Word Addict

When someone says they're so hungry they could eat a horse, is it the mass of the horse that they're referring to, or the fact that we don't typically eat companion animals? Like, are we talking a large volume of food amount of hungry or a violating societal norms amount of hungry? For comparison, if I said I was so hungry I could eat a therapy dog, would that convey less, more, or the same amount of hungriness as if I said I could eat a horse? Or if I went to a horse-eating sort of country and said I could eat a horse would they be like, Yeah - so?

In light of this confusion I've been trying to say more accurate things like, "I'm so hungry I could take a stab at this sad apple that's been living in my field vest for the past week," or, "I could really purchase a footlong sub then only finish half of it because I consistently overestimate how much food I can consume in one sitting."

The whole accurate communication business came about because I keep seeing people posting things online about these four (or sometimes five?) "Agreements", which I'm mostly cool with but the first one is about always being impeccable with my words and I am definitely sloppy as fuck with my words. Or as I prefer to think of it, I expend oodles of energy being precise and thorough with my words at my job, so I really like to let loose with my words in my free time.

I've been encountering some issues during my efforts to rein my words in to something closer to "impeccable". First off, it's obvious that I'm not just a casual or social user of non-impeccable words; I'm a full-blown addict. It feels indescribably dull to convey things without verbally BeDazzling them: having "several ripe tomatoes" in my garden is simply not as punchy as having a metric fuck-ton of them. Saying I'm "somewhat over capacity" at work lacks the exhilarating dramatic flair of being adrift in a choppy sea of needy projects. And honestly, if I'm so hungry I could eat a normal quantity of a socially-acceptable food item, why would I even bother mentioning it?

Ugh, I can barely get it up to say anything at all without at least a little hit of non-impeccableness.

Secondly, I guess after all this time as a non-impeccable-word-addict maybe I've gotten bad at regular words? Without the usual suite of weather-related topics to discuss during routine interactions with strangers (trouble being that I obviously can believe the smoke/heat/humidity/whatever because it's fricking August and BC is on fire, duh, so it doesn't seem very impeccable to claim that I can't), I'm out of tricks. I panicked a little at my blood draw appointment on Saturday and asked the phlebotomist whether she prefers her orange juice with pulp or without.

Which brings me to my third problem: weather is the ultimate neutral topic in Canada. Without fallbacks like how you just can't buhleeeve this weather we're having, you get risk entering uncomfortably intimate territory like orange juice or the pharmacist's nice eyebrows, where everything somehow sounds like a pickup line despite your most impeccable of intentions.

So I'm going to make you all a deal: you stop posting this "Agreements" bullshit and making me accidentally hit on my pharmacist, and I will carry on in my usual highly entertaining (to me) manner, with the mutual understanding that I'm employing a (to me) standard degree of artistic license in the telling.

The Hungryman Special

I'm roughly at the mid-point of my field season, which is about the time of year when I like to dive on down to the basement of Maslow's pyramid and become a sort of plaid-wearing lizard-brain person. In the summer, a field person's fancy turns to - well, mostly to food, to be honest. (Sorry, DH.) But there's also a pretty consistent refrain of Too hot. Too cold. Too tired. So much pee. Fuck mosquitoes. Extra double-fuck canola. Hate rubber boots. Etcetera. Basically, every thought in my head seems to revolve around my immediate physical state: I would cut a bitch for some dry socks. Fuck this hill, and the glacier it rode in on. If I see a bear I'm going to ride that fucker right out of this forest and never look back.

Oh yeah, parental warning: my lizard brain swears even more than my regular brain. I went with a documentary effect 'cause that's where I'm at today.

I like to think I mostly keep it together, most of the time, but down in the lizard basement you just never know what might happen - sometimes, a gal just snaps. One summer's day a little while ago I was standing in a wetland minding my own business (actually the wetland's business, I suppose) when I was completely overcome by the need for a burger. Like, my very soul needed a burger, and all I had in my field vest was a sad apple and a crushed granola bar. Lizard-me drove to the nearest town (population 382*) and clomped my sweaty, grimy arse into the lone cafe. (It was was basically a self-kidnapping - is that a thing?) I destroyed a burger named "The Hungryman Special", slapped down a twenty and clomped off into the sunset, never to be seen again. I figure the six old coffee-swilling farmers who (after un-subtly rearranging their chairs for a better view) watched me eat, plus the chef who came out of the kitchen to watch me eat, are still talking about that one time that mysterious, muddy New Human stopped by for lunch.

For this precise reason, even at my lizard-basement hungriest I sometimes lack the emotional fortitude to dine alone in small towns - it's the performance anxiety that gets me. Which makes me think how truly terrible it would be to be famous: you would never be able to eat a Hungryman Special in peace, no matter where you went or how self-actualized you were that day.

That's why I like being a regular not-famous field biologist. It's like being the world's crappiest rock star. You get all the glamour of being on the road - waking up in a different seedy motel each morning and not knowing where the hell you are, being openly gawked at by everyone in town anytime you try to eat a meal - without any of the fuss and bother of, say, heaps of money, or cushy tour buses, or groupies. In fact, the only action I get all summer is humping my way over endless logs in the forest. (Platonically, of course; it's just that I have short legs.)

But I think of myself as a crappy rock star in the best way possible, because at the end of the season I get to return to my regular, non-plaid-wearing self, and eat all the burgers I like in total, blissful anonymity.

* Statistics Canada, 2016 census data: http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/census-recensement/2016/dp-pd/prof/index.cfm?Lang=E

Lovin' It

There used to be a regular at the McDonald's I worked at in high school who would order a double Quarter Pounder with extra grease every time he came through the drive-thru. And he was deadly serious about that extra grease - serious like the heart attack I wonder if he's had yet when I remember him now, twenty-plus years later. If he saw you were new to the job or felt you weren't taking his request heart-attackily enough, he would describe the exact method for making his custom grease burger: Cook the patties fresh, and do not drain them when you take them off the grill (you're supposed to sortof shake them off otherwise), then use the spatula to scrape up all the extra grease sitting on the grill and pour it over the patties.

... Delicious??

There was also the gal who always ordered a Big Mac with no meat, a "lady of the evening" (or more realistically, of the streets) who used the ladies' washroom as her place of, ahem, business, and an older woman who would insist that you press the "extra" button no less than 10 times when ordering her cheeseburger with extra pickles. She would then whip the burger open right on the counter to check that there was at least a half-inch slab of pickles inside, and either silently nod her approval and stalk briskly off with her pickleburger, or slam the counter in anger and demand! more! pickles!

As you might have already suspected, we found everything from dirty diapers to drug paraphernalia in the PlayPlace. A certain elderly gentleman couldn't seem to pronounce "fajita" and thus shyly ordered up two chicken vaginas every time he came through (thru?). One time, a little kid got his head stuck between the rungs of a chair and we had to grease him with a block of fryer vat shortening to get him out. Another time, a kid went "missing" and was eventually found standing - uninvited - under some woman's privacy cover, watching a complete fricking stranger nurse her baby.

(Oh, wait. That last one was Medium Fry, age 4 or so, when I was no longer the disgruntled employee but rather the profoundly embarrassed patron. What is it with PlayPlaces that brings out the weird in people?!)  

In short, by the time I had been there a couple of years months, I had all the world-weary indifference of a hardened fast food veteran: nothing anyone could order, say or do could surprise me. (Okay, until it was my own kid.) So one day when a friend of the family came through and ordered his meal with extra salt, I simply drawled, "How much salt do you want?"

"Haha! I was being facetious! Did you really think that I wanted extra salt with my McDonald's?!"

I stored the word facetious for later research, and thought of Extra Grease Man. "Um... yeah. I did."

He drove off chuckling to himself. Maybe he left with the impression that I was a very literal or humourless person - who knows. It wasn't that I felt the request for extra salt at a fast food joint was a particularly sound life choice, but in comparison to certain life choices I had seen people make while in the safe haven of mother McDonald's golden bosoms, let's just say that it was pretty low on the crazy scale.

I worked at that job for three and a half years. It paid for my orthodontics, my first basement apartment with the orange shag carpet that resembled Barkley from Sesame Street, and a great many sweet, sweet employee-discounted meals. With meat, mind you, and only the standard allotment of grease. I actually referenced my McJob at a professional interview years later, as an illustration of my experience dealing with crazy/angry/aggressive people. DH poked fun of me a bit for this, and I have no idea what my interviewers thought of it, but I stand by the decision - honestly, I can't think of a better place of employment for experience interacting with a wide variety of nutjobs.

As Medium Fry searches ever more frantically for a summer job - and she seems to be angling for one of the anything-but-fast-food variety - I hold a secret small hope that she will end up spending at least a little time at a McJob one day. It's a great place to earn a bit of perspective along with your pocket money, plus I feel it would really bring her full-circle from being the weird kid, to dealing with them.

The Pure Pumpkin Polka

I think we've established that I'm a bit of an over-sharer, but lately I've been thinking maybe that's not such a bad thing. Maybe it's not over-sharing so much as the right amount of sharing - in fact, I've been percolating a theory around the benefits of over-sharing, and was planning to one day flesh it out for y'all right here on my blog. Something to the tune of sharing your shit being a public service. If nothing else, I figure it can help other people feel less alone in dealing with their own personal steaming heaps, y'know?

So I was standing in the coffee aisle at the Co-op last night, deciding which beans looked most likely to get me through the coming week, and this middle-aged woman stopped to tell me what kind of coffee she thought was best. Awesome, right? Thanks, rando lady. But then she just... stayed. And started telling me about her dog. Who was sick. With - and I quote - "the green apple two-step." And needed canned pumpkin. But not pumpkin pie filling, just pure pumpkin, and Co-op is the only store that stocks it year-round, and the reason the dog needs pumpkin is because it's a bowel regulator (in case I missed out on what "the green apple two-step" might imply).

She acted all of this out for me while telling me about it, and let me just say: I had no idea pumpkin could be such powerful medicine. The very. forceful. hand gestures. she used to demonstrate what a "bowel regulator" might accomplish in the case of a green-apple-two-stepping dog led me to believe that if she's not careful with the dosage, she may be back again in a day or two buying her dog a bottle of remedial prune juice. I didn't think to ask what euphemism she preferred to use for that particular affliction, so let's call it the pure pumpkin polka and imagine her cornering some poor fellow and telling him all about it under the pretext of helping him select a nice brand of cereal.

It was right around "bowel regulator" that I realized I was seeing the future.

My future.

In addition to being a chronic over-sharer, I'm also an incorrigible over-explainer; a persistent hand-talker; an unrelenting user of euphemisms; and a habitual maker of unsolicited recommendations to confused-looking grocery shoppers. I helped a guy navigate curry pastes just last weekend! I'm like a ticking time bomb of over-sharing. It is only a matter of time before I literally transmogrify into that exact woman and start offering up vast amounts of unrelated personal information alongside my, say, cantaloupe selection expertise.

In light of this new evidence I must entertain the possibility that over-sharing may not be the public service I once thought it was, and if I can't feel bonded with you because of whatever natural reticence you happen to possess, that's my own problem.

I don't know if I can turn this thing around for myself, but it might not be too late for you, my friends: please know that you don't have to share your shit if you don't want to. And you really, really never have to share your dog's shit.

Thank you for your attention to this important public service announcement.

Don't Throw (Gall)Stones

I think it was some Michael Pollan book that talked about analyzing people's carbon molecules and finding that most everyone is mostly made of corn. This finding gave me pause: not because I have anything against corn, in fact I love corn and you can't stop me, Michael Pollan, but because I am reasonably sure my family is made of potatoes. Well, the kids might be made of peanut butter, and DH is possibly hops-based, but me? I am definitely made of potatoes.

I love potatoes. I literally wept with happiness the first year I dug potatoes up out of my own garden. I was also very ill and a bit delirious with fever at the time, which may have affected my emotional state somewhat, but there really is something special about seeing those precious little nuggets peeking out of freshly-turned soil. And then peeking out of a pot or roasting pan. And then peeking up from my dinner plate. Nomnomnom.

In fact, I have an entire friendship that is founded upon a mutual love of potatoes. There are other things, too, like parenting or native prairie conservation or whatever, but we are sure to include at least an honourary mention of potatoes in every conversation - praise be to them for bringing us together. On the other hand, I'm afraid I have had to cut some people out of my life entirely over their galling lack of respect for potatoes (they are so a real vegetable, Andrew). (Ugh, I'll bet that guy eats all the cauliflower.)

I like to imagine pie charts for things. Since I read whatever book that was about the corn, one of my ongoing mental pie charts is of where all my carbons have come from. Potatoes of course comprise a hefty slice, as does wheat (major sub-groups in descending order of occurrence: bread products, Triscuits, assorted baked goods, pie crust, pasta). Beef has been creeping steadily up the charts since we started buying freezers-full of it a few years ago (coincidentally, from my PFF - potato friend forever); and it seems to me that other fruits & vegetables (although potatoes are definitely vegetables, just worthy of their own category!); cheese; beans; oatmeal; sugar beets; and, yes, probably corn, make up a large majority of the rest.

That's not so bad, right? You can't judge me too harshly over my fondness for bread and potatoes - just think of all the dolphins I didn't eat! Y'know, for instance.

But what's this mystery slice over here, you say? Oh drat, you've found my mental list of Things I've Probably Eaten My Body Weight In, But Shouldn't Have. (Technically, sugar beets should be on this list, but it's my pie chart so I get to justify my behaviours slice it how I like.)

McDonald's is on this sub-list, as are butter, bacon, those tiny KitKats I steal from the kids at Halloween, and the surprise contender, cream cheese frosting. But before I draw your eye to perhaps the most shameful entry on this list - yes, more shameful than several lifetimes' worth of cream cheese frosting - perhaps I could interest you in compiling your own mental pie chart? I mean, I'm pretty sure we're all in glass houses to some extent here...

I, Frecklepelt, hold the legitimate concern that I have consumed my own bodyweight in Cool Whip over the course of my life.

What can I say? I'm from Saskatchewan. Cool Whip is basically its own food group there.

Venus of Sigma

Venus was a mathematician.

Unfortunately, she has been remembered primarily for her looks. "Seriously," she is wont to say at parties, "you do one life drawing session in college to make ends meet..." At this point she trails off meaningfully - the joke tells itself, really - but women in particular tend to read a slightly bitter undertone into the telling. Men, on the other hand, are unable to grasp how this could possibly be construed as a bad thing, and thus interpret the subtle whiff of sombreness as... humility, maybe? Whatever it is, it is just so hot - 10/10 would totally hit that. She usually takes the ensuing pause in the chatter, where everyone awkwardly sips their drink and avoids eye contact, to make a quick exit. It's basically her only good line, and anyway she hates events like these.  

Ugh, and that Goddess of Love business - speaking of jokes! She was appointed to the Ministry of Human Affairs in a cabinet shuffle hastily conducted after yet another illicit deity-mortal "interaction" scandal. Ironically, she was assigned the post because she was the most studiously disinterested in humans of them all, i.e., voted least likely to take the "Human Affairs" title as a personal challenge. She wasn't even qualified, yet had such unprecedented success in simply avoiding the types of scandalous behaviours that her predecessors had engaged in that she was never relieved from the position, and that ridiculous moniker stuck. Some a-hole reporter from a right-wing rag coined it - she's usually a stickler for ethics but she made the tiniest (and arguably well-deserved) exception for that guy, and pulled some strings over at the Ministry of Human Health. A pox upon his ass, indeed. Literally.

She had done some groundbreaking work in geometry and algebra before joining the Ministry, but the credit went to her male colleagues. Mortals at that! It soured her on academia for a while, hence the ill-advised foray into government.

Uninterested in managing the emotional needs of humans, yet unable to secure a transfer to a department better suited to her skill set - or even an assistant, for Pete's sake! - she set about automating the process. I mean, when you think of the overwhelming emotional needs of humans, multiplied by their incredible ability to, well, multiply, it was only logical. (Which, by the way, she had also dabbled in during her undergrad; you will note her name isn't associated with her advances in that field, either.)

You are, of course, familiar with her system, although you can be forgiven for not previously having recognized it as a system per se - it would be like, as they say, a fish describing water. Let me assure you it was revolutionary at the time, given both that the branch of mathematics governing it hadn't been invented yet, and that it represented a rather substantial departure from the water the fish had been swimming in up to that point: everything used to rest on the tedious approaches of endless praying and sacrificing and other forms of personal appeal, but even with only a few hundred thousand humans kicking around at the time it was obvious that the model was unsustainable. Especially without even a single assistant...

So, with the kind of political will that can only occur in someone utterly disinterested in politics, she developed and implemented a new system. One so ruthlessly equitable (even if not what one might call "fair", depending on one's experience of it) and so unsusceptible to divine meddling that its practical appeal was irresistible; it was eventually applied to all other departments as well. Well, all but the Ministry of Human Sporting Events; guess you didn't pray hard enough last season, folks.

In this manner dis-employed, the various and variously long-overworked deities all cashed in their vacation millennia to catch up on sleep and neglected hobbies. (They received generous retirement packages as well, in case you're concerned about their welfare over the long term - it is government, after all.)

Oh, people kept burning livestock and so on for a while, but most of them have caught on by now that no amount of charred sheep is going to help you find love, luck, health, wealth, a bumper potato crop, a particular gender of fetus or even your car keys, anymore: it's all up to chance.
         

Pep Talk

My eyebrows have been slowly eroding as I've aged. I've pencilled my (pale blonde) brows in for ages to make them less-invisible, but at the rate they've been disappearing I'm going to be free-styling a pair of surprised granny arches by the time I'm 45. That's how it all starts, you know: from the time you first free your brows from the bounds of reality it's a dangerously short slope to a poodle perm and white orthopaedic sneakers. Or so I've heard.

I look terrible in purple, so I decided to give one of these new-fangled eyelash-growing potions a try. Not on my eyelashes - my glasses already have the permanent appearance of a patio door in a daycare - but on my brows. In retrospect, I'm not entirely sure how I thought it was going to pan out - the stuff makes lashes longer, so what exactly did I think it was going to do with my brows? Offer tax incentives to lure them back from whatever more southerly climes they've migrated to?

I need longer eyebrows like I need more luxurious knuckle hair. What am I supposed to do with longer eyebrows, style them? Add brow trimming to the already exhaustive - and still sprouting anew! - list of personal grooming I'm expected to keep up with? There has got to be a better way to keep myself on this side of the support hose and Scotch mints crowd. If only there were administrative options one could pursue...

* * *

"Listen up, people: we don't need the same personnel stretched thinner over more ground. What we need is to take the learnings from our gap analysis and do some strategic recruitment. I would like to see each of these roles filled within this quarter. In the meantime, we need to develop our team-building approaches and better our management strategies to improve retention - I want our turnover rates down at least 50% over the next year.

Folks, BROW & Co. cut too deep in the 90s - no matter if it was right or wrong, those pencil-thin margins were just a sign of the times, everyone was doing it - but it is clear we never fully recovered from that. We have a lot of work ahead of us if we want to maintain the growth we're trying to achieve now. From here on our goal is sleek and streamlined, appropriate for a company of our vintage, and never again a slave to the whims of fashion.

Together, I'm convinced we will be able to keep this old gal out of velour tracksuits for a long while yet. Keep up the good work everyone."