Friday, 18 May 2012

Pepper spray? Bazooka???

A pretty eventful week… Still busy working but we incorporated vehicle and tent trailer shopping into our Mother’s Day weekend. Needless to say our Sunday wasn’t the typical ’breakfast in bed/flowers on the kitchen table’ Mother’s Day… It was a rush to acquire a pop-up tent trailer of the sort that both Cherie and I have our own bounties of respective, fond childhood memories. We managed to find one that despite being 30+ years old, has been immaculately maintained. And, luckily for us, the couple was more motivated to see it 'passed along' to a young family than make a bunch of money off of the sale.

Cherie has been bitten by the camping bug (and soon the mosquito sort, as well, I would imagine) and we are fortunate that Alberta provides a multitude of pretty incredible options in this respect. My burgeoning phobia of bears has only partially been appeased by the partial walls but I think I’ll be okay as long as we are sure to set up near people in traditional tents (they’d be much easier targets.) Anybody know of a good, bulk pepper spray supplier? I’m not sure if my current anti-bear strategy of thoroughly soiling myself and screaming like a little girl is the most effective tactic.

Another prominent occurrence this week was the spaying debacle of our idiot dog. I was quoted $220 - but then was presented with a $560 bill when I returned to pick her up. The guy claimed he said “starts at $220” but I honestly don’t think he did - and the nerve of asking nearly triple is refukkindiculous anyways. I bitched, moaned, threatened and pleaded and ultimately got a discount (not much.) But it still put such a bad taste in my mouth. In the end, I was taken advantage of yet again and have grown a little more cynical as a result. People sure can be assholes - and it really sucks that the second you don‘t believe this to be true; you tend to be ripe for the picking.

So now I’ve paid an insane amount of money to get back an infertile dog with a goofy, gigantic cone around her head - and she is absolutely TERRIFIED of it (to the point of near paralysis.) As soon as it bumps into anything; it sends her into a mad panic that leads to her flailing around and inevitably bumping into more and more things. The panic, chaos and volume escalates exponentially from there… I’m sure the whole neighborhood thinks we are continually beating the everliving crap outta her - and I gotta say that my empathy is beginning to wane a little while my patience continues to be tested by this shrieking, four-legged, 60 lb. pinball.

Oh yeah - and now our car won’t start. Just another week in paradise!

Hope you've had a good week!

Take care,

Rod