was far more legendary…

CENTURION!!!!!!!!!

Sat, 27 Feb 2010 18:48:55 -0800

We’ve all heard of it. Most of us have probably tried it. Some have been successful, others may have failed. The Centurion. You may know it by another name, but it’s the same awesome challenge that’s been undertaken by daring binge drinkers near and far time and time again. What is it I’m talking about you may be asking? 100 minutes. 100 shots of beer. It’s that simple. While it may not sound like a lot, don’t be fooled fellow partiers, it’s a hefty amount.

I first got the idea to do the Centurion from my ex-roommate Sabrina’s ex-boyfriend. He decided to attempt it at our apartment one night for seemingly no reason, undertook the tremendous feat by himself, ended up dancing around to Mr. Roboto like a fool and puking in our kitchen sink around 75 or so. Centurion unsuccessful.

I wish I could claim that my attempt at the Centurion ended more successfully than Paul’s, but it definitely didn’t. Mostly because the idea to attempt it popped into my head when I was already half cut and it was decided we’d do the Centurion….with rum. Terrible idea you say? I agree.

It was a Sunday night. I wasn’t doing anything except sitting around the apartment in sweat pants and a t-shirt, being responsible because I had to work at 10 the next morning. My attempts at keeping life low key were thwarted when a couple of friends showed up, alcohol in hand. No big deal, I figured, I’ll just have a couple ‘social’ drinks. This probably could have been the case except Susan showed up unexpectedly from Alberta on a surprise visit….

Immediately upon her arrival, I remembered that I had a fairly full 40 of rum in my fridge. Out it came. Nothing like a surprise visit to get a party started. I remember sitting around the table, bullshitting, wearing sweat pants and a pink fuzzy fedora. Susan was also wearing some ridiculous hat for most of the night. They must have inspired our creativity or something, because an hour or so into our drinking was when the idea to start the Centurion hit. I distinctly remember saying “we don’t have beer but rum should be fine.” Seriously. Why don’t people stop me when I have these ideas?

In any case, out came the shot glasses and the rum started flowing. I remember counting to 18 when things started getting extremely hazy. I vaguely remember being fairly obnoxious and yelling about a thing or two. I remember cooking a random bag of microwavable vegetables. I remember getting bored with aforementioned vegetables in about 2.5 seconds and abandoning them. But most of all, I remember Susan and I getting the bright idea to go to the liquor store and buy more booze.

Was our 40 of rum empty? I have no idea. But we decided we needed more. Perhaps we actually had the false idea in our heads that we actually were going to complete the Centurion using rum. Not even a quarter of a way there, completely wasted, and still believing in ourselves. That’s what I call troopers. I remember snow on the ground, but I could be making that up in my head to add imagery to the story, I’m not sure. In any case, as I recall, there was snow on the ground and we decided to walk to the liquor store that was just across the street from my apartment. However, as soon as we were outside and crossing the street (jaywalking, I might note. Because crosswalks are for losers), we both decided we had to pee. We contemplated going into Wendy’s which was literally 15 feet from where we were standing, but that’s where I had to work the next morning at 10 and the manager didn’t take kindly to us coming in drunk, especially after our friends were caught red handed drinking in the dining room, were associated with having a hand in spilling a ranch sauce and smushing it into the carpet, and who can forget the infamous OE bottle that ended up smashed in the parking lot. Needless to say, through years of experience, we realized it was a good idea to stay far, far away from Wendy’s while drinking.

There were literally no other businesses open for us to use the washroom at. Granted, it was about 10:30 at night and with the liquor store closing at 11, we had only one goal in mind: more booze. So we decided to pee on the meridian. I remember something cold touching my butt. Whether it was snow (as I steadfastly believe was on the ground) or the concrete, I have no idea. Either way, it was unpleasant. I should add that this street we were crossing, Columbia Street, is one of the busiest in Kamloops. And there we were, pants down, peeing on the meridian as traffic went by. How we’ve gone 25 years without spending a night in the drunk tank is beyond me.

After relieving ourselves, we carried on toward the liquor store. Whoever sold us the 26 we ended up with that night should be FIRED. We were trashed and that 26 ended up leading to a very confusing night, and a very shitty next day.

I actually have no idea what happened after that. No idea what so ever. It’s like ‘The Hangover’ when the next thing I remember is hazily waking up in an awkward spot. In this case, I woke up to the sound of Sabrina’s voice saying “Kim are you alright?” while she banged on the bathroom door and realized I was sitting, fully clothed, in a cold shower. I literally climbed into the bathtub in all my clothes and turned on the shower. The reason at first was unclear until I saw that I had puked absolutely everywhere. My bed was covered. Apparently I had gone back to the frozen microwavable vegetables at some point, possibly in attempt to soak up some of the liquor I had ingested. Regardless, there were peas and carrots everywhere. I’ll spare the details.

Even more confusing than figuring out exactly when I went from being ok-hammered to borderline alcohol poisoning hammered was the fact that Jenn was passed out on my couch and had apparently come to drink with us at some point. Apparently when Sabrina walked in, Susan was on the kitchen floor, Jenn on the couch, and I was taking a clothes shower. And Sabrina got home at 1:30 which means that the only plausible explanation is that everything went downhill after buying that 26 around 11.

I found the 40 bottle and 26 bottle sitting on the counter, mocking me. Apparently we finished both. What a bad life choice that was. I made it to work for 10 but was so hungover, I apparently reeked of booze and couldn’t stand up without wanting to die so I got sent home and told to come back in the afternoon.

I learned a lesson this time. The Centurion is evil and should never be attempted again. At least not with rum. I bet I could do it with wine…

Kim's High Point of Summer Hilarity: And the Aftermath

Fri, 04 Sep 2009 12:35:00 -0700

I’m back after my summer long hiatus, bitches. And I’ve returned with plenty of new material, and have also been reminded of some old material, which I can use during those times I feel reminiscent. But first, I must vent that there are 18 Tim Hortons locations in Sudbury, Ontario…and one Starbucks, which is a kiosk inside Chapters and not within convenient walking distance of where I live. I have had zero good Starbucks beverages since I left Calgary on my way out here.

So there were many good times this summer, which ranged anywhere from nights at the Max, to floating down the river, to camping in the boonies and deciding that swimming 3 kilometers to an island was a good idea only to feel dizzy and end up with sore ears afterward, to attending a Kamloops GALA (Gay and Lesbian Association Party), to getting drunk in the mid-afternoon in Kelowna in 40 degree heat on the Carlos O’Brian’s patio, to going to Castlegar for no particular reason and drinking at THE (Read: ONLY) night club, to endless nights at Cactus Jack’s, to getting hammered at the one and only football game I went to watch in Kamloops and then taking the party to the bar…yes, it was a summer of endless nonsense.

One night, however, stands out above the rest in terms of me making a total ass of myself and annoying the shit out of my co-workers the following day. It was the weekend early in July that Ceire came up to visit. Now, these nights are generally messy, but this one was the worst of all time. I don’t know how I managed to not fall off the 4 inch pink stiletto heels I was wearing, but I deem myself a pro. The night started like every other when Ceire comes to town; dinner out (I think we actually went to Milestone’s instead of Earl’s this time), followed by pre-drinking at Katie’s place. Well we bought a 26 of Finlandia and began drinking. That coupled with the drinks at dinner and the 2 vodka Rockstars I drank while getting ready resulted in a pretty buzzed Kim before heading down to CJs.

So, we got to the bar and someone came up with the marvelous idea to see how much I can actually drink in a night before I pass out or puke. This meant actually keeping track, which is scary since I usually just wake up feeling like crap and with an empty wallet. And it began…We bypassed the inevitable line thanks to my lovely friend Jon who always works on Saturdays as a bouncer at CJs and therefore can’t share these joyous drunk experiences with me like he used to. Arriving at CJs before midnight gets you a free drink ticket, so we cashed that in immediately and one of the bartenders gave us some shots along with our drinks which was an excellent (yet terrible) way to start the evening.

We moved along and I ran into some more people I knew who bought us some shots. It dawned on me at this moment that half my problem in regard to hangovers is because of the fact that when people buy me shots, I don’t specify what I’m drinking and end up with a shit mix of whatever in my stomach, which is generally terrible. Sour Jacks are definitely the worst and I recall drinking at least a couple of these that night. There were two nights this past summer that I turned down alcohol due to being too drunk, and this night was not one of them.

The night soon turned into a whirlwind of bluriness and drunken nonsense. I vaguely recall having some stupid incoherent conversations with people. I’m sure I made some friends; I’m sure I pissed some people off. But what did it matter? I was having a blast. The weird thing is, I don’t know who the hell I was hanging out with because Ceire and Katie do not factor in most of the memories I have of that night. Katie said after this that she wasn’t with Ceire for most of the night either. Oh well, we all made it out alive.

In any case, Elisha and Mike Warrington, two co-workers of mine arrived at the bar later in the evening and heard of my glorious plan to see how much I could drink. It was about 12:30 or 1 at this point in my life and I’d had about 20 ounces thus far. I was feeling great and should have stopped. But I didn’t. Mike apparently bought like 8 Jagerbombs between 5 of us, and one was supposed to be for Ceire but she either declined or mysteriously disappeared, I can’t remember. But of course, being the good Samaratin that I am, offered to drink hers. There was Mike, Elisha, and I and then two bartenders that we knew, who started drinking with us, which was hilarious. So I polished off the two Jagerbombs and noticed there was still one left, so I did that too. I’m fairly sure everyone at the bar cheered for me at this point because I remember making a big deal out of the fact that I was going to chug some Jagerbombs and then I remember cheering. Then I remember Elisha buying me a Holy Water type shot. Then I remember…Jon leading me into Cam’s car to go home.

Cam says I passed out in the car and slept the entire way to his house, drank some water when I got there and was KO’d. But this wasn’t before I told him I had finished the night with a count of 32 ounces of booze. I’m actually not proud of that, I think it might be somewhat dangerous to consume that much alcohol for a person of my size.

I woke up the next morning, for the first time in my life, actually genuinely confused about where I was. I asked out loud “HOW DID I GET HERE?” and then realized everything was ok. I made a good life choice, calling Cam for a ride home, otherwise who knows where the road would have taken me. I had some pretty random texts in my cell from the night before, all indicating potential bad life choices I could have made. I worked at 11:30 the next day, and Cam started at 11 so he drove me home before his shift and I actually didn’t feel that bad at that point, because I was obviously still drunk.

I rolled into work at 11:30, STILL drunk and feeling displaced and incoherent as to what was going on around me. I managed to be okay until about 2 when I started feeling like absolute shit. This was a new phenomenon for me, I mean, I’d been hungover at work before, but never to the extent that I was that day. Dizzy, sweaty, I genuinely felt like I was going to die. And then it happened for the first time in my life…I barfed at work.

But it wasn’t just a little bit, it was like full on projectile vomiting. It SUCKED. I felt a bit better after round 1 and went back to work, but I knew it wasn’t over. Round 2 was even worse, mostly because there was nothing left in my stomach so a lot of horrible dry heaving ensued. I begged to go home, but my evil managers spawned from the clutches of Satan and felt that I should pay for my sins the night before and made me stay. I tried to tell them it was a cleanse, but no one was buying it and every time I ran to the back to puke, I could see them (no names mentioned) getting more and more pissed off. In retrospect, it’s funny, but that day I wanted a meteor to descend upon earth and crush Wendy’s more than anything. Just so I could die, or go home if I made it through the natural disaster. It was the longest shift of my life. I finally stopped puking around 5, and worked the last 2 hours feeling tired, shitty, angry, bitter, and resenting my decision to find out how much I can drink.

Every other hangover I experienced during the summer paled in comparison to that one. Worst day after drinking ever. And I’m not sure I can qualify the statement that I can drink 32 ounces of alcohol since I barfed so profusely the next day. However, in my defense, if I hadn’t had to work, and just slept it off, I think I would have been alright.

Kim in Vancouver: The Finale

Tue, 26 May 2009 19:00:00 -0700

As I said, I rarely went out in Vancouver because of the inevitable hassle it presented. Not to mention that between the program at school and my job at Starbucks, I was pretty busy most of the time (for more on this, see post: The Canucks Lose, But I Win). The last week I was there, I decided that I’d been a hermit long enough and it was time for me to grace the City of Vancouver with my always entertaining drunken presence. How the night life had survived without it is beyond me.

My last night there (I feel slightly nostalgic as I tell this tale) began at the BCIT dorms, where my roommate Shane and I were joined by one of my co-workers, Lillian and her husband, and then later by Tyler and Lu (two more roommates) and Sari (another co-worker). I hadn’t eaten much that day but that didn’t register in my one-track “let’s get drunk” mind. I began pouring blueberry vodka/waters like they were going out of style! If there’s anything I should have learned through my years of drinking and drunken nonsense experiences, it’s that I should always eat first. Nothing good ever comes of nights when I don’t. Ever. But at the very least, they make for amusing stories.

I noticed shortly after I began drinking that Tyler wasn’t around. It was his idea to go out to begin with, so where was he?

A side note about Tyler: I think he secretly hates drinking. For some unknown reason, he can’t drink much and I have my strong suspicions that he doesn’t enjoy it anyway. Confirm/Deny, Tyler?

I went and banged on the door to his room, ultra obnoxiously, but he didn’t answer so a few minutes later I decided to call him. To my surprise and utter dismay, he was SLEEPING! I don’t know how he didn’t hear me banging on his door, but that’s besides the point. This was the time for drinking, not the time for sleeping!

Tyler came upstairs shortly after and I was glad because it was time to get this drunken ball rolling, and I had ordered pizza upon realizing that I felt slightly tipsy after only three drinks (yikes!) so I figured I should eat at least a little bit. The two slices of pizza I ended up having didn’t prove to be enough to nullify my assholery for the night. But nonetheless, prior to it’s arrival, I was extra excited like I always am for food.

While I had polished off at least three or four vodka/sodas and everyone else had a drink or two, including Lu who had been getting ready and had a shower beer, Tyler hadn’t started drinking yet and he had been up for at least five to ten minutes. As precious time ticked by, Tyler didn’t go for booze. Instead, he whipped himself up a good ol’ 9 p.m. protein shake! He did have a drink or two after finishing the shake since Lu and I harassed him about getting into the party mood. In retrospect, it’s probably a good thing he had that shake before going out. Or maybe it wasn’t…I’ll let you be the judge of that.

After a few more drinks, it was time to go out. Lillian’s husband recommended we go to Lotus, and he had to “take care of business” there. My mind immediately raced to thoughts of drug dealing and other scandalous activity, but apparently he just had to drop off a CD. Far less exciting than I had hoped for. I really wanted to hit up Granville Street and check out the club scene there, since there’s always more people for me to befriend and more attention to be had, but consensus said: Let’s go to Lotus. We decided to take the bus to the SkyTrain and then head downtown that way. I was immediately opposed to this idea, since public transit makes me angry at life. Always full of “those people” preaching about something or handing out pamphlets about things I’ll never attend nor do I care about. Or the dreaded situations where “that person” talks to you and makes you most uncomfortable as you contemplate getting off immediately and switching buses or trains to avoid making Level One conversation with “that person” any longer. I was determined not to sulk that night, though. It was my last night in Vancouver and I refused to turn into a clone of an America’s Next Top Model contestant, crying and feeling sorry for myself when absolutely nothing in my life sucked. Also against my case was the fact that everyone else thought taking public transit was a great idea so I poured myself another vodka/soda and chugged it to mentally prepare myself for what transit could potentially have in store.

By the time the bus came, my last drink had hit me full throttle and it was I who was “that person” on public transit. Yelling obnoxiously and creating a giant scene, singing random songs off-key and horribly. Talking to people and complimenting them on random pieces of their outfits or hairdos, some extremely sarcastically and others with a grain of sincerity. I must have pissed off a few people at best. I noticed that everyone else in our group sat at the front of the bus, presumably to give the general public they impression that I was crazy and there were not in any way associated with me. Lu and I, who were clearly the loudest of the bunch, headed directly to the back in an immediate pursuit to make friends and to make a scene.

During the bus ride from the dorm to the SkyTrain, I mostly just yelled about nothing and sang. Once I saw that Sari and Lillian were sitting with another employee from the hotel at the front of the bus, I decided to have a conversation with her (which was mostly one-sided) from the back of the bus, telling her how great it was that we were going out and attempting to persuade her to join us. My attempts, which were mostly incoherent, went unrewarded and she headed off on an Eastbound SkyTrain while I was Westbound and was sure to let everyone within a 10 Block radius of me know it.

Once in the SkyTrain station, I decided it was an excellent idea to start talking to the Transit Police, and to tell them how great it was that they were serving and protecting me. I received a few requests from the group to stop my nonsense and just get on the train, but those Transit Police liked me, I know it. After I got on the platform, I began declaring my love for everyone on the Eastbound Train, including the girl who worked with us at the hotel. Everyone seemed to be quite responsive to my declarations of admiration for each and every one of them and I recall seeing smiles and waves coming from the train, which filled me with glee. I could have conveniently neglected to see a passenger or two attempt to throw a projectile at me and miss, but I’d like to think I was the star of the SkyTrain Show that night.

After getting on the train, my nonsense didn’t stop. It also didn’t slow down. It went full speed ahead and I started talked to every person in our train car. I found out one guy was from Scotland and headed to a party, annnnnd that’s about all I remember. Everyone else’s stories must have been dull because Lu and I decided the car we were in was boring, as we loudly declared, and ran into another car at the next stop. The next car was actually significantly more lively, which made me like transit a little more than I had an hour earlier. A group of guys in the car were also going to Lotus and I guess I felt some intangible bond between us because of it, since I seem to have deemed it necessary to tell them all about the reasons I didn’t like going out in Vancouver nor did I like taking the SkyTrain. I said hi to a lady that was sitting with her boyfriend and she gave me a death stare. Any ordinary person would have cut their losses and realized that lady didn’t want to be friends, but not me. I just decided that I had to “break down her barriers” and eventually she would see that I’m like Spanx: Uncomfortable at first, but after you get used to them, you wonder how you ever lived without them.

As I walked back in forth inside the train, greeting new passengers at each stop and saying goodbye to everyone who got off, I was sure to express my dismay for the fact that this lady wasn’t my friend every time I was within earshot. I also decided that loudly yelling Journey songs was a way to entertain not only myself but those around me. I don’t know what it was; my undying devotion to being friendly to everyone in the train, my singing, or my declarations that not having this woman’s approval were chipping away at my self esteem, but the woman finally smiled at me and laughed when I told a lame joke. “What’s red and goes up and down?” “A TOMATO IN AN ELEVATOR” har har har. I’m a regular comedian. My stop came sooner than it seemed to when I’ve taken the train sober mid-day. All the passengers staying on the train said goodbye to me, and I made my grand exit yelling some ridiculous farewell statement as I got off. I was a hit.

We headed in the direction of Lotus and all I remember saying for the entire walk is that there would be a line at the bar. No one really seemed to take me seriously, and I can’t really blame them because I had been saying dumb shit all night, but we arrived at the bar and there was a massive line. Lotus, like I said, is far from the other bars in downtown Vancouver but there’s two other bars directly beside it, Lick and Honey. Lick, as you can probably infer from the name, is a lesbian bar. I did not want to go there. I wasn’t showing enough cleavage, it would have been a lose/lose situation. I’d been to Honey once before but I didn’t like it and couldn’t remember why. In any case, getting to the other bars was a long ass walk and would have required us to get back on the SkyTrain or take a cab. Consensus says: Stay and go to Honey.

There were only about 4 or 5 people ahead of us waiting to go in, but the wait still seemed like an eternity. I mean, they don’t serve liquor outside the bar. I like Mexico because you can drink on the streets. That’s besides the point.

We got in maybe ten minutes after we got there and I was immediately reminded as to why this bar didn’t rank high on my list of favorite places to get intoxicated. They played Oldies. I’m a total Top 40 type of person. I can’t get enough Flo Rida. Something about Sugar Sugar and The Twist doesn’t get me in the mood to party. Oh well. We had gone too far, it was time to pump up the jam and just get drunker to bear with the music.

A couple vodka sodas, a vodka redbull, a jagerbomb, and a liquid cocaine later and the place seemed alright. Mostly because when I get drunk, borderlining on Loser Pissed, my attention span becomes similar to that of a hummingbird. Plus I started having to pee every two seconds and whatever genius designed Honey decided that only two bathroom stalls would be sufficient in a ladies washroom. Small bathrooms in bars piss me off, but TWO STALLS!? I should have just peed behind the cushions on the giant lounge couch we had staked claim on! Perhaps it would have been the incentive needed to add a stall or ten.

After bathroom trip number 50, I made some shocking observations: Tyler was MIA, Lu was off dancing, Sari had gone home because the last SkyTrain leaves Vancouver at 1, Lillian was texting, and Shane was still drinking. But where was Tyler? Shane told me Tyler was “really drunk” and had run off the bathroom. I don’t remember seeing Tyler again for the rest of the night, although I’m sure I did at some point. I remember dancing a little with Lu toward closing time, and I remember a brief conversation with Lillian about an after hours club called Gorgomesh. After hearing about this glorious place where I could party until 7 in the morning, I decided that Shane, Lu, and I HAD to go. Lillian was going to wait for her husband outside; remember he had gone to Lotus to drop off a demo of sorts; and Lillian graciously said she’d wait with Tyler outside and make sure he got home okay, since he was beyond done and there would be no after hours partying for him. She told me the next day that he puked on the sidewalk.

There’s a blank spot for a little while between closing time at Honey and where I start remembering us walking and if someone could fill me in, I’d be forever grateful. I could have done something amusing or legendary and can’t remember, thus detracting from my story! Lu and Shane were the only ones with me at this point and the thoughts that linger in my mind are those of Lu complaining her shoes hurt and Shane doing some silly walk. I was probably just yelling randomly about anything and everything as I tend to do.

Anyway, I remember leaving the club and then I remember us walking around a corner and seeing a 7-11. We had decided to walk to Gorgomesh despite the fact that none of us had ANY idea where it was and Lillian had warned us that it was expensive to get into and a long way away. Upon seeing the 7-11 sign gleaming in the night, we decided that Gorgomesh was a silly idea and loading up on junk food was a much better one. We walked into 7-11 and what I saw next made me laugh out loud.

Apparently some drunken fool had bought nachos and spilled them all over the floor. That’s not really funny. But the worker was trying to sweep up cheese sauce off the floor into a dustpan. The corn broom was creating horrible cheese sauce smears across the linoleum and turning it a horrendous shade of burnt orange. Oh geez…the things some people do. I ended up buying a bag of chips and a water, and Lu got an entire box of Pizza Pops. While I was waiting for her to microwave them, I guess I decided that since I had already paid for two items, it was buy 2 get 2 free night because I took a Drumstick ice cream thing and a container of candies. I would declare that at this point, I was loser pissed and had absolutely no inhibitions what so ever. Where the hell was Lance at this point? (see The Canucks Lose, But I Win for more about the lovely Sir Lancealot)

So low and behold, Lu microwaved the entire box of pizza pops while they were still in the box and plastic wrappers, lololol…which is one of the funniest things I’ve seen in quite a while. We went outside and hailed a cab New York style and the cabbie immediately put a stop to our shenanigans as I stared at him, sloppily licking my stolen Drumstick. I looked next to me and Lu was holding three pizza pops in her hand with no napkin of any sort, and Shane was devouring Mojo Fries, a whole plate of them. The Cabbie told us he wouldn’t take us unless we put our food in the trunk. Thinking I was being ultra sneaky, I shoved my open ice cream into my purse; an action that I would regret full heartedly the next day. Lu and Shane obediently put their food in the trunk, but I was hungry and I’m pretty sure having the Drumstick melt all over the trunk would have been a much worse life choice than completely covering the inside of my purse in chocolate. At least the latter didn’t cost me anything other than my dignity and some laundry detergent.

I hid behind the drivers seat and ate my Drumstick on the ride back to Burnaby. I don’t remember what we talked about, all I remember thinking that I should have taken a milk chocolate Drumstick instead of a dark chocolate one and then throwing my wrapper out the window (I’m horrible: a thief and a litterbug!) and then my memory jumps to trying one of Shane’s Mojo Fries when we got back to the dorms, which were so old and cold by that point that they were actually hollow… and super disgusting, can’t leave out that detail.

I didn’t puke that night but I passed out in my clothes immediately after we got back to the dorms, and spent my last night in my dorm bed drunk as drunk can be. We got home at about 4:30 and I woke up 5 hours later with a horrible headache, the spins, Rum Bum, and gummy candies stuck to my face and all over my bed. The worst part? I had to move out that day. I begrudgingly dragged my ass over to the gym and bought a Gatorade, which is like my hangover Kryptonite, and it gave me enough energy to get all the stuff out of my dorm room and into my car. I made the three hour drive to Kamloops without any issues except discovering the chocolate mess on the inside of my purse, which I had completely forgotten about. I pulled my sunglasses out to find they were covered in chocolate. All my coins were coated in chocolate also, as was my brush. Damn bad drunken decisions to hell!

It’s almost as though the magical effects of the Gatorade wore off as I arrived home because I started feeling like an absolute bag of shit. But regardless of that, I made my mark on the City of Vancouver. And Tyler made it home safely, aside from the sidewalk barf. I think he felt worse than I did the next day. My only regret is not buying a bigger water the night before because my mouth was drying than the Sahara. But I sure am glad I didn’t get a hotdog…the rum bum would have been upgraded to a Level 5 Global Alert if I had.

Susan, Kim, Sabrina. Sabrina and I truly look nothing alike....

Thu, 21 May 2009 01:27:36 -0700

Susan, Kim, Sabrina.

Sabrina and I truly look nothing alike. READ ON!

Sidewalk Swimming Lessons! Line Up Here!

Thu, 21 May 2009 01:19:10 -0700

So this story takes place in two parts. The first part being the time I got my precious fake I.D. snatched from my grasp, and the second part being the time I was mad because I was 18 and prohibited from entering a drinking establishment I had patronized so many times before. My anger resulted in me acting like a complete tool for attention, as per usual.

Let the story begin.

When I was 18, I lived with a roommate, in an apartment, which was probably a bad idea since I was extremely unproductive and drank far more than any human should on a weekly basis. (See the beer bonging a mickey of Captain Morgan’s story for proof on this allegation.) But regardless of my reckless drinking activities and several eviction warnings, I prevailed and never got evicted nor did I end up with alcohol poisoning. I also managed to show up for work everyday, on time, with a uniform on. No comment on my physical or mental state, however. Chalk one up for me.

Side Note: My roommate is one of my favorite people in the world. Last I heard, she and her boyfriend had moved to Lethbridge, Alberta but I haven’t heard from her lately which makes me super sad because Sabrina is great.

Back to the story. When Susan, Jenn, and I were about 17, we decided that the bar was a new and exciting world we had to become acquainted with. Back in these ancient times, the British Columbia Department of Motor Vehicles was presumably run by monkeys because altering an I.D. was as simple as buying a silver craft pen from Michael’s. Susan perfected the art of licence alterations and could expertly change the 4 in 84 to a 1 so we were instantly 20. She even changed the “U” in Jenn’s June birthday so it said “JAN” since Jenn needed a quick alteration in early 2003. So she happily altered our I.D.’s so that we could frequent a club called Rivers which, TRAGICALLY, no longer exists. All was well and the bar was immense amounts of fun until morality reared it’s ugly head.

I was 18 when I got rid of my N. What the hell is an N? I’ll translate: Graduated licencing. We lucky souls here in B.C. get to start with an L at the ripe age of 16, eventually do a road test and graduate to an N, then get a “real licence” after 18 months of driving around with a telltale bright green N stuck to the back of the car. This also meant a crisis for us renegades who altered our licences with art store pens because the evil souls at the Motor Vehicle Branch *gasp* shredded the old licence when we passed the road test to get rid of the lame N. My mom booked me a road test to get rid of my N. This was horrible; practically the end of the world. SO BAD that I wanted to resist getting a grown up licence until I was actually 19 because my beautifully altered licence was about to be shredded and replaced with a new *BIGGER GASP* alteration-proof one that, and I quote, “ELIMINATED FRAUD.” BAHHHH! This meant the time and experimenting we had done with craft pens from Michael’s was no longer applicable. Susan was an expert in a dying trade. She may as well have taken up blacksmithing. The new licence had our birth year emblazoned in the corner in GIANT numbers so the “84” stood out like The Rock at a midget convention. Life sucked. I should have just failed my road test and kept my N. But anyone who knows me knows that failing would have been a giant blow to my ego, intentional or not. I passed the blasted road test; and I passed it with flying colours. I watched helplessly as the evil gargoyle at the Motor Vehicle Branch pryed my altered licence from my grasp and put it through the shredder. The counter separating me from that shredder was far too high to jump in the heat of the moment to seize what was rightfully mine and run out guffawing in victory. So many good times we had shared, that licence and I. Our time together was over. I was 18 again and I wasn’t happy about it.

Side Note: Don’t ask me how these people at the MVB didn’t notice we had changed our birthdates. Maybe they didn’t look; or care. I guess they’re not paid to be legal enforcement agents but still, we were totally committing fraud. Oh well. I got away with it, and that’s all that matters. CONTINUE ON!

We wouldn’t go down without a fight though. We tried everything to alter my dumb new licence, from peeling off the plastic top layer (it peeled off the numbers with it and thus was an epic failure) to scratching out half of the giant 84, trying to make the 4 into a 1 as we had done on the smaller numbers on the original licence. No dice, the scratching was brutally obvious.

My ability to continue attending drinking establishments as a minor looked grim. Following my series of unfortunate events, my friends took heed and did not sign up for the road test to get rid of their N’s so they could keep their precious altered licences. Bastards. I was the odd one out. Thoughts involving me, wine coolers, and Ravensburger puzzles flooded my mind. And they weren’t even real wine coolers since I had no I.D. to show at the liquor store; they were the 0.5% ones from Safeway. In less than 24 hours, I’d already had enough. I had to find a way to beat the system…

Like a beam of light, she appeared. Sabrina rescued me like a mother bird lifting her baby birdlette back into the nest. She couldn’t stand to see me in that state; so vulnerable and sober, drowning my sorrows with grocery store coolers. It just wasn’t right. So Sabrina did what any good roommate would do; she gave me her old licence. Being as how she’s 2 years older than me, her licence said I was 19 and granted me entry into my beloved clubs. The only problem was that Sabrina and I look nothing alike. (See picture). That could have been an issue but I soon learned that averting eye contact or smiling extra large seemed to fool the bouncers into thinking I was, in fact, Portuguese and had blonde hair.

Everything went well with Sabrina’s I.D. until the beginning of July, 2003. I had been successfully using the I.D. to get into Rivers for six or seven months when suddenly some new bouncer got hired. I’m not a fan of change to begin with, but my crew and I had become so familiar on the bar scene that the bouncers didn’t even really look at our I.Ds anymore. So when the new kid on the block asked me for my licence, I thought nothing of pulling it out and handing it to him. My friends and their damn dirty altered I.Ds were granted entry to our favourite watering hole without any problems, but as the new guy stared at Sabrina’s picture on the I.D. I handed him, then stared back at me, I knew shit wasn’t gonna fly. 4, 3, 2, 1…DE-NIED. And to make matters worse, the douche kept the card! To this day, I don’t know what came of the card. My friends are great so they left too, saying they wouldn’t go in without me, which was cool of them, but I knew this sympathetic attitude wouldn’t last the long, horrible 4 weeks before my 19th birthday.

Sure enough I often found myself watching movies and “pre-drinking” with the gang before they went out and I staggered off to bed, alone, drunk, and pissed off. But then a miracle happened. A new girl, Carly, started work with us that summer and she was a young’un like myself, and she had the misfortune of being born in December! I had found a partner to drink with when everyone else went to party their faces off in the club because drinking with even one other person is significantly cooler than drinking with zero other people.

One night I confided in Carly that one of the things I missed most about going to the bar (it had been about 2 WHOLE WEEKS since my I.D. was confiscated in cold blood and I was having withdrawal symptoms) were the bar hotdogs that were so conveniently placed outside ready and waiting for drunk partiers with the munchies to spend $3 on a weiner, (containing God knows what), and add a variety of cholesterol filled toppings. We decided that night that we HAD to go downtown for bar hotdogs. But that wasn’t all. Buying bar hotdogs doesn’t make you center of attention, am i right?

For some reason, earlier that day, Jenn, Carly, Susan, Sabrina, and I had gone to Superstore after work (yep, we all worked together, it was cute) and I bought a whole bunch of inflatable nonsense. I had an inflatable pool, beach ball, water wings, and probably some other junk that was so useless I don’t even remember. I even bought a pump because blowing things up makes me dizzy if it takes a while. So that night, Carly and I decided that we’d arrive downtown in style, inflatable pool, water wings, and ball in tow. We also decided that the pool had to have water in it. A dry pool wouldn’t do.

Looking back, I’m not sure why we didn’t just fill some pails with water and bring them down with us, but apparently this simple idea eluded us. That’s ok, that would make for a less interesting story.

So we decided to blow up all of the stuff BEFORE going downtown and quickly discovered that the inflatable pool didn’t fit inside my Sunfire (which has since been replaced, bless it’s little Pontiac heart), nor did it fit inside my trunk. So we did what any logical people would do. Nope, we didn’t leave it behind; we strapped it to the roof of the car with bungee cords. This seemed like the most innovative idea of all time to us at that moment. But then came the question as to how we were going to fill the damn pool…

We decided to worry about the minor “filling the pool” detail later, so we drove downtown and contemplated filling the pool in the river and then walking it back up to the sidewalk in front of the bar. It was a Wednesday night so our festivities were staged to occur in front of the Max, a local dive that does a Buck a Beer function every Wednesday which is truly awesome (see story People Really Do Jump Trains…) We decided the river was too far from the Max, but that sneaking into a downtown hotel pool (which was about 10 blocks away) to fill our inflatable apparatus was a much more plausible idea. So…we did it, and struggled out with a pool full of water, and somehow managed to get it back on to the roof of the car with minimal spillage. It was truly a Buck a Beer Day miracle.

We rolled over to the Max, pool sitting proudly a top my domestic automobile, full of chlorinated, stinky pool water. Upon arrival at the bar, we adorned our water wings, and full snorkle gear (which, by the way, we found in my storage closet), and carefully placed the pool on the sidewalk directly adjacent to the hot dog vendor, directly across the street from the bar. And, yep, we sat in our pool, wearing our gear, eating our hot dogs. We had orchestrated this all to be complete at about 1:45 so that when drunkards started pouring out of the bar at 2:00, we’d be the center of attention, a true spectacle!

And that we were. Around this time, almost everyone we knew was of legal age and at Buck a Beer night. And when they came out of the bar, they honestly didn’t look very shocked. Most of the people I party with in Kamloops, I’ve known since I was a tot and my nonsense very rarely shocks them anymore. But our efforts didn’t go unrewarded! Many people we didn’t know came over to see what the hell we were doing and made comments about our water wings. I think they thought we actually feared drowning in our 1.5 foot pool. Ha, fools.

We sat outside in our pool for a solid hour and when we went to leave, I discovered that someone had stolen my sandals. I later found out it was a guy named Steve who used to work with us that wanted to punish me for my idiocracy. It didn’t work. Since that night I’ve gone on to pull many bigger, better, and more amusing stunts. And increased my supply of $5 Wal-Mart sandals ten-fold. The only thing that concerns me is that he may, in fact, be somewhere today wearing my blue sandals.

If I couldn’t go into the bar, damned if I wouldn’t have fun outside of it. My bar hotdog was a slight disappointment, however. It didn’t taste as good since I wasn’t totally obliterated. I also still have those water wings. I wear them everytime we float down the river and always end up with legendary tan lines. I doubt they’d even prevent me from drowning, but I like to look cool wearing them anyway. And I really doubt that to this day anyone else has dragged an inflatable pool downtown to swim in outside a bar. Victory truly is mine.

Photo

Wed, 20 May 2009 16:53:11 -0700

The Canucks Lose...But I Win.

Mon, 18 May 2009 14:47:00 -0700

Monday night was one of few nights I’ve actually had fun since living in Vancouver. There’s many reasons for my lack of enthusiasm toward the party scene at the Lower Mainland. For starters, I live in Burnaby which is somewhat far from downtown Vancouver. By far I mean, not really far at all but far enough to be inconvenient and expensive to get to. Getting there consists of either an expensive taxi ride or taking the lame bus/Skytrain combo which inevitably leaves me in a bad mood for the remainder of the evening. Transit people are weird. One night when we took the bus downtown a guy wearing a top hat that resembled The Penguin was sitting at the front chatting up the driver. I gave this guy the benefit of the doubt, which I shouldn’t have, because this guy was just riding around on the bus route for fun, talking to the driver. Yep, that’s pretty much what his entertainment agenda for the night consisted of. Sounds like a blast. Imagine the conversation…”So what did you do last night?” “Well I totally hung out on the city bus, man. It was AWESOME.” Ugh, lame. Someone get this guy a Sudoku book.

Next reason going downtown pisses me off: parking. Parking is like backwards diagonal words in a word search puzzle. Hard to find and annoying as fuck until you find them. That about sums it up.

In any case, some of the girls from work wanted to go for dinner on Monday night. I was down for this. We have fun at work and I amuse them with my constant sarcasm and witty remarks so how could I lose in this situation? Then I found out they wanted to go into Vancouver for dinner. I began to mentally morph into Godzilla (See the post: Annoyed by a stethoscope: What a Day for more on this) “WHY!!?!?!?!?” I whined…like, literally whined…Apparently the restaurant they wanted to go to had excellent Greek food. Damn them to hell! I’m a huge sucker for Greek food. I love it (and subsequently stinking like garlic for days afterward). So we ended up heading into Vancouver to this Greek restaurant Stepho’s.

No sooner do we arrive to this establishment and go inside and the lady tells us to go wait OUTSIDE. Never in my life have I had to line up outside a restaurant to wait for a seat except this one time in Mexico, but that’s different because it’s a different country, obviously. Begrudingly, I trudged out the door, feeling knee-high, cold, and exposed. A victim to the elements. I hated Stepho’s. Worst restaurant ever.

So Lisa and I decided to go down to Starbucks (there’s one on every corner in Vancouver and mark my words, I put them to good use). We got three of our trademark Peppermint Doppios (English translation: 2 shots of good ol’ espresso with 2 pumps of peppermint syrup. Delicious). I dared to be different, because that’s how I roll, and ordered an Iced Americano. Coffee keeps me alive, I’m fairly sure on this.

When we got back to the restaurant, the others had been permitted to enter the sacred facility. So we quickly finished our drinks because, believe it or not, some people still frown upon bringing food and beverage from another establishment into their establishment. I think that notion is silly and archaic. We got a table pretty quickly after that and my spirits lifted quickly upon seeing the cheap prices on the menu. $9.95 for a Calamari dinner!! It was like the thrift store of Greek restaurants. I loved Stepho’s. Best restaurant ever! The dinner was delicious and we had a couple rounds of drinks and decided to carry on the festivities elsewhere. But not before excessively bugging one of the waiters, whose name was David, or as we dubbed him “peacock.” This guy was strutting his stuff harder than Kate Moss on a catwalk. Chest out, shoulders back, he truly was a happy pigeon strutting to and fro.

So we asked this guy to take a picture of us and started plaguing him with annoying questions. “What do you do?” “Where do you live?” All the basics. He told us that he was also a trainer at Fitness World and he was going to work out there after work. I laughed a little at this since it was 10 p.m. and who the hell works out at 10 p.m. on a Monday when there’s partying to do? For some reason, we decided at this point that asking for anyone and everyone’s phone number was a great idea, and we started with Captain Peacock/Pigeon. He didn’t hesitate. Oh no, he practically pounced on the chance to give us his number. One down, so many more to go.

Still on a quest to find somewhere fun to go next, we began asking other Stephos employees for their input. If we hadn’t gotten any, I would have started asking patrons, so it’s a good thing the staff were happy to help. The guy who rang through our bills told us that the Odyssey was fun, and drinks were all $3 on Mondays so we decided that we couldn’t go wrong. Even Jagerbombs were $3…this place was a God send.

The phone number collection continued as we drove toward the Odyssey, while we blasted some choice music in the form of “Don’t You Wish Your Boyfriend Was Hot Like Me?” Lisa rolled down her window at a stoplight while this music was blaring and yelled at the guy next to us “Do you have a phone?” Followed by, “Can I get your number?” This became the mantra for the evening and so many other people would fall victim to our clever ploy to get their phone number for the sole purpose of us drunk dialing them later in the evening. Except for that one guy in sweat pants who had just gotten off the bus who totally denied us.

We parked and started walking in the general direction of the Odyssey. Truth be told, none of us had any idea where the club was, (or what it was) but luck would have it that we walked by possibly the classiest pub in the West End (har har) called “Two Parrots” and in we went. Tequila was on sale so we didn’t hesitate to order four. It was then that I noticed an extremely hot guy sitting on the other side of the bar alone. He was wearing a Canucks jersey and perhaps grieving their recent loss to the Chicago Blackhawks, thus ousting them once and for all from the playoffs. But the real question of the evening was: WHY is this hot guy here by himself?

Side Note: *Not to be a total downer but I predicted before playoffs even started that the Canucks would be off to a roaring start, and give hope to Canadians everywhere. I also predicted that the Canucks would then let us down. I want to thank the Vancouver Canucks for not making me look like a fool and winning the Stanley Cup.*

This guy seemed like a prime candidate to become friends with us so we invited him to “come closer.” Which, in retrospect seems pretty creepy, and now that I’m saying it out loud to myself I picture the evil witch from Snow White and her bony finger beckoning me to come nearer. Ewwwww. *Shudder.* Why did we say that to him? No wonder he wasn’t very talkative.

We found out this guys name was Lance and that he worked at Earls downtown. And, because I know you were all wondering, he was at the bar by himself because his roommates went home to grieve the Canucks loss but he decided to stay behind and drink more. That made Lance gain some points in my book! Anyone that puts drinking above feeling sorry for a sports team major loss is pretty neat-o in my opinion. But Lance quickly went downhill on my coolness scale. He literally had nothing else to say after initial introductions had concluded. Damn. So hot, but so so boring. Ironically, Lance is about the only guy we met that night whose number we didn’t ask for. Even more ironic, he left his phone sitting on the bar when he went to the bathroom so we could have easily extracted his number from it plus had some fun time with his contacts. But we didn’t. I guess we represent the shred of humanity that people can still have faith in.

We decided that Two Parrots wasn’t where we wanted to spend the rest of our evening. So we set out to find the elusive Odyssey nightclub. I’d say we got sent on a wild goose chase, but that’s a huge exaggeration, so I just won’t say it. Someone told us to make a right where we should have made a left (cough Lance) and we ended up on a street corner with two guys from Mexico named Alberto, and uh….I totally can’t remember. The funny part about this interaction was that Alberto was holding a Mango Fuse beverage, and I decided to comment on it. Why? I have no idea. I probably just wanted to hear myself talk. But then Sari took the Fuse beverage to a whole new level and actually drank some of it…this beverage that belonged to a complete stranger. He could have had mouth herpes!!! But he didn’t so all’s well that ends well. She said it was good but I’ll take her word for it and buy my own Fuse sometime rather than drink Stranger-Fuse.

After the infamous Fuse sharing experience we continued walking in the wrong direction because we believed it was the right direction and ended up at the Holiday Inn.

*Now, it should be noted that there’s a front desk clerk at the Delta Hotel, which is where the Starbucks kiosk we all work (in my case, worked) at is, named Bob. I decided one day, totally on a whim that I wanted Bob to be my friend and wouldn’t let up until he agreed. It took some serious effort and a “BE MY VALENTINE” sign in the middle of May but I’m fairly sure Bob and I are BFF now. (lols…)*

So I saw the clerk inside the Holiday Inn, who looked nothing like Bob by the way, and decided he was going to be my “Holiday Inn Bob.” So I went inside and worked my magic. Much to my delight, this guy paid attention to me right away and I didn’t have to spend hours trying to crack him or make any foolish signs. It was a good thing too because I don’t carry around Chalk Markers like the ones we have at Starbucks that have come in handy on so many occasions.

I asked my newfound front desk clerk friend for directions to the Odyssey, and he seemed quite familiar with it. He was also quite overly pleasant and strangely enthusiastic that we were going to the Odyssey. Weird. But his positivity was contagious so we eagerly left and trudged onward! Sari was quite upset that Alberto and his Fuse were no longer on the street corner where we had left them. But fear not! Before we parted ways they unleashed the evening’s mantra on them: “DO YOU HAVE A PHONE?” “CAN I HAVE YOUR NUMBER” and low and behold, we had Alberto’s number.

Eventually we laid eyes on the Odyssey, whose logo was emblazoned by neon red lights stating that this location was, undoubtedly, the HOTTEST GAY BAR IN VANCOUVER. Wow. My excitement went up a few notches. It was also somewhat clear to me why the Holiday Inn employee knew exactly where this place was, but Lance did not. *Lightbulb On.* We walked toward the entrance and had to stop to pose for a couple of pictures with the naked male poster on the wall outside. I pretended to lick his crotch region and have since been called a pervert. ha ha ha.

So we walk into the club and Sari asks the guy collecting cover “Are we allowed to go in?” lol…the guy looked sort of confused but was undeniably jolly and declared that of course we could go in. So, we paid our cover and entered the Hottest Gay Bar in Vancouver. It was pretty pumping, although it was Monday night. Guys without shirts on everywhere…guys dancing…guys who had absolutely no sexual attraction whatsoever to me. We got a drink each but soon decided we should call some of our newfound friends to get them to come over to this hotspot since they liked us more than the clientele at the Odyssey did. We called Alberto first and Peacock/Pigeon second. The story is even better because they both showed up. I guess the four of us are pretty charming because we managed to make at least two friends on the street that night. No sooner had he arrived, Peacock/Pigeon hit the dance floor with a vengeance and was SERIOUSLY shaking his goods. It was actually quite disturbing. I have mocked him once or twice since but I don’t really do the dancing justice; it was that intense. Alberto played it cool and just chilled with us in safety away from Tornado Peacock/Pigeon that was ripping it up a mile a minute on the dance floor and causing a serious ALERT in my mind.

I was driving so I maintained my sobriety like a champ, but Sari got pretty toasted, which was entertaining. Lisa was ok…I’d say buzzed at best and Sarah’s boyfriend picked her up and whisked her away to safety away from our evil Gay Bar clutches. As the night trudged on, I felt depressed a total of three times upon seeing extremely attractive men that had nothing but platonic interest in me. Each time, I expressed my disgruntlement a loud, knowing that I could change nothing, but still needing to declare my irritance. Nothing overly exciting happened in the time we were at the Odyssey other than watching Peacock dance, and discovering a poster for Thursdays regular event called Shower Power, where men undress in a shower. Sari, Lisa, and I have decided that before the end of the summer, we need to attend a Shower Power because, well, it would make a good story and be ultra entertaining.

The night came to an end because Sari was done for and Lisa had to work early. I also had to be at school to edit at 7:30 the next morning, but it was my last day of actual school work so I felt I could show up tired and lethargic, two categories in which I didn’t disappoint. We bid adieu to Alberto and Peacock parked his GT Mustang in the relative vicinity of my fine piece of Japanese machinery, so we got to watch him display his over abundance of testosterone one last time as he ROARED off into the evening, totally revving his car past 4 in an attempt to prove that it is tough.

What I learned from my night out with the Starbucks girls and random guys we picked up along the way is never to underestimate the potential quality of a busy Greek restaurant; DO collect phone numbers like an insane person, and follow up by calling the people whose numbers you get because they might end up being fun; go to Gay nightclubs only on evening where your self esteem is exceptionally high because you will get absolutely no attention what so ever; learn more about sports in attempt to engage random hot guys at dive bars in further conversation than would be possible if you knew nothing about sporting events currently going on. Lance, if you ever stumble upon my blog, I still think you’re hot but I’m not creepy enough to show up at the Earls you work at and strike up a conversation. Or am I? hmmm…

People Actually Do Jump Trains. I Know Because I've Done It.

Fri, 08 May 2009 09:09:56 -0700

Living in Interior B.C. the options for things to do are few and far between. There’s lots of amazing areas to go camping at, the option of bowling, hanging out at people’s houses, hitting up the patio at local eateries in the summer, going to pubs, clubs, bars, casinos, and hockey/football/soccer games and tournaments. But you’ll notice a common denominator on all of these potential entertainment options. Alcohol is readily available (and necessary) at them all.

I, of course, use any and all of these opportunities to drink because people need to be entertained and I’m best at doing so when intoxicated. One football game I even went so far as to drink Jager out of a random person’s sandal flask for the art of being a drunken fool.

Despite all these possibilities, one event in Kamloops draws people to it on a weekly basis and has since I was a young lass attending illegally with a terrible fake I.D. which later got confiscated. Maybe I’ll tell that story sometime but it truly depresses me. This event is THE event of all events and even as I get older, I don’t enjoy it any less. Some of my friends make fun of me for still going to this occasionally but I don’t care, it’s fun to play cougar-for-a-night and hit on young, illegal boys. Usually I get too drunk to coherently form sentences let alone flirt with anyone so take that last sentence with a grain of salt.

This is event is the ONE…the ONLY…Buck a Beer night at the Max. Every Wednesday. When I started going like…hmmmmm 8 years ago (God I’m old), pints were $1. Then the City of Kamloops made some ridiculous law that all alcoholic drinks couldn’t be sold within city limits for less than $3. While this definitely sucked, the Max outplayed the City (sort of) and just started selling larger glasses of beer for $3. Not that this beer is good. It’s pretty disgusting, and I suspect it’s Pilsner or T.N.T or some other toxic brew. I don’t know why I get so excited about this night, I don’t even really drink beer very often. They also sell Long Islands for $3.25 and without fail, I always drink like 20 of them and I always throw up and have a terrible hangover the next day.

Flash Forward (I used to love that show on Family Channel btw): In recent times I’ve gotten so drunk at the Max on Long Islands, JagerBombs, Southern Comfort and soda that I ended up passing out on the sidewalk outside the bar at the end of the night, drunk dialing everyone in my phone, and sleeping on the bathroom floor like a pro. I haven’t been back since but I’ll go again…Oh yes, I will go again indeed.

This night at the Max I’m going to tell you about is probably the most epic and I don’t think anything can or will compare to it as far as Buck-A-Beer nights go. It started out like so many other nights, hanging out with a couple of the girls, Andrea and Kristen at Kristen’s house downtown, having a few drinks, the usual. Arrival at the Max has to be early otherwise you’ll end up in a line the size of a small African nation. Undoubtely there will be annoying people in said line. Undoubtely most of them will be female, wearing skanky clothes, talking about how if they expose their boobs to the bouncer they will get in faster. Ironically, it’s always the larger girls that step up to the plate on this. “YEAH, I’ll show him my boobs, they’re big, he’ll let us in fast for sure.” It actually makes me feel uncomfortable. Not so uncomfortable that I’m willing to step up to bat and reveal my precious lumps but uncomfortable enough to feel sorry for the bouncers for having to look at those thangs.

This night was no exception. We dicked around, drinking and talking far too long at Kristen’s house and arrived to a massive line taunting us from the cab. Sometimes when I start thinking that being skanky would pay off in situations like these, God rears his head and squashes my epitome as if saying “Nope, you behave. We’ve come this far, don’t ruin it now.” I looked up at the door and the whole world began to go in slow motion. This guy I know from the local football team was working the door. He’d let us in, I was sure of it! I wasted no time bounding up the stairs to greet him in a merry tone and in we went.

Hahaha, some of you haters were expecting that I was going to get shot down, weren’t you? Lol, jerks. That wouldn’t happen. Onward!

So we went into the bar and I’m sure I rocked a Long Island or two. To be honest, I don’t remember. I just looked around and saw a jackpot of people I knew which always makes for a good night. Soon I was doing rows of shots with my wonderful friend Jon, who plays a major part in the story of the rest of the night. The night at the bar was just the usual, but pretty fun. Dancing, drinking, shots, bathroom lines, putting down skanky and/or unappealing people in a feeble attempt to boost my own self esteem. The usual.

2 o’clock came too fast that night. You know some nights when it hits 2 and you actually feel sad, not wanting the night to end? This was one of those times. And I wasn’t about to let it go down without a fight. Jon had offered Kristen and I a ride after the bar, and had a couple of other friends with him. Andrea had made off some other way, unless it was by Segway, it’s uninteresting so who cares. Jon, Kristen, the other friends, and I emerged from the bar and the door opens on to a set of stairs. No, I didn’t fall down the stairs (though I have), I stood on top of them and used it as my personal telling point. “TO DENNY’S!” I declared. The crowd did not erupt in cheers, the crowd did not start a slow clap…but people paid attention to me which was A-OK.

So, to Denny’s it was. The only problem was that we had to get to the car, and Jon wasn’t willing to play chaffeur so we had to walk to it. And it was on the other side of the railroad tracks. No one’s ever really sure what I do when I wander off or talk to strangers but I continue to do it because I guess it amuses me in some way, shape, or form. So I did my usual “making friends” routine, which is more likely to consist of me saying stupid things to a random group of people who clearly doesn’t care, laughing hysterically, then trying frantically to find my friends. Of course when I was done saying my bit to some people, I noticed my friends were gone. I did know that the car was in a parking lot on the other side of the train tracks though, so I headed that direction. No sooner did I get close to the tracks, a train came.

The general area that the trains run through that’s near the bar is actually a train exchange so the trains usually go really slow through it. This train tonight, however, was going at a medium pace (all you Adam Sandler fans can appreciate that). It looked like a long one…and I wasn’t prepare to wait OR go over the walking bridge because it seemed really overrated…so I decided to jump the train.

Essentially what one must do to successfully jump a train is wait for the perfect moment, then grab the small ladder that’s located between cars, hoist yourself up, walk across the plank that separates cars, and jump off the other side. Easier said than done, especially when that someone is me and I’ve had way too much to drink. But as they say, alcohol makes you feel like a superhero, and that I did. Along came the train. I waited. And waited. And waited. And then it came…the perfect moment. I grabbed the ladder, hoisted myself up and…landed on my stomach. I was covered in soot off the train. Head to toe, even my face was black. It was awful. I even got some in my mouth, along with whatever fungus was growing on that train car. Then train was going at a pretty fast pace by this point and I was scared to stand so I dragged myself along the plank to the other side and no joke, dive rolled off into the mud.

Yep, I was a disgusting mess. But I was right at the parking lot Jon parked in, which was nice. As I wandered over toward him, Kristen, and the others, they started laughing hysterically, knowing exactly what I’d done. They didn’t even question why or how. They just knew. See, my friends expect this kind of BS from me, and I’m now under obligation to deliver. Usually Jon drives a nice Mustang but it was in the shop this night and he was driving a PT Cruiser. As if to punish me for not only jumping the train and getting covered in crap, but also for making them wait while I pulled this stunt, Jon made me ride in the hatch…and for some reason they had found 2 more people that needed rides and since Jon was fairly intoxicated, he rode in the hatch too and Kristen, who was mostly sober, drove. Jon’s about 6’5 and like 200-somewhat pounds. The hatch was small. I got squashed. It was the most uncomfortable car ride of my life. I kept carrying on about wanting to go to Denny’s but somehow in the 20 minutes I’d wasted jumping the train, everyone had decided Denny’s was a no-go. Annnnnngry. :(

I don’t know where or how long it took to get there but we ended up at some random person’s house. I think it might have been to drop one of the newcomers off, but when we stopped, I busted out of that hatch like someone had pointed a shotgun at me. And bolted inside this person’s house covered in train soot and mud. What a dick move…lol, but funny. So I ran into their house and down the hall and found the washroom, it seemed quick too. I didn’t lock the door.

I guess I had made so much noise that I woke up the parents of WHOEVER this was. Next thing I knew some random lady I’d never seen before (but could have seen AFTER this incident and not realized it) was standing in the bathroom staring at me like I just materialized from a beam of light. Understandable. I didn’t even know why the hell I was in there. I remember her asking me why I was covered in black powder and why I was in her house, both questions which probably elicited blank stares from me. I think I just left after that and probably didn’t even give this lady a legitimate explanation for why I was in her house.

Back into the hatch I went. So uncomfortable. From the lady’s house to my house, I sang random annoying songs and as Kristen turned up the radio to try to drown me out, I sang louder. It was great. I ended up puking that night, and being extremely hungover the next day. But all in all, it was worth it because I totally successfully jumped a train.

A Poem At Starbucks

Tue, 05 May 2009 10:20:23 -0700

Twas the night before Friday when all through the lobby

Not a creature was there, not even a doggy

All the pastries sat in the case with care

In hope that a customer soon would be there

Then what to their wondering eyes should appear?

A customer, from the escalator, ordered a beer

I said “We have beer, but the kind with a root”

He sad “No thanks, carbonation makes me toot.”

He turned to leave and fell flat on his fanny.

I should probably quit leaning because here comes Danny!

Photo

Tue, 05 May 2009 10:14:19 -0700

A Poem For Lisa

Tue, 05 May 2009 10:12:27 -0700

Twas the night before Hump Day when all through the city

I noticed that between my butt cheeks felt pretty gritty

I didn’t know what the hell I should do

So I went to work at Starbucks and took a massive poo

Then what to my wondering eyes should appear

Lisa walked into the changeroom and started coming near

“No!” I shouted “Don’t come over here!”

“The aroma of this crap will make your eyes tear!”

Lisa ignored my urgent warnings and came even closer

“EW!” She exclaimed, “It smells like burnt hair in a toaster!”

I was embarrassed and my ass was on fire

Lisa reminded me of the time she blew out her tire

She said “I drove many miles on just my metal rim”

“But you should probably lay off pastries because you stink Kim.”