Paris?

Please don't be offended if I forget.

It's not you, it's me.

I swear.

I can't say that my memory isn't what it used to be because I think it's exactly what it always was. When a person tells me their telephone number, I smile and nod. When I'm given directions to an important location, I smile and nod. When it's my turn to order at a restaurant, I smile and nod. Then ten seconds later, I'm consulting phone books, maps, and menus for what I should have remembered in the first place.

My entire life has been one memorable experience after another. Or so I've been told.

One of my biggest dreams is to see Paris. Among its many treasures I would love to visit are the Louvre, Notre Dame, Arc de Triomphe, and of course that tall pile of iron on the Champ de Mars. Novelist Guy de Maupassant famously said that he hated the Eiffel Tower so much that he wrote from inside the structure every day because it was the only place in Paris where he did not have to look at the eyesore. I'd love to follow in those witty footsteps, but chances are good that once I ride the elevator to the top, I'll forget where I was going.

You see, I've already been to Paris. The opportunity presented itself when I was in high school and I jumped at the chance. My French was limited to phrases taught in the fifth grade, but I would be going with a tour group, so knowing the days of the week seemed more than sufficient.

I clearly recall Mom warning me not to stray from the group, lest I encounter any kidnappers. The week before I departed we went on a shopping spree to find a universal plug, phone card, money belt, and the perfect fanny pack. When it came time to board the airplane, she made sure that I knew the combination to all four locks on my suitcase. I may not have been prepared to speak in a foreign tongue, but I was good to go in the event of another Cold War.

This is where my memories start to get fuzzy. I know my ears didn't pop for several hours after getting off the plane from Regina to Toronto. I couldn't hear a thing and thought instead of learning French, I should have studied sign language. The flight from Toronto to Paris is a blur, which is odd because I know for a fact that I could not sleep. What I did for those nine hours, or who I sat with, or what the plane looked like remains a mystery.

After the long, sleepless flight we were whisked away to a hotel that I couldn't identify even if you pointed at it and said that's where I stayed. With the time change, it was early morning and there was no time to take a nap before heading directly to the Louvre. Therefore, my time spent among the great masterpieces of all time was totally wasted on me.

I never would have seen the Mona Lisa were it not for Bernie. Bernie was one of the adult chaperones on the trip and even though she was bleary eyed with jet lag, she had come a long way to see the Mona Lisa and was not going to miss it. So while the others sat dazed on benches, Bernie grabbed my hand and dragged me from one end of the giant museum to the other. We had less than two hours to soak everything in, so as a result I have a few blurry photos of what appears to be the Mona Lisa, but could just as easily be snapshots of the hardwood floor.

After our brief stint at the Louvre, I latched onto Bernie as though she were my own personal tour guide. The two of us were always at the front of the pack, but now all I can recall of our adventures is the blue and yellow jacket she wore. I do remember how excited she was to make the pilgrimage to Lourdes, where her namesake Saint Bernadette had been visited by the Blessed Virgin Mary. The spring water at Lourdes is believed to have magical healing powers, so millions of people visit the village each year to cure them of their ailments. I can't tell you what the village looked like, but I vaguely recall there being a lot of people hobbling around on crutches and some serious wheelchair gridlock.

Oh, the potatoes! It was Easter week and apparently the custom in France at Easter is to make everyone eat potatoes until they want to die. The whole time I was there (I have no idea how long I was there), I seemed to eat nothing but potatoes. Potatoes for breakfast, potatoes lunch, and potatoes dinner. Still today, whenever I see a French restaurant, I turn the other way in case there's nothing on the menu but French fries served atop a baked potato. Thank god Julia Child didn't enroll in culinary school on Good Friday or else she'd be famous for mastering the art of potatoes.

I have an entire photo album filled to the brim with pictures of tourist attractions that are famous mostly for being photographed. How my picture of Notre Dame is better than any other is beyond me. In fact, now I wonder why people travel thousands of miles to take pictures of the things they've seen in pictures. Whenever I see tourists pointing cameras at the CN Tower, I want to shake them and yell, "Take pictures of each other! That tower isn't going anywhere, but your Aunt Mildred here is hanging on by a thread!"

In all my three hundred plus pictures of Paris, I'm in precisely one of them. My eyes are shut and my fanny pack looks like a neon green kangaroo pouch, but at least I know I was there. There's proof, even if I don't recall the monument I'm obscuring. The rest are the same ones you can find in any Paris travel guide, minus the occasional blue and yellow streak of Bernie's jacket in the distance.

This trip is just one example of many things I've mostly forgotten. Entire family trips, gone. Whole visits back home, erased. Sometimes friends and family members see my forgetfulness as a lack of caring and get offended. I constantly have to reassure people that it's not that I didn't have a good time; it's just that I was probably focusing on the next good time.

I like to think that I live in the now, rather than the then. I'm not one to dwell on the past, nor do I plan too far into the future. When memories do come my way, either in a dream or in a daydream, I find myself discovering them with the same enthusiasm as though they had never happened in the first place.

So while I don't remember much about Paris, I know I was there. And some day I'll be there again, for the very first time.

Indian Summer

There's a bee that lives on my balcony who likes to make frequent trips through the hole in my screen door. On these indoor vacations, he swirls aimlessly around my living room until he eventually dares further into the apartment and discovers the kitchen counter. He examines the trail of crumbs from my morning slice of toast until the whiff of something sweeter lures him to the trash can. After he's thoroughly inspected the garbage and finds little more than the remnants of a ramen noodle, he gets thoroughly pissed off and begins to swoop at my head. I've been told the best defense against a bee is to hold still, but the threat of his stinger is greater than reason, so I grab a pillow and try to swat him out the door. As I flap my arms around like a deranged mental patient, I think about a big blue light that hung over my head as a child and protected me from ever getting stung.

The bug zapper was enormous. It was plugged into a long line of Christmas lights that dangled haphazardly from tree branches around my childhood summer cabin. Mom would plug in a long snake of extension cords and suddenly the front yard would be illuminated with cheery colored bulbs. In addition, the beacon of death would come to life and lure insects from miles around to a quick and violent demise. The zapper had a tube up the middle that glowed a spooky blue and was surrounded by a mesh of cross-crossed metal. Its eerie hum buzzed in the background as I jammed croquet wickets in the dirt or hurled horseshoes at a post. Suddenly, ZAP! The deadly machine would claim its first victim. As if nothing had happened, I would continue with whatever game I was playing and Mom would begin to set the picnic table for supper.

ZAP! ZAP! ZAP!

Within minutes, the zapper would be swarmed with stupid insects that all wanted a taste of electricity. With each zap, a small spark would fly from the glowing tube and each casualty would be flung against the metal exterior. Occasionally a large bee or small bat would sneak its way in and we'd be in for a ten minute fireworks display. Soon the zapper would become a cage full of carcasses, except for the odd bug that would ricochet off the metal and land in a bowl of pork and beans. But Mom would simply scoop up the scorched corpse and we would continue eating under the zapper as it crackled away like a bowl of Rice Krispies.

Our little red cabin at 717 9th Street stood at the peak of a hill, atop a few moss covered cinder blocks. I spent every day of my childhood summers there, in the middle of the woods on an Indian reservation. While most kids my age collected baseball cards or canceled postage, I collected beaded moccasins, webbed dream catchers and feathered muck-lucks. A winding road sprouted from the driveway in multiple directions, all leading down to White Bear Lake. Every path held its own surprises and I took it upon myself to explore them all.

During the early days of summer, before the rest of my family arrived at White Bear, my brother Curtis and I would embark on daily adventures through the brush, collecting flattened stones and entire families of wood ticks. When we arrived at the lake, we would skip the stones across the water or, if the waves were too choppy, bury them under piles of unmarked sand, never to be found again. We'd come back with pockets full of frogs to be held captive in overturned margarine containers and then count the ticks on our bodies to declare a winner. To free us from the clutches of these blood suckers, Mom would hold the tip of a needle over a flame and then singe their backs until they finally let go. They made excellent frog food.

As the days passed and June turned into July, the rest of my family would begin to arrive at their cabins and stock their cupboards with marshmallows, graham crackers and bars of chocolate. Green AstroTurf was unfurled on front steps, squeaky lawn chairs were opened up and decks of cards were rescued from drawers. Flinging open the door of an outhouse after a long winter was always dicey, but after the initial whiff and badger inspection, toilet paper would be placed on the roll and everyone was good to go. Literally.

Both sides of my family had cabins at the lake, but somehow my summers were more of a Hayward experience than a Davidson one. Most of my memories of my mom's side of the family take place at the church in Oxbow or on frequent road trips to Estevan. The Haywards, however, are a lively bunch and when we all get together in one place it's almost impossible to recall anything else. Our personalities are so large that we practically need a neighborhood unto ourselves, which might explain why I spent so much time across the lake on a patch of land we used to call Squaw Point. The area has since been given a more racially acceptable moniker, Good Birds Point, but regardless of the actual name, I still think of it as Hayward Point. Unlike White Bear, there was no fee to enter Hayward Point, so oftentimes family gatherings were at one of two cabins occupied by my dad's relatives.

Many cabins had wooden signs out front that not only advertised its residents, but also clever property names. While none of these ramshackle abodes could have been called Graceland or Tara, it was not uncommon to see things like "Randy's Retreat" or "Comfy Cozy Cottage" nailed to tree trunks. "Shakers Acre" was the name given to my Uncle Bill and Aunt Anita's cabin. Painted gray with red trim, I always thought it was one of the fanciest cabins on the block. Not only was the color choice inspired, but it was an A-frame cabin with a high peak and slanted walls. Inside, you could always find Anita completing a cross stitch or a crossword and Bill mulling over paperwork at the kitchen table. There were piles of Danielle Steel novels everywhere you looked and when finally I decided to give one a try, I discovered that no matter how high her books are piled, they never get any deeper.

After spending a lazy hour or two at Shakers Acre, I would embark down the road with my cousins Melinda and Courtney and head toward my Grandma Hayward's cabin. If the Haywards are anything, it's loud, and before I even opened the door I could hear my Auntie Bev's laughter coming from the kitchen. Inside nobody ever really knew what was funny, but every word tickled a rib. I don't recall a TV being there, but even if there was, getting reception in those parts was tricky at best. If you were lucky, you could catch a fuzzy broadcast of "Prairie Home Report," but who needed TV when there was so many more exciting things to do? Uncle Gordy would deal me into a game of spades, although my cousins Alexis and Laura wielded their trump cards like weapons so I rarely ever took a trick.

Speaking of spades, the Haywards call one when they see one. An outsider might be shocked at our honesty, but I know that every cutting remark is entirely out of love and when it comes to metaphors, any one of them could be declared the poet laureate of Squaw Point. Shakespeare may have written in iambic pentameter, but I prefer the rhythm of brisk evenings that are "colder than a witch's titty" and belt buckles that are "so big they look like a tombstone for his dick."

Lake days were my favorite. I didn't know then, nor do I know now, how to swim. My fear of water is likely the result of Mom's insistence that I wear a life jacket at all times. All I had to do was mention the lake and she would engage every zipper and buckle on my fluorescent orange vest as though the stories of children instinctively knowing how to swim were silly rumors that could never be debunked. I'm surprised I was allowed to take a bath or do the dishes without wearing something buoyant. Perhaps she drowned in a past life and just wanted to save me from a similar gulping fate. Regardless, I looked forward to the days when we would pack up the van at daybreak and head down to the water until sundown.

Our boathouse was a hotbed of activity and the whole family would arrive with stocked coolers for a day in the sun. I'd run up and down the dock with my cousins for hours on end, while the adults lounged on the beach and soaked in the rays. This was before anyone had cell phones or iPods or portable video games, so the only source of entertainment was boisterous conversation and the lake itself. When the sun had made its way across the sky and hit the treetops, someone would be dispatched to make a trip to Kentucky Fried Chicken. They'd return with buckets filled to overflowing with piping hot breasts and drumsticks. Together we'd eat this greasy meal, occasionally peppered with sand, and although nobody ever said grace, we were definitely thankful.

I'm still thankful, but a part of me wonders what the hell happened. When my dad died, I stopped going to the lake entirely. It was the one place he seemed genuinely happy and I chose not to weaken those memories by creating new ones. Every Sunday he would take me, just me, out for breakfast at the crack of dawn to the restaurant of my choice. He'd smear peanut butter on my toast and cut my bacon into chunks. Normally these were things he would have insisted I do myself because I'm a man and "men butter their own goddamn toast." He may have not always been easy to talk to and there were times he scared the piss out of me, but I know he secretly relished being a father and thanks to those little packets of peanut butter, I have all the proof I need.

Not long after I abandoned White Bear others began to follow suit. The little red cabin was sold and weeds began to sprout up around the boathouse. My cousins grew up and spread across the country, so the cabins that did remain in the family were upgraded to muffle the quiet caused by their absence. Septic tanks replaced outhouses and satellite dishes were installed on every roof. The decks of cards that once felt warm hands became cold and forgotten. Even the lake diminished in both size and splendor. Islands appeared in the middle of the shrinking body of water and all the docks that were not abandoned had to be pushed further down the shoreline.

Part of me thinks I was born to the wrong generation. I don't have a cell phone and hopefully never will. As far as I'm concerned they don't bring people closer together, but rather drive us apart by giving us the illusion we're keeping in touch. I prefer actual touch. I use the internet as a necessity of life, but I hate it. And I don't think we're far off from climbing into our television sets and calling it a day. Call me old-fashioned, I don't care. Then again, if I were born earlier, I would have an entirely different batch of memories. I never would have smelled the stink of our musty cabin, tasted Tang out of a mismatched glass or heard gales of laughter more memorable than the joke.

Every time I shoo a bee out of my apartment and onto the balcony, I'm reminded of my wonderful summers at the lake. Hanging on the rails that overlook Toronto is my most cherished possession – the wooden sign that used to hang above the front door of our cabin. The days of wood ticks and sandy drumsticks may be long gone, but that sign reminds me every single day how fortunate I am to be one of "The Haywards." Then I think to myself, "Hot damn. I should have also taken the zapper."

Go Figure

Were someone to open my closet circa 1994, they would have found it brimming with fabric circa 1984. Yards of slick Lycra weighed heavily on wire hangers while mounds of ruffled polyester sat in curly bunches on the floor. Neon orange stretch pants were stacked next to puffy tops that had been permanently bloused at the waist with stylish elastic hems. Along the back wall was a row of hooks that had been decorated with sequined bow ties and shimmery cummerbunds. If either Liberace or Blanche Devereaux were passing through town, I could have outfitted them both and still had enough ruffles left over for the Barnum and Bailey Circus.

I was once a figure skater. My first pair of skates were hockey skates and I hated them. When I discovered there were such a thing as blades that had picks on them, I had an epiphany. "I want to jam picks into the ice and twirl in the air," I said to myself. And that was that. Soon after, my mom bought me a pair of figure skates of my very own. I was in heaven. They were girl skates, however, and I was not in love with the fact that they were white. We tried to cover them up with stretchy brown covers, but I did not want brown skates. I wanted black ones like Kurt Browning. Although his last name had the word brown in it, his skates were black and he won Olympic medals with them. My second pair of skates were black. I was on my way.

Early one winter morning, I was thrilled when my brother-in-law invited me to go skating with him at the rink. He was the only person in our family who even remotely enjoyed sports, as evidenced by the well-worn cushions on every recliner in the living room. We were far from a lazy bunch, but the idea of throwing balls, let alone catching them, was a mystery to us all. While I tended to share the opinion of my lineage, it was exciting to be invited somewhere that did not involve picking weeds or picking rocks or picking anything else that needed picking. My brother-in-law also introduced me to golf, which I still love playing and watching to this day. Far more than I ever loved skating, as it turns out, but I am getting ahead of myself.

"You should get a pair of boys' skates," he said to me as we laced up our boots. He didn't mean any harm by it, I know, but the words stuck in my head. Was there something wrong with my skates? Was there something wrong with me? These thoughts weighed on my mind as I watched him slide a puck around the ice with a stick. I refrained from any twirls that day and stayed as close to the boards as possible, lest I embarrass either one of us. When we got back home, I mentioned our conversation to my sister.

"They are boys' skates," she said, swatting her husband with a tea towel. "As a matter of fact, they're mens' skates." And, thus, my short lived identity crisis was resolved. I slung my skates over my shoulder and at least one thing became clear that day - it is better to have a sister than to not. My mind once again returned to twirls and I became determined to stand atop the podium at the Olympic games in a pair of black mens' figure skates.

My love affair with skating began, as love affairs tend to do, with great anticipation. I was enrolled in lessons and could barely wait to get on the ice every time I set foot in the rink. It didn't matter to me that I was the only boy there. To be honest, the thought never crossed my mind. All I cared about was how to spin 360 degrees over and over and not get dizzy. And I did learn. In a very short amount of time, I also learned how to jump in the air going forward and land on one foot going backward. This is called a waltz jump and I took to it like nobody's business. Soon I put these jumps and spins together and suddenly found myself with a routine that was choreographed to the Batman theme song. "Look out, Kurt," I thought to myself. "Here I come."

My very first ice show remains stamped in my brain as the first event in my life that I could call "an event." The rink was decorated with streamers and balloons. The concession stand was fully stocked with salt and vinegar chips. The bleachers were filled to capacity with moms and dads alike. However, they were all moms and dads of little girls. It wasn't long before the ice show that I overheard my dad grumbling something about it being weird that I was skating with these girls and that he might not show up. I was unfazed by this and didn't think of it again until the day of the ice show. As I suited up into my Batman costume, his words came back to me. I was not hurt by them, but rather I couldn't understand how he could possibly want to be anywhere else. I mean, this was undoubtedly the biggest thing that had ever happened in Oxbow since Main Street had been paved. I looked at the program and realized I was next to go on. Just before my music started, I spotted him. He was not on the bleachers with the rest of the parents, but he was there, standing all by himself at the far end of the rink. I was no longer Bruce Wayne. I was Batman.

This is when things got serious. The days of cutesy routines were over and it was time to compete. A coach was enlisted and her name was Lenna. She sometimes scared the skates right off me, but that is what coaches are supposed to do and she was a great coach. I grew more fond of her with each passing practice session until I couldn't imagine how I ever learned to skate without her. "This is what the big time feels like," I thought. My jumps and spins got progressively more difficult and my repertoire of routines became far more sophisticated. Long before computers made editing music a snap, Lenna cut a couple of songs together with a cassette deck and created what became my favorite routine of them all. Instead of Batman, I was now skating to the theme song from Dallas that had been crudely sliced together with the theme song from Terms of Endearment. There was a slight click on the recording every time the tape switched between songs, but surely I would be able to disguise this glitch with my artistry. Like I said, this was the big time. I channeled my inner Larry Hagman and Shirley Maclaine for the next two years.

I started taking this new routine to figure skating competitions all over the place. By this time, I had become very close to one of the girls who skated with me. Erin was a dynamite skater and, despite the fact that she was so tiny that you could fit her in your back pocket, she had a huge presence on the ice. She became my best friend during this period of my life and for a while it felt like I had another sister. She and her mom, Connie, would ride along with me, mom and Lenna to every one of these competitions.

I should stop for a moment and provide an extra detail that might give you a better mental image of the five of us. We all had perms. This was well into the 90's, but fashion trends tend to trickle slowly into Oxbow, so we were all still riding the wave of popularity for curly tresses. As far back as I can remember, my mom had a permanent wave in her hair. During my skating days, her hair sat on top of her head in the shape of Epcot Center. It was less styled than it was shaped. Think Bob Ross from The Joy of Painting on PBS. Connie's perm had a wet look to it, like Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction. Lenna's perm was a little hipper than both of theirs and she bared a striking resemblance Jennifer Grey in Dirty Dancing. Erin's was the cutest of the bunch and would have made Fred Savage from The Wonder Years very jealous. My perm was the most unfortunate of all, although it did coincide with Linda Gray's do in Dallas, which gave my routine the continuity it had been lacking previous to the Ogilve treatment.

Back to competition. The competition I looked forward to most each year was the one in Minot, North Dakota. The five of us would pile in mom's van, our poofy heads peeking over the seat backs, and our little reenactment of The Golden Girls would cross the border onto American soil. I can only imagine what the border guards were thinking. We would arrive in Minot and immediately check into the hotel. It was usually the Holiday Inn on the north side of town, which had a big pool, a mini-golf course and pop machines stocked with Crystal Pepsi. I should have clued in then that figure skating was not my calling when I was more enthralled with these amenities than I was the competition, but again, this realization came later. More on that shortly.

Despite the fact Erin was a much better skater than I ever was, I always returned home from Minot with more medals than she did. However, it only stands to reason I would because there were far more girls competing than there were boys. Often times there were fewer boys than there were places on the podium, while she would be up against dozens of skaters. As my collection of medals grew and grew, I started to believe I had more talent than I actually did. This false sense of achievement quickly made any medal that was not gold completely unacceptable to me. It was also at this time that I was becoming less enthused by the skating itself than I was by the thought of how I might hang the medals in my bedroom.

There were many other competitions throughout each season and we seemed to hit them all. Even in the middle of a blizzard, mom would get us to each and every one of them without incident. I remember her casually plowing through snow drifts, one hand on the steering wheel and the other on a sandwich. And such great memories I have of each one. At one competition, my sister came down with an illness so bad that its symptoms rivaled those of cholera and she was unable to leave the hotel. Whenever I think of the many ways I would prefer not to die, I picture her hunkered down in that hotel room next to a humidifier and jars of Vicks Vaporub, and think I would rather get caught in the gears of a Tilt-A-Whirl then come down with whatever it was she had. There were a few competitions that mom could not make it to for one reason or another. On one of these occasions, Erin's dad drove us and it was then that I learned "if it's yellow, let it mellow" also applies to hotel toilets, apparently.

It was at this point in time that someone had the brilliant idea that Erin and I should team up and compete as a pair. I can barely pick up a glass without dropping it, but never mind. Skating directly beside her is when it became abundantly clear, at least to me, that I was not cut out for the sport. Suddenly I could see that she had what it took and I did not. That's when my interest in skating really began to wane and I considered giving it up. But first I had to figure out why.

What you don't see when you watch Kurt Browning on the ice is that skating is hard. He makes it look easy, but trust me, it's not. The morning practices before school in subzero temperatures became less and less bearable. Bless her heart, mom would pull a pair of pants on over her pajamas and drive me into town at the ungodly hour of 5:30am. Occasionally she would forget to put in her bottom set of dentures, but nobody seemed to notice because we were all so tired and all so cold. We practiced to the same cassette tape of 60's rock and roll so many times that I still shiver to this day whenever I hear "Runaround Sue." After a couple hours of this torture, mom's voice would come over the loud speaker.

"Time for sssshcool," she would say. Then I would take off my skates as quickly as possible, wishing nothing more than to crawl back into bed.

As I had suspected years earlier, but didn't want to admit to myself, sports were not my thing. My grade in gym class was the only one under 90 percent. Way under. God, I hated gym class. I hated it with a passion. If there was a way to get out of gym class, I knew about it. I always laid the blame for my poor marks on the teacher, Mr. Rosenthal, but that excuse flew out the window when he came to the rink on one of these chilly mornings and watched me skate. While I couldn't spike a volleyball or dunk a basketball, he did see that I was capable of something athletic, and this revelation was reflected on my next report card. I still think of this as one of the nicest things a teacher ever did for me. When my grade jumped from 60 percent to 80, I knew then and there that I had gotten all I was ever going to get out of figure skating.

As it turns out, it was performing I liked. I liked wearing sequined vests. I liked making people smile. I liked taking a bow. My eureka moment came when I discovered the drama club. I had a small part in a play and that's when it hit me that I could make an ass of myself without freezing it. After having spent so much time and money on skates and costumes and competitions, I was scared to tell mom that I had experienced a change of heart. I worried she would say something motherly like "but you're so good at it" or "quitters never win" or "always finish what you start." But I couldn't go on with the charade anymore. It was not long after that first play performance that I finally summoned the courage to tell her.

"I want to quit skating and join drama," I declared nervously.

"Okay," she said.

And that was that. No speech. No lecture. Just "okay." It was as if she already knew I had a new dream. And she is not the sort of person who gets in the way of dreams; if anything, she paves the way for them. With that, I hung up my skates for good, along with any dreams of an Olympic medal.

I still get a tingle up my spine whenever I see Kurt Browning on TV. I know he lives somewhere in my neighborhood and I always have my eyes peeled for him when I'm walking around. I have no idea what I'd say if I ever actually bumped into him. "Thank you for Erin and Connie and Lenna," perhaps. "Thank you for home perms. Thank you for Minot. Thank you for dad at the back of the rink. Thank you for mom at the front of it. Thank you for proving figure skates are mens' skates if a man is wearing them. And most of all," I might say. "Thank you for the colorful costumes in my closet. They saved me from ever having to live in one."

Day by Day

When I visited the New York Stock Exchange I could not understand my guide when he declared it as the epicenter of activity in North America. Watching from behind a bulletproof plexiglass wall, I saw men in tailored suits scatter like ant farm residents and women in pressed skirts toss little slips of paper on the floor as if they were shelling peanuts in a smoky tavern. I got dizzy watching the Harvard graduates play what I consider a financial version of Dungeons and Dragons. Theoretical money is lost and gained at the ring of a bell while tycoons like Bill Gates and Martha Stewart get into fist fights over the title of Dungeon Master. To be sure, the Stock Exchange is an exciting place to spend an air conditioned hour in Manhattan, but it's nothing compared to a business operation in Carnduff, Saskatchewan, whose epicenter is smack dab in the middle of a kitchen table.

Spend one day in southeast Saskatchewan and you'll undoubtedly spot the words "Fast Trucking" embroidered in green thread on the brim of a hat or the back of a jacket. Come winter, the entire population of Carnduff puts on puffy green coats until the town appears to be overrun with Oompa-Loompas. In the sixties, when most people were getting high and listening to Jerry Garcia albums, Tony and Vi Day had already embarked on an enterprise that would later become Fast Trucking and all of its many subsidiaries. It would take at least two hands to count all of the services they provide, but among them are moving oil rigs, drilling oil wells, farming crop land and constructing leases. I would not be surprised if they were somehow involved with the Hubble space craft. Their empire now includes a magnificent fleet of trucks that stretches a half mile along the highway into town, which is overwhelming visual proof that anything can be achieved if only you put your heart and soul into it.

My parents were close friends of the Days so I spent much of my childhood at their home, which also happens to be their office. Heaps of paperwork that dictate larger financial decisions than I will ever see in my entire lifetime sit casually on the kitchen table next to cans of Coca-Cola and stray forks. A CB radio hisses regularly from atop a filing cabinet and a telephone with the longest cord I've ever seen never seems to be on the hook. The adjacent kitchen is nothing fancy, but the cupboards produce an endless supply of food and dishes, as if they had been constructed by David Copperfield. The living room boasts a big screen TV and two recliners; one for Tony and the other for honored house guests. Flanking the walls in all directions are large picture windows so that Tony and Vi can keep a close eye on their operation and fire up the coffee maker whenever visitors pull into the yard.

You'd never know Tony and Vi wielded as much power as they do because their home is infinitely cozy, the door always unlocked and the dinner table open to everyone. People come and go all day long, rarely invited but always welcomed. Their entry way often looks like a collection of shoes bound for the Salvation Army. When I lived in Los Angeles, I always had my eyes peeled for celebrities, but the closest I ever came to conversing with a star was meeting Kimmy Gibler from Full House. To think of all the time I wasted milling around Hollywood back lots when it would have been more likely to spot Tom Cruise or Catherine Zeta-Jones at Vi's kitchen table. The papers on the table are constantly being rearranged to accommodate new plates and new cutlery, while the stove top and dishwasher work tirelessly to keep up.

Ketchup is generally accepted as a condiment to be served alongside french fries, yet at the Day household it's a meal unto itself and dinner guests might find themselves asking for french fries to go with their ketchup. Bottles of Heinz are squirted onto and into pretty much anything that will stand still. Hearty scoops of macaroni and cheese are rescued from the pot, awaiting a swirly drizzle as soon as they hit the table. Bowls of creamy mushroom soup are decorated with tomato dots. And hunks of meatloaf that have already been painted red are given a second coat. Once a state of emergency was declared when a bottle that had sat upside down on the table throughout dinner would not produce a single spurt. Vi, in her infinite wisdom, came to the rescue with a can of tomato soup and a funnel. When the splattered after dinner plates hit the sink, they look an awful lot like Jackson Pollack paintings or, especially if spare ribs have been served, slabs of concrete from Nicole Brown Simpson's driveway.

If ever a hat is dropped, Vi can always be counted on to help pick it up. I don't know how she does it, but judging from her ability to make time for everything and everyone, she seems to have more hours in the day than the rest of us. Whenever I'm hiring employees and come across a resume that boasts the applicant as a master of multitasking, I think of Vi and say to myself, "wanna bet?" She is capable of most anything, including multiple conversations at once, both on the phone and the radio, whilst preparing corn for dinner, both creamed and not. She also happens to bear a striking resemblance to Bea Arthur that I honestly wondered as a child how she found the time to star in The Golden Girls, let alone Maude.

While Vi is a sure thing, Tony is more of a gambler. He and my dad would travel long distances to auction sales and come back with millions of dollars worth of flat bed trucks, gravel road graders and oil well machinery. Never one to shy away from a risk, he would put faith in his intuition and remain confident that he would see a return on his investment. The crazy part is, he was always right. As his company grew to epic proportions, his ego never did. His bold and intelligent nature never precedes him when he walks into a room; instead, one might notice his snazzy suspenders or sly grin before telling a naughty joke.

Some of my fondest memories are set within their four walls. Mom and Vi would stand together at the kitchen sink, one rinsing a plate before the other put it into the dishwasher. Dad and Tony would put the recliners to good use, cranking the handles on the side of each chair before kicking up their feet. Meanwhile, my brother and I would scavenge for decks of cards or stray jacks in every available drawer. Of course not all my memories there are tinted rose. Tony and Vi's youngest son once rolled me up in a hideaway bed and the horror of this entrapment still haunts me whenever I am asked to sleep on such a contraption. On many Friday nights my dad and Tony would huddle around the television with other big wigs in the area to watch the latest episode of Dallas. I remember being scared shitless to cross in front of these intimidating men, lest I interrupt their ongoing debate as to which one of them was J.R. Ewing and which was Clayton Farlow. Therefore, I always took the long way to the bedroom, where I would flop around on the waterbed and repeatedly watch Disney's Robin Hood from my wavy perch. Then there was the Christmas morning we spent there barely a month after my dad died. Mom was understandably distraught, so there was no time for her to shop for presents. There were many gifts under the tree with my name on them, but when I pulled away the wrapping and bows, they were filled with pictures that had been cut out of the Sears catalog. It's certainly the oddest December 25th I have on record, but I can't think of any place I would have rather been after such a loss.

My dad was not one for fatherly advice, but one hot summer day while picking rocks in the middle of a field, I began to cry helplessly in the sun until he had no choice but to open his heart to me.

"What the fuck is your problem?" he asked.

Okay, not exactly the words of Ward Cleaver, but he got his point across. Suddenly the rock became ten pounds lighter and I was able to lift it into the picker. Now when I'm faced with a dilemma that seems insurmountable, his words ring in my ear until I come up with a solution that satisfies both my limited strength and his enormous expectations. Other times, when a decision is less pressing, I take a moment and think to myself, "what would Tony do?" Once I get that sorted out, the next words in my head are undoubtedly, "how would Vi get it done?" My childhood trips to Carnduff were often under the guise of piano and figure skating lessons, but I've long since lost the ability to identify a treble cleff or land a double axel. However, the life lessons I learned from the Day household have stuck with me to this day and I'm proud to be a graduate.

I recently visited Tony and Vi at their home and was thrilled to find it preserved exactly as I had remembered. The only thing missing was a grandfather clock that I would spend hours pretending I had won on The Price is Right. Vi shoved aside a pile of bills and rolled a dining chair up to the table. Normally I sat on stack stools around the perimeter of the room so that the power players could chug coffee and discuss important business. Now I was being invited to join the ranks of men and women who had sat there before me and I was unsure if I could fill the chair.

Tony approached the table and the hairs on the back of my neck stood at attention. It was as if I was five years old all over again and I considered scampering to the entry for my shoes. "Good to see you, buddy boy," he said. Then he turned his attention to the dinner Vi had presented before him. My hairs immediately fell at ease and I slowly took a seat. As I sat in the coveted chair next to Tony for the very first time, one that had been previously occupied by my father, I instantly went from feeling like a boy to feeling like a man. We didn't say much, but that was fine with me. It was more than enough to sit beside the greatest man I've ever known as he picked up his chicken fingers and dipped them in ketchup.

Liquidating Blockbuster

I met a homeless man named Jack and it was difficult not to stare at the hole in his face where an eye should have been. Jack was rummaging through a dumpster behind the Blockbuster Video I have worked at for the past few years, looking for day-old bread that had been discarded by the bakery next door. At the risk of overstating things, Epi Breads makes a dazzling assortment of sweet and savory breads, as well as one hell of an apricot cookie. Often times on my way to work I shake my pocket to see if I can hear the jingle of loose coins that will allow me to indulge my sweet tooth before a nine hour shift. As I filled the dumpster to capacity with perfectly functional remnants of my store, which is now being liquidated, I became overwhelmed by the enormous amount of waste that was accumulating in the receptacle. With just one eye, Jack had spotted a way to survive on the wasteful nature of commerce, yet he was the one feeling sorry for me and my pending unemployment.

It's been a long time coming, and comes as no surprise to many, but a large number of Blockbuster stores in Canada have been forced to liquidate their assets in order to pay for a debt that had been racked up by its American counterpart. After months of dodging the bullet, my location has now fallen victim to the times and will close its doors in less than two weeks. I never considered my job at Blockbuster a career, but rather a low stress day (and night) job that afforded me the ability to earn a living that did not require lugging home any proverbial baggage that would burden what I consider to be my actual career, writing. As a matter of fact, for the past few months I have been secretly excited at the prospect of being able to spend 40 hours a week with my notebook instead of copies of Cuba Gooding Jr.'s latest straight-to-video action flick. Yet now that the time has actually arrived, I'm surprised at the loss I've been feeling ever since posting an ugly red sign that proclaims "Nothing Held Back" on the front door.

Working at a video store is unlike most retail jobs in that you get to see the same faces over and over again who, for the most part, are interested in the opinions of the employees behind the counter. Rarely does a person stop and ask their grocery store clerk for a detailed review of the "new and improved" Bran Flakes.

"The flakes are the size of your fist! And, as a special bonus, they come with a coupon for Charmin!"

Yet at Blockbuster my opinions mattered to many and I would spend the majority of my day talking to customers about a variety of different movies. As a result, I had the privilege of getting to know my regulars in a very personal way. As with any relationship, mine with the general public developed gradually over time, but it's impossible not to care about a person when you see them two or three times a week and ask personal questions in order to come up with the perfect movie for their evening. In a small way, a part of me went home with these "strangers" whenever they made a $5 investment in one of my recommendations. Now that the store is in liquidation mode, it's become increasingly difficult for me to summon the energy to come to work because the part of the job I enjoyed most has suddenly been plucked from the equation.

Now when the door opens, I'm greeted with a pitiful look and then some variation of, "I'm sorry to hear the store is closing. Is everything 50% off?"

"Yes," I reply for the umpteenth time, with as much enthusiasm as I can muster.

"Even Pirates of the Caribbean?" And before I can reply, they've already managed to scoop up an armload of movies that will inevitably be dumped in a pile on the floor before they check-out.

I don't know what it is about the word "clearance" that turns people into animals, but for the past two weeks I've had to witness the store I've spent so many hours making presentable be ravaged by bargain hunters who leave trails of droppings in their wake. The first day of liquidation was the worst, as I found myself wading knee deep in DVD's that had been tossed on the floor and face-to-face with smug Blockbuster naysayers. The line of vultures was so long that I could not even make my way to the bathroom without a dozen inquiries for the whereabouts of Avatar or Not Without My Daughter starring Sally Field.

One customer (who I had never seen before) was so insistent that I find her a copy of The Secret that she refused to move until I located one. After pointing to the long line of people behind her and nearly wringing her saggy neck, I finally gave up and forged my way onto the sales floor. The documentary section looked like some sort of Iranian conflict had happened there, but I visualized myself finding the movie as I sifted through the rubble. It finally turned up behind a copy of Austin Powers and I proudly raced back to the desk as though I had just found Osama Bin Laden himself.

"This isn't Bluray," the lady barked as she hurled the disc into a cinematic black hole that had materialized behind the Pepsi cooler.

For someone who thrives on order, it was nearly impossible to leave the store looking like Joan Crawford's bathroom after the whole Comet incident. Yet I was so drained of energy and emotion that I locked the door behind me and, for the very first time, took home the stress I had so diligently been avoiding all these years. "It's just a job," I told myself before breaking down into tears. "And it will soon be over." That's when it hit me for the first time. It will soon be over. And I cried all over again, realizing the job that "meant nothing" to me actually meant a great deal.

For the next couple of weeks I can cope with the obnoxious customers who act like I'm in charge of a corporate flea market and say stupid things like, "I'll give you a buck for all the Twizzlers" or "how much for the open sign?" I can cope with these morons because of the cherished regulars who have come in amidst the chaos to bring me cups of coffee, boxes of cookies, sincere words of encouragement and more than enough hugs to get me through the day. It's safe to say I will not become nostalgic for shelving returns, filing daily reports or counting tills, but I'm already mourning the loss of what I consider to be my extended family because no matter what kind of day I was having, I was always genuinely happy to see them. And a part of me knows they were happy to see me, too.

It's just starting to sink in that I will no longer see Ms. Egalik on Monday afternoons. She revealed herself to me little by little over the years and I looked forward to our discussions because they were always entertaining and often enriching. I was enlightened by the intelligent conversations I had with Ms. Michaels, Mr. Halpern and Ms. Healy. Or what about my weekly visit with Mark and Maria and their adorable dog, Rocco? At precisely 6pm every Friday, the three of them would greet me at the door with a smile and leave with a box of Glossette almonds, two movies and a Milkbone. I cannot imagine a Saturday morning without Gina calling in to ask if I'd put aside a couple of horror movies, followed by a cheerful "thanks, hon!" Not to mention, unexpected ice cream parties with Leeanne on rainy summer evenings.

There's also Elaine, a beautiful and outgoing dynamo that came in nearly every day with such vivacity that it was impossible not to have your day brightened by her presence. And Christine, a cancer survivor whose determination to live each day to the fullest taught me everything I ever needed to know about facing challenges with grace and dignity. Alan and Andy, two men that have been together for over 50 years, not only made me appreciate the true meaning of forever, but also had the ability to sneak crude jokes into a transaction that would have me laughing harder than any movie you'd find on the shelf.

I watched as Lucas grew up before my very eyes, and was there when he welcomed his precious sister Sam into the world. Sam has the biggest blue eyes you've ever seen and is on her way to becoming quite the heart-breaker. Her mom is about as friendly as a person can get and makes macaroons so good that she could give Epi Breads a run for their money were she to open shop. And her husband has such a "good to know ya" attitude that it cannot help but rub off on those around him. Blockbuster may not have been good at keeping up with technology, but it has always been a family destination, and many families such as this one will miss it when it's gone.

How does one say "good-bye" to a customer? For all I know, they think I'm just being nice to them because I'm being paid to be nice to them. I hope they know, and I think most of them do, that it has been my honor to serve them and I am certainly a better person because of it. Yet I find it difficult to say these words, even when they come in bearing gifts or letters of reference. Have our relationships been fleeting ones that will mark this period of my life like an overturned corner of a cheap paperback? Or will I turn the page and find they are still there? I am both scared and excited about the next chapter in my life, knowing that I have what it takes to make it as a writer. Then again, without the daily interaction with others that I have enjoyed for so long, I worry I will no longer have anything to write about.

One by one, businesses along Bayview Avenue have been forced to shutter and their boarded over facades are a sad commentary on what our society has become. People are slowly devolving into portable electronic gadgets and I will have none of it. I refuse to board over my exterior and live my life as a series of mouse clicks. There is something grand to be said about being a member of a community and I will cherish my time spent at Blockbuster on the corner of Bayview and Millwood. My job may not have been "important," but based on the number of times I am stopped in line at the supermarket or hear the words "Hi, Bradley!" shouted from across the street, I know that in a small way I was an important member of the community. And so was the soon-to-be obsolete "little video store on the corner."

As one-eyed Jack straddled his bicycle with a bag of buns slung over his shoulder, he turned around and looked at me through a pair of cracked lenses. "Good luck, buddy," he said. "And don't work too hard."

"Thanks," I replied as he pedaled off into the distance. Under the blazing sun, I followed his advice and sat down on a milk crate to think about the eye opening experiences I've had at the store. I stared at the pile of remains in the dumpster and smiled for the first time since I put up the "Store Closing" banner out front. Blockbuster may be gone, but it will not soon be forgotten. And thanks to the people who made my job worth coming to each day, neither will I.

M'm! M'm! Good!

One of my three wishes would be to have the kind of lunch I enjoyed as a child. These days I grab whatever is handy when my stomach gurgles and lurches toward my throat as friendly reminder to eat. So often I am either focused on work or stuck in a daydream that I forget to eat until my palms are clammy and the ground beneath my feet begins to spin. That's when I grasp at the nearest bag of Goldfish crackers or gooey Cadbury egg for relief. Once the sugar has had a chance to dissolve and pulse through my veins, I carry on with my day as if my body had not just gone into a small state of shock. Every once in a while, for stretches that last a week or maybe two, I make a point of eating lunch on a regular basis. I pack little brown bags with apples and cashews to go with turkey sandwiches and milk. These spurts of nutritional well being are fleeting, however, and I inevitably go back to shoveling crap into my mouth right before the linoleum floor hurdles toward my forehead.

When I was younger, lunch was a daily appointment that was never missed. Mom would set the table precisely at noon and we would help ourselves to what seemed like a bottomless trough of Campbell's soup. Just like at Tim Horton's today, there was always a variety of soups burbling in various pots on the stove top. One of us liked cream of mushroom, while another favored tomato rice. Chicken noodle was also popular and, depending on those present, beef with barley was not uncommon. All of this was long before Campbell's came up with "reduced sodium" anything, so it's fair to say we were a puffy and bloated bunch. Soda crackers were also plentiful, as were cans of salmon that had been mixed with mayonnaise and transformed into creamy spreads that we slathered on them. I have since deemed salmon salad gross, but I find myself a little bit homesick when the smell of canned fish wafts over from a neighboring apartment.

Once I was old enough to go to school, I began taking my lunch to school in tin boxes adorned with my favorite cartoon characters. For a few years it was Bert and Ernie, then Bumblelion and the rest of the Wuzzles gang. Eventually I graduated to a plain blue insulated bag that signaled my first step toward independence. Inside were lunches packed with care by my mother. She always insisted there was no such thing as "being bored" and reinforced this declaration by keeping my lunch bag full of surprises. The main course rarely varied and was usually a bologna or peanut butter sandwich. Granola bars were another staple of these lunches, as were Ziplock bags filled with cheesy crackers. Where she applied her genius for school lunch making was in the fourth item, which was always an inspired selection that kept me on my toes. I would unravel the top of my lunch bag with anticipation, never quite sure of the wonders in store.

Whenever I'd watch TV shows like Dennis the Menace or The Brady Bunch, there were always story lines about the jealousy lunches could inspire in others. Dennis would long after Joey's candy bar or Bobby trade dish washing duty for Cindy's chocolate milk. I always thought these things only happened on television, but looking back I see that's because I had the best lunch in my class. Had I known this then, I could have cleaned up and traded my goodies for the biggest marbles or completed homework assignments. Among the items that made my lunches great were packages of shelled sunflower seeds, miniature bags of Doritos or slabs of peppered beef jerky. Like I said, mom knew how to keep things exciting. She also had a knack for beverages. Long before it was available in Canada, it was quite a coup to have a pouch of Capri Sun fruit juice. Mom's frequent trips to North Dakota meant that our refrigerator was well stocked with Capri Sun, so they often appeared when the school bell rang at noon. Something about sticking a straw into a silver foil pouch made them infinitely more desirable than one of Dole's ghetto juice boxes. Although I never experienced being a "cool kid," the straw in my pouch was definitely a feather in my cap.

There was a stretch of time in elementary school when my brother and I would walk to my Grandma Davidson's every Tuesday and Thursday for lunch. We would arrive at her cozy suite precisely at noon and burst through the doors, where a pair of TV trays would already be waiting for us. They were flimsy aluminum trays, but I remember thinking they were something special because they had flowers on them that looked like they had been painted by the stout woman who taught Sunday morning art lessons on the CBC. Propped up behind the trays were white pillows that had fringe around the edges and tassels at the corners. I'd sit on mine because I was too short to reach the tray, while Curtis would grab his by a tassel and twirl it around until there was so much pressure on the seam that it would begin to spin the other way in fast motion. As this ritual went on, the clatter of silverware and dishes could be heard coming from the kitchen.

Finally Grandma would appear in her apron and greet us with a warm smile and plate of buttered crackers. She'd set the fancy hors d'oeuvres on my tray before sitting on the rocker across from us. We'd nibble at the crackers while she asked about our day and told us about her morning jaunt to the post office. Then without warning she would stab her feet into the carpet and press her chair back with enough force to propel her forward on the rebound. Back to her feet, she'd flip the TV to channel 7 where The Flintstones was already in progress. For the next twenty minutes we'd sit mesmerized by Fred and Wilma as Grandma shuffled back and forth from the kitchen with bowls full of soup (yes, Campbell's) and sandwiches slathered with butter as thick as the bread. I don't think she ever sat down for a moment and certainly never had anything to eat herself. Every condiment request warranted its own trip to the kitchen, so by the time the credits rolled on The Flintstones, I'm sure she had walked a mile.

Dessert came with a cherry on top. As the news began with either the temperature or current price of grain - whichever was lower - she would present us with canned fruit that had been ladled into her finest crystal bowls. The pears were suspended in syrup and magnified by crisscross shapes cut into the crystal. The coveted cherries had been equally disbursed between them and a ginger cookie was snapped and wedged upright in each bowl. By the time we polished off the fruit it was time to stand in line for a goodbye kiss and head back to school. It did not occur to me until years later that Grandpa Davidson was also present at these lunches. Unfortunately, he was in such poor health that he rarely had much to say, so his role in these memories is small. Yet looking back I admire how he patiently sat through our cartoon as he watched the woman he called his wife for so many years spring to life in a way he no longer could. I don't think I ever spoke to him during these lunches, but perhaps I didn't have to. Surely it's enough that we shared the same love, who always showed up with a bowl full of cherries.

Lunch with my Grandma Hayward is another story entirely. She made batches of brownies in a worn 9x9 pan that looked as though it had survived both World Wars. Perhaps it had, I don't know. Whether it was the pan or her special touch, they were the kind of brownies that could make grown men weep. They were crunchy on the outside, chewy on the inside and saturated with so much sugar that she should have served them with syringes of insulin. In short order, the greatest brownies ever made. The recipe has circulated around the family since her passing, but nobody has quite got it right. Either she left out a vital ingredient or, as I more likely suspect, in order to develop their full flavor they must sit on the counter and absorb copious plumes of Craven A cigarette smoke.

While her brownies were delicious, I never much cared for her depression era dinners. A particular favorite of hers was gummy glops of Campbell's bean with bacon soup spread onto stale slices of Wonder Bread. As much as I loved her, this recipe would have made Laura Ingalls Wilder go to bed hungry. Therefore, I rarely spent my lunch hours away from school eating at her food museum. When I think back on it, I don't think she enjoyed cooking anyway. One time when mom and dad were away, she spent a week with Curtis and I at our farm. When supper rolled around, instead of warming up the oven we would pile into her car and drive 5 miles to the Bow Manor Cafe in town. I was about 12 or 13 years old at the time, so I was surprised on the first day when she tossed her keys in my direction.

"You drive," she said.

The only vehicle I had driven up to this point was my dad's pick-up truck in the middle of a cultivated field, crying hysterically with my eyes clenched shut. I didn't understand why my brother thought driving was fun and could never imagine wanting to do it voluntarily. Yet here I was, face to face with my dear grandmother, who either believed in me or had a death wish.

My bottom lip quivered as I bent down to pick up the keys I had dodged. "Okay," I croaked. Then she took her place in the passenger seat.

Her car was the size of a boat. It had blood red upholstery and the words "Grand Marquis" emblazoned on the starboard side. It was just the kind of car that turns up regularly on 48 Hours Mystery, with stray body parts in the trunk and incriminating DNA on the carpet. I'm not sure how we didn't end up as body parts and DNA ourselves, but with my teeth, fists and butt clenched, I steered the car to our destination. I pulled over into an approach on the outskirts of town and we swapped places in case there were any police men on patrol. I ate my chicken fingers at the Bow Manor in slow motion, postponing the inevitable drive back with me as the chauffeur. Perhaps bean with bacon on bread wasn't so bad after all.

My life changed in the summer of 2001 when I took Grandma Hayward out to lunch. I had planned to pop into her apartment for a brownie or two and then be on my way, but something made it impossible for me to put on my shoes. One hour turned into two and then two into three. She always spoke fondly of her childhood, but this time I listened more closely, as if I would later be quizzed. After going through her photo album in great detail, there was nothing but crumbs left in the brownie pan.

"Are you hungry?" I asked.

She closed the album and said with a smile, "I'll put on my shoes."

Grandma always made a point of mentioning she did not like french fries, yet if you left the table for any reason, the pile on your plate would be mysteriously smaller upon your return. There at the Beefeater Cafe she told me stories about my dad as a boy, stealing french fries when she thought I wasn't looking. After we finished eating and our plates had been cleared, I delivered her back to her door and we said our good-byes. I cried the entire way back to Oxbow, somehow knowing I would never see her again. She died two months later. There's an old adage that's been embroidered on many a pillow that tells us to "live each day as though it were our last." Ever since my lunch date with Grandma, I have made a point to do just the opposite. It would be sad to remember this as the last time I talked to her because, in actuality, it was the first. Now when I see an old friend or cherished family member, I listen to them with the same enthusiasm as if we had never met. A life made of firsts is far more rewarding than one of lasts. Now put that on a pillow.

I crack open a can of Campbell's soup whenever I feel nostalgic, but it's never quite the same. Lunch simply tastes better when it's being prepared behind an unlocked door by someone who never expects you to knock. So I suppose when I close my eyes and wish for a childhood lunch, what I really want is my childhood and the open invitations that came with it. I can still taste the butter on Grandma Davidson's bread, smell the chocolate in Grandma Hayward's pan and see the surprise from mom at the bottom of my bag. Yet it's the bowls of soup I cherish most. So the next time I carve a path around the rim of a tin can, I will unlock my door and set out a couple of bowls. No invitation necessary.

Super Market

Diane is one of the nicest people I know and yet all I really know about her is that her name is Diane and she has a terrific smile. I know her name because it's on her name-tag and as for the smile, well, she wears that just as visibly. Diane is my cashier at the grocery store that I visit on a daily basis. I guess she's not really "my" cashier because a) that would be creepy and b) I wouldn't know how to go about obtaining a cashier of my own, even if I wanted one. She is, however, my favorite. Like I said, I don't know the woman at all. I have no idea what her favorite movies are, no clue if she's married or has children, and if I had to guess her age, I would aim low. Truth be told, none of this is my business and I plan to keep it that way. I do know she keeps a tidy conveyor belt, bags groceries like a Tetris wizard would and always gives correct change. But it's her genuine smile, one with eyes that crinkle around the edges, that keeps me coming back to Valu-mart again and again. I can buy a packet of processed Carl Buddig deli meat anywhere, but the Dianes of the world are increasingly hard to come by.

The idea of grocer loyalty is not something I came to on my own. Where I grew up there are two grocery stores just off Main Street. Keep in mind that Oxbow has barely a thousand residents, so the fact that we have two grocery stores is a rural badge of honor that gives us all something to brag about. Not only are we superior to the sad saps in Alida, who only have one grocery store, but we must seem like absolute gods to all the suckers in Frobisher, who lost their grocery ages ago and now have to forage for nuts and berries. The two stores are situated directly across the street from one another; IGA on the north side and Co-op on the south. Their adversarial positions, one in plain view of the other, make it impossible to favor one over the other without everyone in town knowing about it. This is the just the sort of grist that keeps the Oxbow gossip mill alive and hours are spent gabbing about such matters at the local not-quite-a-Dairy Queen restaurant.

Business was brisk at both stores when I was growing up. Their parking lots filled to overflowing many times throughout the day, but particularly around 5pm when everyone was just getting off from work. The stores closed at 5:30 in those days, so it was a mad dash from the office to the dairy section in order to successfully check off all the items on any given list. Being a farm kid, my trips to town were carefully planned by my mom because if anything was forgotten, it was a lengthy drive back to the store from our house. For this reason she usually avoided grocery shopping at peak times. This gave her the opportunity to shop at her leisure, without the pressure of having the doors locked and lights extinguished before she even hit the deli department.

We always stopped at the IGA first. Mom would pull up in her van and into the gravel parking lot alongside the building. Mom's van was not one you could miss. Before "mini" became a common prefix to "van," and long before the SUV took over entirely, vans were enormous. Ours was particularly huge and looked more like a motor home than anything else. Outside it had picture windows all around it and a ladder up the back in case anyone wanted to have a rooftop party. Inside, it was practically bigger than my first apartment. By New York City standards, the back had a full sized living room. It had ample closet space, an entertainment system built into the wall and a sofa that, while comfortable, had no seat belts. Were we to be in an accident, no doubt we all would have been killed, but at least we would have gone comfortably. The van also had shag carpeting on the walls and cigarette lighters everywhere you looked. I wonder how many vans went up in smoke before they eliminated this hazard. Nowadays any surviving vans of this sort sputter along in traffic, smuggling drugs and illegal immigrants across the border.

In a big city one could feasibly buy all of their groceries in one store without ruffling any feathers. This may have been possible, even in Oxbow, had my mom not been driving such a conspicuous vehicle that made her look like a member of the A-Team. Instead, we would open the doors, load all of our IGA bags into the rumpus room and drive across the street to the Co-op. Yes, drive. The trip was approximately twenty yards, yet she would cross Prospect Avenue and into the adjacent parking lot. This was less a show of laziness the than it was a proclamation to any onlookers. "Look at me," the van would say. "I am parking over here now because I support both businesses." Heaven forbid mom be accused of making waves on Main. Which, coincidentally, was the name of a bar just around the corner. Perhaps its owners were inspired by her actions.

Truth be told, I preferred the IGA and would have chosen to do all of our shopping there. Half of the store was dedicated to groceries, but it was the other half that piqued my youthful curiosity. There was a little of this and a little of that, all spread out in a fashion that could only be described as willy-nilly. Cable knit sweaters hung on flimsy plastic hangers, dusty jigsaw puzzles were stacked next to crusty bottles of mucilage, and tempera paints teetered dangerously off the shelf they shared with bags of baby bottle nipples. My favorite section had a wall of VHS tapes as far as the eye could see, with classic titles available for rent, such as Clue, Baby Boom and Vasectomy! starring Paul Sorvino. They seemed to have everything, including products that were long discontinued. Once I was outraged that Good Host had changed their granulated iced tea mix to include a hint of lemon. It was disgusting. Just when I had given in to the idea of never drinking Good Host Iced Tea ever again, a care package arrived at my door. Mom had sent me two whole cans of my favored original blend. Once I caught my breath, I called her on the phone.

"Where did you find them?" I shrieked.

"At the IGA," she proudly exclaimed. "Behind the Cheese Whiz. They've got lots back there!"

I was so excited that I encouraged her to buy them all, which she did. For several glorious years thereafter I had a healthy supply of iced tea whenever I came home to visit. Eventually, one scoop at a time, the stockpiled cans of Good Host came to an end and thus closed the doors on a golden era of my life. Which is just as well because, in case you didn't already know, granulated beverages cause kidney stones. Take my word for it.

Not that there was anything wrong with the Co-op. The lights were brighter, the shelves were fully stocked and you could practically eat off the squeaky clean tile floor. They also had a miraculous produce section with crunchy heads of romaine lettuce and assorted exotic fruits. They did not, however, have anything a child might find even remotely interesting. I remember riding in the cart with my brother Curtis and, with nothing else to keep me occupied, I would taunt him endlessly until he got into trouble for hitting me. Mom rarely caught on to this, but I was usually the one that started all of our fights. Still today I hear stories about what a hand-full Curtis was as a child, but it was usually me who nudged him into those angry hands. He would get punished while I got off scott-free, and to this day my childhood reputation remains squeaky clean.

As I got older and did my own shopping, I found myself slightly intimidated by the Co-op. The whole enterprise seemed a little elitist because they would ask for my "Co-op number" every time I checked out. To this day I have no idea what they do with the information gathered from such a survey, but it has a whiff of "big brother is watching" to it that makes me uncomfortable. I picture a scrawny intern at Co-op headquarters, waiting for something juicy to come into the office. "You'll never guess what happened today," he whispers to his co-worker. "Sharon in Oxbow bought another box of chicken fingers."

"Oh my god," she gasps. "I hope you flagged her account."

Not long ago I was passing through Maple Creek, Saskatchewan, and stopped at their Co-op for a bottle of Diet Coke. "Your Co-op number?" the cashier inquired.

"7505," I blurted out. Just like that, the number traveled from my brain to my lips. I had not used that number in at least a decade, yet it came to me without any hesitation. Most of what I learned in high school has long evaporated into thin air, but my Co-op number continues to take up valuable real estate in my head. At first I was pleased that it had come to me so easily, but then I got to wondering just what I could be capable of had I retained more vital knowledge, and my brief moment of pride turned to horror.

Living in a big city means I'm not required to remain faithful to any one grocery store. There is nobody watching to judge my shopping habits, so I take turns with my patronage. I find shopping for groceries boring, so I frequent a store until I memorize exactly where everything is shelved and then I move on to the next. Each store usually takes me a couple of months to master because I can never quite remember where they keep the Shake 'N Bake. I have no idea why, but grocery stores cannot seem to agree where the appropriate place is to keep the Shake 'N Bake. At Sobey's it's next to the salad dressing. At Metro it's by the pasta sauce. And at Loblaws they keep moving it around on me. Last I checked, it was across from the paper towels. Nowhere, however, keeps the Shake 'N Bake where Shake 'N Bake ought to be, which is next to the chicken. If I ever become the manager of a grocery store, my first order of business will be to move the Shake 'N Bake next to the products that are intended to be shaken and baked.

After several years of grocery store hopping, I crossed Metro off my list. Unless I happen to be passing by and am in a bind for sour cream to go with my tacos, I refuse to set foot in there. They have an obnoxious cashier named Ron that sours more than just my cream. He orders people into his line and then proceeds to criticize the way they unload their carts onto his conveyor belt. Once he refused to sell me a box of cookies because the generic brand was on sale and "just as good," he barked. He has a high pitched voice that could penetrate steel and it always sounds like he's on the verge of hocking up a puddle of phlegm. Sometimes after a day of work, I would peek in to see if he was there. If his was the only line open, I would leave immediately and buy whatever it was I needed at the convenience store for twice the price. When I started hearing his voice in my sleep, I decided it was not worth going there ever again, even if it is the closest store to my apartment.

That's when I started doing all of my shopping at Valu-mart and met Diane. She's so kind and pretty that it makes shopping for groceries less a chore and more a life experience. She also reminds me of the sort of cashier I would find at the IGA in Oxbow. She seems to genuinely care that you found whatever it was you were looking for and would never nit-pick at your dinner selections. I don't make a point to go through her line, but knowing she's there is enough to transport me back to the days of my childhood, when grocery shopping was a community experience.

I recently found out that my beloved IGA is going out of business. Come April, there will be nothing more than an abandoned building where many of my childhood memories take place. Perhaps I'm too sentimental, but I was devastated upon hearing this news. While the population of Oxbow is growing at a rapid rate, it appears that more and more people are making the 40 minute drive to the city of Estevan to buy heavily discounted groceries at Wal-mart. When I was younger, a trip to Estevan was so cumbersome that it might as well have been the Oregon Trail. This was especially true in the winter, when the road conditions were unknown to many. Nowadays I see Facebook status updates throughout the months of January and February that declare the roads between Oxbow and Estevan "clear and passable." Or occasionally, "a bit icy around Bienfait, but just slow down and you'll make it." The first Wal-mart casualty in Oxbow was Macleod's, the long standing hardware store at the corner of Peters and Main. Now the IGA is closing and soon Oxbow will be no better than Alida. If people continue to "run into Estevan" for nothing more than a carton of milk, the Co-op will inevitably follow suit and render my hometown as deserted as Frobisher.

Mom's trips across the street from one grocery store to another taught me a lesson that I carry with me to this day. People vote with their money. Which is why I have decided to remain faithful to Valu-mart for the time being. Sure, I live in a big city and my small purchases in five dollar increments will not keep them afloat, but I want to do my part to keep people like Diane employed for as long as possible.

The other day she looked out the window and smiled. "It's such a nice day," she said. And judging from the glint in her eye, I knew she meant it.

"Yes it is," I replied. And I meant that, too.

Small Town News

Every week a very special gift comes shooting through the mail slot in my apartment door with a thwack. It topples from the tarnished brass chute and lands on a muddy slab of linoleum with a thud. I hear the thwack, topple and thud all the way from underneath the flannel sheets in my bedroom and open my eyes with eager anticipation. Most mornings it's nothing more than a utility bill or an advertisement for Lasik surgery so cheap that it's probably performed with a laser key chain in some Mexican shanty town; however, on others I'm treated to a calm sigh of relief disguised as newsprint.

The Oxbow Herald is my hometown newspaper and has published a new issue nearly every week since 1903. As a kid, I remember my dad would stop each Monday on his way out of the Bow Manor Cafe and put down two quarters for the latest edition. He would roll it up tightly and, before climbing into the cab of his pick-up truck, shove it into an empty cup holder. The paper would stand upright in its perch and I would watch it slowly unfurl as he drove on the bumpy gravel road out to our farm. He always left his copy in the truck because we, like every other family in the small town of Oxbow, had a subscription delivered to our mailbox. I have no idea what motivated him to purchase a back-up Herald, but I never thought to ask because it was just a part of his routine that didn't strike me as odd until much later. He's long since gone, so now I can only imagine the reason. It's probably as simple as wanting something to read during the long hours he spent waiting at oil patches for whatever happens at oil patches to happen, but he could have just as easily been leading a secret life that somehow involved the newspaper. Maybe he had a secret family down some other gravel road and they spent long hours together lining birdcages or making masks out of paper maché. Whatever the reason, it was a weekly event that remains lodged in my memory bank, right next to the face of my first grade teacher whose name only ever travels to the tip of my tongue.

At the top of the Herald is a masthead that boldly declares Oxbow as the place "where oil and agriculture meet." This always seemed to me a rather thinly veiled euphemism for sex. Surely it refers to the many farms and pump jacks that keep the local economy alive, but I like to think whomever wrote it knew what was also going on in rural Saskatchewan; especially on those long winter nights with sub-zero wind chills. Perhaps I just have a dirty mind, but I thought this even when I was younger and had a squeaky clean cranium. It always takes a second to wipe the smirk off my face every time I read it. And it is infinitely more catching than the mottos of yore: "Progress with Pride" or "Queen of the Scenic Souris."

As with all newspapers, below the masthead is a headline in big capital letters. No paper I know has headlines with quite so big or quite so capital letters. An aggressive or shocking headline will certainly boost sales, so I can imagine all of the following headlines managed a healthy circulation:

18,000 COYOTES KILLED
MOOSE CREEK TALKS GARBAGE
BIG BIKE TOURS OXBOW
FLOWER SHOW AT ALAMEDA

And my personal favorite, from July 5th, 2010:

TORNADO!

Once you open the paper, there is a myriad of information for perusal. Much as we all have different morning routines - in my case, I shower before breakfast - no two persons read a paper in the same way. I always skip ahead to page four and read the witty observations of the Herald's editor in his weekly column "Here and There." The article is adorned with an illustration of a dog sleeping on a fire hydrant who, quite frankly, appears to be neither here nor there, but never mind. I have found some of my best jokes in this column and repeat them frequently to strangers I meet in drug store lineups. While far from becoming the next Jay Leno, I can boast that these jokes have rattled the dentures of many elderly men; their laughter resulting in plumes of Polident up my nose.

Once I've had my ribs tickled, I search for what I refer to as "cheque relays." Without fail, you can browse The Oxbow Herald on any given week and find a picture of someone making a donation to one charity or another. In these photos someone plays the role of Ed McMahon, passing a cheque to a lucky recipient. Unlike the Publisher's Clearing House Sweepstakes, these cheques are never in the millions, but they are certainly substantial enough to save whomever is in need and keep the relay alive. One week the health auxiliary donates to the skating rink, then the skating rink donates to the elementary school, then the elementary school donates to the Credit Union, until finally the Credit Union donates to the health auxiliary. I have no documentation to back this up, but I gather that the same $200 has been passed around Oxbow for twenty years.

My next stop is the "Bow Valley Villa News." Here I am able to keep tabs on the Villa's residents and find out who is the most popular senior citizen in town. From the outside, the Villa appears to be a pleasant and low key apartment complex for elderly tenants; however, upon reading the paper it becomes crystal clear that it is Oxbow's liveliest hot spot. Jigsaw puzzles are completed in record time, visitors fill the parking lot to capacity, and my Aunt Anne's unit is always abuzz at tea time. Whenever I go home to visit, I have the best of intentions to stop by the Villa, but I usually chicken out at the last minute in fear that I make the newspaper and offend others in town I did not make a point of seeing.

Over the years I have made it into the paper several times, as evidenced by the faded and yellow clippings collected by my Grandma Davidson. When she passed away, these clippings were piled into a shoebox that turns up whenever I am searching for batteries or a roll of tape. Invariably, I set aside the dead remote control or sheet of wrapping paper to leaf through the clippings. Staring back at me are black and white photos of myself in various figure skating costumes made of spandex and ruffles. Were I to have grown up in the era of color newsprint, these costumes would have been loud neon smears on the page. Blessed am I that my embarrassment remains monochromatic.

My most recent appearance in the paper came to me as quite a surprise. I never had much interest in another of the Herald's weekly columns entitled "Do You Remember?" Printed there are headlines from 25, 50 and 75 years ago. This is ancient history, I always thought, so I would skip over it in favor of "Basic Black" or "Alameda Tidings." Much to my horror, this past fall under the heading "25 Years Ago" I came across the following headline: CLASS OF 1998 ENROLLS IN KINDERGARTEN. Oh my god. That's me. Am I really that old? The answer is, sadly, yes I am. Now I watch the column regularly, not because I'm on the edge of my seat to find out who won what curling bonspiel in 1986, but rather to see if my name pops up yet again. I have now decided that they should really do away with this column because "Do You Remember?" is really a passive aggressive way of saying "You Are Going to Die."

Speaking of death, I recently picked up a copy of The Toronto Star. After flipping through ten pages, I had yet to find an article that did not feature some sort of death or disaster.

DOZENS KILLED IN AIRPORT BOMBING
SNOWPLOW DEATH
LOTTERY FRAUD
WAITRESS FIRED AFTER CANCER HEAD-SHAVE
TRAFFIC BOOSTS RISK OF STROKE
POLITICIAN ON BREATHING TUBE
JIMMY BUFFETT COLLAPSES

What the hell? I don't need to know all this, nor do I want to. While it's safe to say I will never gain notoriety in the Star for embezzling millions or stabbing random victims in the Scarborough Towne Centre food court, it's comforting to know that somewhere in the world I can still make the news for taking my Aunt Anne out for tea. But in this age of instant digital media, I fear that publications like the Herald are quickly becoming extinct. Apps used to mean Buffalo Wings at Applebees's, but now they're downloadable programs that keep every corner of the world in your pocket. I can log on to Facebook at any moment and find out all the bad things that are happening in Oxbow. The people on there seem to know the news before it even happens, so it seems crazy they would shell out money for twelve pages of information they already have, even if it means bare space on the fridge where clippings of kids in frilly figure skating frocks used to hang.

My mom bought me a subscription to The Oxbow Herald and it is one of the best gifts I have ever received. Nothing quells homesickness quite like the smell of small town news on the printed page. Whenever I see it rolled up on the coffee table, I'm returned to the cab of my dad's pick-up truck. When I crumple it up around fragile Christmas ornaments, I'm just a boy in my grandmother's sitting room. And when I read it from the comfort of my flannel sheets, I'm reminded that I grew up knowing good news is better than bad news. Mom didn't merely give me a newspaper, but rather a weekly trip back home. And there's no downloading that.

Til Ikea Do Us Part

I give Jake and Kristen five years, at most, before their marriage ends in divorce. I came to this conclusion as I stood before them in line for over an hour at Ikea. It was a Saturday and all twenty five cash registers were humming at warp speed, accepting huge wads of cash from couples looking to outfit their homes with prefabricated coffee tables and floating kitchen islands. I was there for a couple of shelves to complete a book case I bought ages ago, but in addition I got a marital spat that passed the time waiting in line far more rapidly than any album on my iPod. At first I tried to drown out their argument by turning up the volume, but when Kristen launched into an operatic assault on Jake's inability to choose a five dollar pillow, I turned off the music and settled in for a matinee performance of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf. I did not eavesdrop simply for the pleasures of free drama, but rather to validate a belief I have had for years; the couple that goes into Ikea is not the same couple that comes out.

If Robert Redford and Jane Fonda, wide-eyed and slim hipped in Barefoot in the Park, ventured into Ikea after a night of passionate MGM love making, they would emerge from the store as venomous and blood splattered as Michael Douglas and Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction. Mark my words, there is no faster way to decimate a marriage than subjecting it to a furniture labyrinth made of deals that are truly too good to be true. If you have ever left the toilet seat up or so much as looked at another person, don't even think about going to Ikea with your spouse. It will all be dredged up before you even hit housewares.

The idea of Ikea is an endlessly appealing one. Founded in 1943 by a Swedish man named Ingvar Kamprad, it has become known for selling attractive furniture at bargain prices. When you first step foot into one of their stores, the smell of particle board in the air is intoxicating and the excitement palpable. Arrows on the floor direct you from one snazzy show room to another, each adorned with price tags that make you believe it's possible to transform your four hundred square foot shit hole into a trendy urban loft ready to grace the pages of Better Homes and Gardens. It would best be advised for couples to get out while they are ahead and simply choose one of these rooms to emulate and back up a U-Haul van to the loading dock immediately. Problems arise when one half of the couple, Jake for instance, likes the zebra rug in the swanky bachelor pad, while the other, let's say Kristen, has her eyes set on the credenza in the country cozy bungalow. How easily the smell of particle board is defeated by even the faintest whiff of marital woe. As Jake and Kristen trek from one side of the show room to the other, making decisions while getting dizzy amongst the sea of contrasting textiles, that whiff of woe quickly becomes a stench. I know this because, sadly, I've smelled it.

When Andy and I moved to Toronto we took our limited budget to Ikea in search of cheap furniture that did not appear to be cheap furniture. As many have before us, we marveled over the plethora of modern furniture pieces just waiting to be assembled. We swooned over a glass top coffee table and cooed as we sat on a squishy swivel recliner. For a brief shining moment it seemed that anything, and everything, was possible. However, by the time we hit kitchen accessories, I was bundle of nerves in desperate need of a mallet to the forehead. Andy, on the other hand, remained extremely calm, much in the same way a tea kettle sits peacefully on a coil burner before steam spews from its top.

I consider myself a patient, sane and level headed individual. Very little gets to me, including commercials that are ten times louder than the show I'm watching or any quantity of spilled milk. Yet on this particular day I have no idea what got into me. It was as if I had been bit by a rabid interior design bug and was foaming at the mouth. I was not unlike Kathy Bates in Misery, so it's a good thing Ikea does not sell sledgehammers or I would have used one. I was a total raving psychopath, unable to decide between area rugs. This dilemma had no where near the gravity of Sophie's Choice, but it may as well have. Poor Andy had the unenviable position of remaining positive around a crazy person, all the while taking notes with a miniature golf pencil. Just when I was at the end of my exceedingly taut rope, I met Billy.

Billy was extremely handsome. He was tall, sturdy, dark and gorgeous. He also came close to breaking up my marriage. I'm not sure who came up with the idea, but all of the items in Ikea are given human names. People name their children, their pets and often times their boats; however, it never occurred to me before Ikea that my ottoman might look like a Doug or my shoe rack a Rachel. Yet that is exactly what the clever executives in Stockholm have decided, in their infinite wisdom, to do. Bernhard is a kitchen chair, Karl a futon, Ingrid a cheese grater, and so on. Billy is a book case. I was so enamored with Billy that I decided we simply must have him and, if my tape measure allowed, perhaps two or maybe even three. No matter the cost, I wanted Billy in my bedroom. Thankfully, Andy was also attracted to him. It was impossible to deny his charms. But did we really need three?

"He only costs $40," I said. "Just think of all the storage!"

"But what about the shelves?" Andy exclaimed. "They are sold separately, you know."

And so they were. As it turns out, everything in Ikea is "sold separately." Add the shelves (and the legs, I might add) and Billy suddenly transformed from a $40 bargain into a $150 investment. And so it goes with the rest of their inventory. Agnes the table top is sold with Edvard, her legs. Astrid the lamp is nothing without Orvel, her shade. Billy appeared to come with nothing but insurmountable expectations and a lifetime of regret. I'm not sure how I managed to come out of there alive because I'm sure Andy was ready to grab the nearest coat hook and stab me with it. And I would not have blamed him. In fact, I would have thanked him for putting me out of my misery.

As it turns out, we were not alone. Scattered around the show room were other couples in various states of madness. One man frantically rummaged through a bin full of spatulas as if he were searching for the holy grail, while his bride lay in the fetal position on a huge chunk of shag carpeting, crying her eyes out to the point of hiccups. Another couple could be heard snapping at each other like giant turtles.

"What do you think of this lamp?" he asked.

And she fired back, "You hate my mother, don't you?!"

After we finally settled on what to buy, it came time to actually find the bloody things in the enormous maze of stacked boxes underground. I'm not sure whose maniacal brain is behind what I refer to in a spooky voice as "the warehouse," but I picture him to be a sadistic bastard named Sven, who twirls a long blond mustache and gorges on meatballs. Shopping in Ikea is only half the battle; finding what you have painstakingly picked out is a nightmare of epic proportions. The couples who have thus far managed to avoid divorce proceedings are in for another hurdle entirely.

I knew exactly what I wanted and it seemed easy enough to find Billy. He was hiding somewhere in Aisle 5, Bin 4. To Aisle 5 we went and there he was. But where were his shelves? And his feet, for that matter. We paced up and down Aisle 5 to no avail. I finally found an employee, although what they really need are marriage counselors, and he was outfitted in the colors of the Swedish flag. The shelves were not in Aisle 5, I found out, but rather in Aisle 2. And if I wanted his legs, which I obviously did, I would find them in Aisle 9. Billy was becoming more of a headache than I had anticipated. I mean, how hard would it be for him to keep it together? We zigzagged through "the warehouse" in search of a few legs here and a few shelves there until we were nauseous.

Eventually our cart was piled high with boxes of miscellaneous parts that were going to miraculously become the scenery of our lives. As I looked up at the mountain before us, I realized it was not going to fit into our truck. Not even close. That's when my knees buckled and I collapsed to the ground in a heap. I couldn't bare the thought of making any more choices and was reduced to pouting like a five year old who was denied a Popsicle. What happened, I now see, is that I turned into a "man" in every horrible sense of the word. I wanted what I wanted and I wanted it all and I wanted it now. Andy wisely suggested that I relax, put down the table leg I was inadvertently wielding, then purchase one or two items now and come back for the rest later.

"I'm never coming back to Ikea!" I proclaimed, as if I were Charlton Heston in Planet of the Apes. "EVER AGAIN!"

This is when Andy knew just what to do, and his actions are the sole reason we survived Ikea. I needed a drink. Not a stiff vodka tonic or icy can of beer, but a paper cup of flat Diet Coke. My poison. He whisked me away from "the warehouse," abandoning our cart of furniture appendages, and into a safe cocoon that is the Ikea cafe. As I sipped my drink like Julia Roberts does her orange juice in Steel Magnolias, I looked around. Not only did I see a cafeteria tray heaped with salmon, a stray piece of overturned Daim cake on the floor, and some splattered mustard from a crushed condiment cup, but there they were - my god, they still existed - happy people! Gone were the cries of bickering couples, the beeping of fork lifts in reverse, and the low drone of fluorescent light bulbs. In their place were the sights and sounds of a tropical oasis. Natural sunlight poured in from the picture windows, light 80's pop escaped from the speakers, and refreshing diet soda gushed from the fountain. It was so wonderful in there that I honestly wondered why anyone would ever want to leave such a magical place.

After I was plied with a sufficient amount of Aspartame, I was able to calmly return to "the warehouse" and pare down our selections. We left that day with a kitchen table, four chairs and Billy. I did return for the rest at a later date, but this time I went alone. For the sake of our relationship, we vowed never to shop at Ikea together for as long as we both shall live. We do, however, visit often for pleasant dinner dates in the enchanted cafeteria. The fish and chips are delectable. We also find that that standing outside the exit doors is a highly entertaining way to spend the afternoon. Why pay $14 admission to a crappy Anne Hathaway movie when we can sit outside Ikea with a $1 bag of popcorn and watch once-happy couples pour into the parking lot? By this point nobody is speaking to anyone, so the action plays out like a Charlie Chaplin comedy. They maneuver their dollies of boxes, heaped high in Tetris formations, over speed bumps and through truck doors that are eventually slammed.

If your relationship can survive Ikea, it can survive anything. If he takes off to Vegas for a weekend with the guys, just say to yourself: "We made it through appliances. I can handle anything." Or if she finds a lump where a lump ought not to be, you can comfort her other thusly: "Remember closet solutions? You can beat this."

Somehow the argument between Jake and Kristen had escalated into a fierce disagreement over dinner. "Would you like pizza?" he asked.

"That means you want pizza," Kristen barked. "If that's what you want, just say it! Stop playing these games!"

I wanted to pull them aside and share with them my wisdom. Just as the luster of Ikea wears off in the first hour, so does the sheen of their product. It's simply not worth all the trouble. Our coffee table sags in the middle, the kitchen chairs wobble dangerously throughout dinner and even Billy has turned into a massive disappointment. I was back for more shelves that should have come with him in the first place. But I suppose this is a lesson every couple has to learn for themselves. I couldn't bear to listen anymore, so I turned up the volume on my iPod, paid for my shelves and walked out the door. I considered waiting outside to see if Jake and Kristen left together, but I somehow knew the outcome and was in no mood for a sad ending. So I hopped on my bus and wrote for them a happily ever after fit for a Hollywood movie. As it turns out, Jake is every bit as thoughtful as Andy and got down on bended knee to invite Kristen for dinner in the cafeteria. There they rekindled their romance over Diet Cokes and a plate of Swedish meatballs. Sauce sold separately.