dry heaves

This ever happened to you?

You've popped all your clothing into the communal dryer- one of many -in your building and you return to your apartment to do other stuff. Then, when you come back to get your clothes someone has carefully folded them. This happened to me today. I came down to the laundry room and the clothes-folder was still there.

It's a weird thing because while someone's hands have been all over your clothes, they have also folded them. It also means that a complete stranger has been handling you underwear. Personally I don't like anybody touching my underwear unless I'm about to shag them.

And what do you say? The expectation is that you say "sorry" for occupying a machine they obviously desperately needed. My first reaction, thought, was to walk right up to her face, poke her in the forehead and say, " Don't you ever, ever, fucking touch my clothes again. Ever."

Of course, I didn't actually do that. That would be crazy, right?

What really ensued was an awkward exchange between two strangers, one of whom knows what the other's underwear looks like. She said, "I had to use the dryer, I'm under a time constraint."

What possible time constraint would still allow you enough time to, not only do your laundry, but fold someone elses on a Sunday? This was clearly someone that planned every minute of their day and was not to be tangled with.

I suppose I haven't been here long enough to let that B.C. chill I keep hearing about wash over me.

Yesterday was a busy day for me. I did my first remote. That's when you go to some business that's holding a special event and you broadcast live on location. The business I was at for 4 hours yesterday was Valley Building Supplies. Sort of a family-owned Home Depot type place. They were having the grand opening for their new showroom which featured wood-stoves. Due to budgetary constraints (I imagine) I didn't have the usual microphone and mixing board you usually see jocks using in bigger cities. I had a cell phone.

When you're at these things you cut into the regular broadcast, about three times an hour, and rave about the incredible things going on in the store. You're supposed to sound excited about the deals and try to attract people to the place. For me, it's really hard getting excited about wood stoves. I think I did manufacture the bulk of the emotion, but it must have sounded contrived.

I whooped about the free food, the great prices, the raffle, and other stuff you could buy at Valley Building. For one reason or another- and I did this about 5 times -I kept saying, "They've got everything from knee-pads to screen-doors!". The last time I told myself that I would not mention knee-pads or screen doors and ended up saying, " ...and they've got everything from power-drills to knee-pads!".

Here's the thing though; because my broadcast was via cellular telephone, to the casual shopper I must have looked like a lunatic screaming into his phone about how amazing the place was while demanding that the person on the other end get here as soon as possible to take advantage of the store's excellent customer service and bask in the glory of 40 wood-stoves. . . And finally, incongruously, naming a song that's coming up next.

This quest of mine to blend in is not going so well.

By the way, a woodstove showroom is not a place you want to be in 27 degree weather unless you have hypothermia.

After that I went to the town's Fall Fair. This was a cute little deal with local artisans selling stuff and farmers showing-off recent crops. There were many contests; from Best Pickled Fruit, to Nicest Home Made Pie, to Best Diarama of My Family. In addition, there appeared to be a contest for Strangest Looking Vegetable. First Prize went to a zucchini that had a conjoined twin.
There was also a table with depressed fat rabbits in small cages.

The whole thing was quaint. Really, really quaint.

Sun FM has something called "The Birthday Line". This is where anybody can call in and wish somebody a happy birthday. That person can also win a free cake from the Mitchell Brother's Grocer (by the way, if you Google "Mitchell Brothers" it takes you to the O'Farrell Theater in San Francisco which features live sex-shows. This is not the same pair of Mitchell Brothers). Now, if you have a certain kind of mind you may think: Doesn't that mean that anyone can call in and falsely get a free cake? You would be right, but I've been told that Powell Riverites don't cheat. Basically, if you're a sociopath you'd make out over here like a tiger in a chicken farm.

Anyway, as it turns out, the kinds of people that would go for the free cake are the exact kinds of people that don't have a firm grasp on the English language. This means that occasionally- on Sun FM in the early morning -you can suddenly hear someone jabbering excitedly, and incoherently, in no known human language, for about 30 seconds.

I get a lot of dumb calls too; like people asking me to see If I can announce that someone needs a ride to Surrey, or if I can enquire as to whether anybody has seen a husky named Ely wandering about.

Overall I'm still crawling up a vertical learning curve, but every day I get a little bit better. I've got most of the technical stuff down and soon I'll add a new aspect to my breaks: the music bed. That's probably meaningless to most of you, but to me it's adding an extra revolution to my high-dive.