My coffeemaker died this morning. Usually, this would be an earth-shaking event. Looking for reviews of new hot bean juice dispensers, I went down a rabbit hole and found myself in a hilarious corner of Internet Shopping Hell.
While scanning for Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals, I indulged the whim of searching “Best Retirement Gifts for Men.” I’m not retiring. Writers never retire. We just keep typing until we expire. First thing that pops up? Memorial wind chimes.
MEMORIAL WIND CHIMES?! Really, Amazon? Ah, yes, every time the breeze blows, the gentle tinkling reminds me of dead Papa! He haunts the back patio, demanding entrance to the house. And at night, the demons come.
That’s the gift you want the moment you retire, right? Now that you’ve opted out of producing for capitalism, please die quickly. We will remember you fondly, Gary! (The guy in the memorial wind chime photo looks like a Gary. The other guy looks like a Eugene. Both tragic.)
And then there’s this bullshit.
Wear that anywhere, sure! However, you won’t be able to sit down and rest for a single moment. You’ll be too busy running from jeering children. Women will spit. Men will weep. Grandmas will beat you with umbrellas. Even the village idiot will look away, embarrassed for you. Clergy will throw rocks, urging you on, forever fleeing, banished to wretched solitude in dark, cursed forests. Only there will you be able to finally sit on your contraption to a cold repast of earthworns, pine cones, and regret.
Wearing sweatpants in public used to signal that you’d given up. Welcome to the new sweatpants.
1. Don’t eat lobster at a restaurant. That’s all butter, no sea lice taste. You get lobster off the boat. You eat the whole lobster, not just the claws and tail. Suck the juice from the legs because you’re a goddamn savage and don’t want anything to go to waste.
Always comment that you ate it all except for the poison sac behind the creature’s brain.
2. Do not wince as you tear into dulce. Don’t call it seaweed if you expect to go undetected. As you chew, always comment that it’s full of iodine.
3. Acceptable banter for any dining occasion: “I’m so hungry, I’d eat the ass out of a skunk.” If in a rural area, you may call the utensils forks and knives, but call them “eatin’ irons” and they’ll never suspect you weren’t born in Caledonia.
4. Don’t say you love fish. Say halibut, trout, or smoked salmon. When someone smokes you a salmon, by law you are required to say, “Tastes like cake!” Do not ask for a Montreal bagel to put under said salmon. It’s not the same thing and you’re in Nova Scotia now.
(Note: It tastes great, but it does not, in fact, taste like cake.)
You will be attending many bean suppers to support your local volunteer fire department. The towns may be small, but they’re decked out with firefighting equipment to rival any major city. The firehall siren will go off each day at noon to (a) test it, and (b) let you know it’s noon.
5. You do not go to the store. You go down to the store or up to the store. Also, locations are not “across the street.” They are always, “right across the street.”
Nova Scotian roads wind, so however long you think any trip will take, it’ll take longer and maybe all day in the winter. In rural areas, you will be required to navigate your route by barns, as in, “Take a left at the old Seliq barn and turn right again before you see the Rawding’s place.”
Yes, getting a direction by a landmark you do *not* see is considered helpful and neighborly. Be careful about asking for directions. You live here. You should already know who everyone is and where everything is, anyway.
6. You go to the woods, not the bush. At a beach party, you will be required to comment that a campfire smells better using driftwood for fuel. If by the Bay of Fundy, you will have to mutter, “highest tides in the world.”
7. Sure is not pronounced “Shur.” It’s pronounced “shore,” with emphasis on the “ore.”
When agreeing with an Acadian, don’t say, “Oui,” as if you’re in Paris. In Acadian French, it’s pronounced more duck-like. “Wheh, wheh, wheh!” Always thrice, and sell it with enthusiasm.
To appear agreeable after any assertion, say, “Yeah,” once or twice, but rising on the in-breath. This takes practice, but you’ll hear it everywhere.
You’re trying it right now, aren’t you?
Note: While always acceptable to appear agreeable, new information is to be treated with suspicion. A good rule is, if you haven’t heard something many times, don’t introduce a new thought. You’ll blow your cover.
8. To throw minor shade: “He’s come from away.” This means, “not a Maritimer for two generations.” You could be born in Toronto and live in the Annapolis Valley for 20 years and you’ll still be “that Tronna fella.”
More shade: Call someone an S.O.B. (*not* son of a bitch). This is never to be said to someone’s face, always behind the back. That would be considered impolite unless they’re family, in which case you can be as cruel as you want and call it “just teasin’.”
Highest compliment, “He did well.” “Did well,” means somebody is an S.O.B., but with money.
9. Speak quickly from the back of your throat. Acceptable topics: The weather and town gossip. Until you die, throw in, “If you don’t like the weather, wait a minute.” (This is the height of hilarity.)
That’s about it for topics, though knowing the names of several varieties of apples not commonly found in stores is good. Talk about grafting and you’ll end up marrying someone from Nova Scotia who wears tall rubber boots every day.
10. To really fit in, memorize “Farewell to Nova Scotia.” Sound wistful. Call it God’s Country a lot and enthuse about foghorns. They’re also suckers for Stan Rogers singing “Barret’s Privateers.”
Okay…*everybody* should be a sucker for this song. It’s great!
Lowe’s will repair the crappy lawn trimmer they sold me not so long ago, but I can’t return it. They won’t refund it for store credit. Nada. Even if it’s fixed, it still sucks so, no thanks. Trash it. I stalk out, annoyed but I’ve learned my lesson: never shop at Lowe’s again. Got it!
Resolving to begin anew, off to Home Depot where it’s already Halloween AND snowblower season. Great. (Mental note: Sell more books. Move where there are palm trees ASAP.)
Poke around. Look at lawn trimmers cordless, gas and cordful. I want an easy peasy auto-fill bump cartridge this time because the last trimmer from Lowe’s made me consider crying. As I tried to fix the wire cartridge, I considered spewing big hot baby tears for a solid fifteen minutes. A heart attack is the more manly option but in the end I surfed Netflix and sulked.
“Onward! Let’s let go of the past and buy a new trimmer!” he said, like an idiot.
No staff in sight in the confusing ordeal of a labyrinth that is Home Depot. I finally find the trimmers. Lots of options. Too many. The vast selection of this array is dizzying and it looks like they don’t have the refill cartridges I might need.
I talk to another customer who has been on the hunt for a trimmer longer than me. It’s a big debate for him, too. Still no staff to answer two questions (because I really don’t want to buy another shitty trimmer.) Patience starts to fade and we’re losing daylight. The shadows are growing long and deep as tumbleweeds tumble past the Halloween witch display.
Other customer gives up. Via con dios, brother. You are wiser than me. Intrepid and clutching my waning optimism, I go to an info desk and ask for assistance. The woman behind the desk gives me a sneer and puts my request over the speaker. It seemed like such a reasonable request at the time.
I return to the trimmer section to await satisfaction. I wait a while. Time passes. I decide it’s been longer than one while. This is at least two or three whiles. Still nothing.
Big breath. The customer who abandoned his quest for a trimmer wanders by again, shaking his head with pity. He’ll go home and see his family tonight. Me? I’m determined. Stupid, stupid and determined.
Back to the same desk with the same woman behind the counter. She and another staffer are helping the guy in front of me. By that I mean the other staffer is talking to the guy and she’s watching, kind of like how cows chew the cud while gazing at passing traffic.
I finally catch her eye by jumping up and down. Same polite request for assistance with the goddamn trimmer. I have money. Please help me give it to you! But I don’t say anything mean because…I’m not sure now. I’m kind to waiters and waitresses because I like spit-free food. At Home Depot, I suppose the worst they can do to me is what they’re already doing.
What infuriates me most is that the cud chewer takes my second request like she’s never seen me before. In fairness, eons have passed since my first request for help. Am I in hardware hell? In which circle of Dante’s Inferno does a sinner turn invisible? Oh, right. The lawn trimmer circle.
I stalk back to the trimmer section. Last week at the mall I thought everyone was staring at me. (I suspect it’s the chain wallet. They’re staring at my chain wallet, right?) But at Home Depot, I can’t get arrested. As I await some helpful staff member in pumpkin orange, I start to think about what I could do at Home Depot to get arrested. The chain saws are, like, right over there, man.
Anyway, no staff even wander by for me to flag down. No one answers the second call from the desk. I consider cutting myself with a snowblower blade but if I change my mind mid-suicide, there surely won’t be any help on the way for jets of hot pumping blood, either.
I look around. Other customers are wandering around, guileless of what I am about to unleash on this store. Rending my clothes, certainly. Tantrums and tears. Vitriol and shouting that sends innocent families scurrying for the exits. Authorities will be called. But they won’t find me. I’m the invisible man in the lawn trimming section of Home Depot. If you ever want to disappear, this is place is the shit.
I look at the trimmers again. If I knew this was all self-serve when I walked in, I’d be home by now. Then it occurs to me that, since my entry, this is all probably outdated lawn care technology. I should wait for the laser lawn trimmer so there’s no fussing with bullshit tangles of nylon string.
Time to make like Detroit and give up. Like a good Canadian, I almost put the two trimmers I was considering back on the shelf. Then I decide to have some goddamn dignity and slap myself across the face hard. I don’t need a trimmer this bad. No one needs a lawn trimmer this bad. When I came into this store I didn’t need a shave. Now I need a shave and whiskey.
Must I move where there are no lawns? Failing that, do I dare the gauntlet of Home Hardware tomorrow? I don’t know if I’m up to a third hardware store in two days. I might take hostages. And still, no one will come.
I put a couple of fun hat tips to comedian Mike Schmidt in Higher Than Jesus and sent him a copy. Then he made fun of me on his podcast for not sending him the first in the series Bigger Than Jesus, too (and generously plugged both books, website and my podcast). Last night, he finally got his copy of Bigger Than Jesus. Sadly, I couldn’t stay to hang out after the show for long, but next time, for sure!
It was a great evening and a very happy mother’s day present for She Who Must Be Obeyed. Despite appearances, I am not drunk. Just very happy to finally meet Mike in person.
Get great storytelling and a lot of laughs arrived at through genius free association interspersed with rock and roll lyrics from Mike’s podcast at MikeSchmidtComedy.com.
And now, back to work! (Anybody care to guess where this is?)
