Post Number One - This is Unfortunate

Unfortunately, my first post is about my weekend. Usually weekend posts are entertaining or at least not depressing. This weekend in St. John's was set in a backdrop of weather like that which occurs 98% of the time in Saint John. So the weather on its own wasn't what made the weekend bad. I'm used to it. Reminds me of home. What made this weekend probably a billion times crappier than a weekend in Saint John is that St. John's has not completely grasped the concept of functional public transportation. I have wasted so much money on taxis in this city, not because I needed the taxi to get somewhere, but because I had already taken a bus to get somewhere, but the bus went to an entirely different place than it was supposed to, so the only way to get to where I'm supposed to without waiting for 45 minutes for another wayward bus is to take a taxi. Shut up about grammar. It doesn't count in rants. Anyway, yesterday night, Morg and I just wanted to go to Walmart. That's all. I know that that is a really lame plan for Saturday night, but we were in desperate need of things that only Walmart could provide at extremely reasonable prices. Well, long story short, we missed our bus by 30 seconds, so we decided to take a cab from the mall to Walmart. So we walked down to the place where the cabs wait and we hopped in a van cab (van cab!). We said to the cabbie (who was very nice) "could you please take us to Walmart?" He said "Sure thing m'loves!" We then had a lovely drive, throughout which the conversation was dominated by his description of every Shitzu (is that how you spell that?) that he has ever owned. At first it kind of seemed to me that we weren't heading in the Walmart direction, but I'm new to the city and I figured, hey, he's a cabbie, he probably knows a shortcut. It turns out that he knew a shortcut to the Village Mall (i.e. the Parkway Mall of St. John's) which is very noticeably sans Walmart. Or at least, we noticed this after we had paid $12 for the cab and he had driven away. So we decided to just wait for another bus out of there. Oh, we waited all right. We waited for a good 40 minutes, with Dane Cook on Morg's Ipod and Creepy the Lurker as our only entertainment. Creepy was an unusual sort of fellow. Well, maybe not so unusual in these parts. He was probably about 60 years old, had a lovely grey hoodie and a fragrant cigarette. Out of the blue he walks over to our bus shelter, leans in the doorway (blocking our only escape route), looks us in the eye and says "Last week...a security guard at this mall...got fired...for touching a nine-year-old girl. A NINE-YEAR-OLD! I wouldn't wish that on my worst f#*&ing enemy!" I had three thoughts at this time: 1) I wouldn't wish you on my worst f#*&ing enemy; 2) What, are you telling us your autobiography?; and 3) I don't have to outrun him, I just have to outrun Morganne. (for the record, I would never bail on Morgie like that). Anyway, he just abruptly turns and walks away (he did come back about 2o minutes later to tell us that the bus was coming soon - in another 22 minutes). So, eventually, a bus did come that I knew would get us back to MUN. We had given up on Walmart by now, even though it's open 24 hours here. We just didn't care anymore. Little did we realize that the bus that would take us back to MUN would first take us on a nice, hour-long tour of the entire city. There was a highlight of this bus ride. As we were passing through downtown, I spotted some fireworks out the window. I turned to Morg and asked her what they could possibly be for, considering that it was November 8th. She thought for a minute and then her face lit up. "Mickie, of course there are fireworks on November 8th - it's an international holiday." I gave her a 'watch-you-talkin'-bout-Willis' face. She says "Mickie...November the eighth is the anniversary...of the birth...of James Sudul!" Well, I pretty much had a fit right there on the bus. Fortunately, the only other person on the bus was a hip Asian dude with a walkman who wisely chose to ignore us. Anyway, long story short, we eventually got to the bus stop at MUN. We had a lovely walk back to rez through a refreshing (ha-ha, yeah right) heavy mist (remember Saint John?). I tripped and almost fell into Burton's Pond. When we got back, all we wanted was hot chocolate. Luckily, there was still a little left. Rez was a ghost town because everyone was at the Breezeway (=campus bar). We did nothing. Not one thing. We sat in our room. Just like Friday night, when we waited for 3 hours for MUNch house to open, not because we were hungry, but just for something to do. I have to say, weekends do not get much lamer than ours. Pasty guys living in their parents' basements have more fun on WOW (that's World of Warcraft, for all you squares out there) than we do on a Saturday night, away from home, at Uni-flipping-versity. Of course, the fun doesn't end there. Because there was still another day left in the weekend. This morning, I tried to get out to the mall, for a work meeting. I really tried so hard. But the meeting was early, so I couldn't take my usual bus. I looked up the schedules online and found a bus that would supposedly get the job done. Ho ho, ha ha, that's a laugh. Knee-slapper! I was the only person on the bus (what?! Normal university kids don't go riding around the city on a weekend morning?!?) so I had a nice chat with the driver. At first, we seemed to be going in the right direction. That didn't last long. We promptly turned in the direction of downtown, the exact opposite direction of my work. I'm thinking "oookayy, this is a little weird, mayybee he just has a long route...". Nope. We just go further and further into the abyss of downtown. The driver (who was very nice and with whom I'd been chatting the whole time) turns to me and says "so where do you work downtown?" Mentally, I was like "aw crap." Verbally, I was like "uhhhh...a bookstore?" because I was too embarassed to say I was on the wrong bus. Anyway, I just pretended that we got to my stop and I got off. I didn't know what to do, or where I was, other than the general location of "downtown". So I tried to wait for a bus at a random stop. It never came. I didn't have any money for a taxi, or a taxi's phone number, so I just picked a direction that looked right and started walking. Well, I walked walked walked walked walked. All the way to the other side of the city. But all the time I was walking, it was in a rather lost way. I eventually did find my way back to MUN. By this time, it was too late for my meeting, so I grabbed some feel-better Subway and went back to bed. Oh, and I forgot to mention, I have strep throat. That added to my joy. I just gave up on today. Morg did too. She got up at 6:00 - P.M.. Well, as I forewarned, post numero uno is a real downer. Hopefully, better things are to come. Hopefully I don't forget about this blog and have this post be the only record of my life that ever survives. I love all of my friends so much (you know who you are, you IBz)! I really miss you guys and I can't wait to see you at Christmas! (Christmas #2, that is. Everyone knows that November 8th is the original Christmas [see above]). I hope that everyone is happy - but not so happy that you forget to miss me! Love and all that jazz - Mickie