Punk'd

My grandmother aka "Nan"

My supervisor has a snooty British accent which is misleading, because really he's about as typical a Canadian as you can get even if he's an import.

"Prove it," I said to him one night. "What's your favorite hockey team?"

"Well I don't have one really," he said, scratching his balding head.

"Pretend I've got a gun to your head. I'm making you pick one."

"If you had a gun to my head I'd be picking Montreal wouldn't I?"

"OK pretend it's just a baseball bat then."

He laughed. "Well if I had to choose..." and here he paused a long time to think about it. "Dallas."

"DALLAS?" I said. "You're the first Stars fan I've ever met."

Somehow he took that as a compliment when really it was more an observation and, considering the tone of my voice, not a particularly pleasant one. Still at least he didn't say Boston or Toronto though my workplace runs rampant with their fans.

He likes "American football", not to be confused with European football which is really soccer only with riots. When his team lost the Superbowl I pretended sympathy though really I didn't give a rat's ass.

Perhaps this is why he decided to help out a couple of coworkers who wanted to prank me.

Currently at work we're bidding on our annual leave. You get to choose your weeks off based on seniority and yours truly is the lowest on that list. There is only one week that I really needed off, which is the week of September 23rd.

My grandmother's 90th birthday is on the 22nd, which is thankfully a Saturday, but I wanted the following week off to recover from the party and spend some time with family back home in Newfoundland instead of rushing back to work while sporting a colossal hangover. Also it's not like I can ask Nan to just change her birthday for my convenience, you know?

One of the people senior to me on the list used to be a gal I will refer to as M.K. Now she had recently transferred back west to beautiful B.C. (not just saying that it truly is a beautiful province) and I knew from talking to Jen Number 1 (there are three Jennifers on my shift) that M.K. had just bought a house in Vancouver.

How long did I retain this info in my head? A good guess would probably be around .0001 microseconds. It went in one ear and out the other.

When the list came around to me I saw M.K. had bid into the one week I wanted.

`But HOW?" I asked the British supervisor and immediately began waving my arms around. "She's not even HERE."

"She's on the list," was his calm reply.

I  silently contemplated my grandmother's likely reaction, and somehow I successfully resisted the overwhelming urge to check that my life insurance policy was up to date.

"YOU can deal with my grandmother," I said. "I'm not making that call. I'm not feeling suicidal today, thanks. You think I'm bad? She scares me!"

That was when he started chuckling. "I'm just having you on."

For a brief second I considered punching him in the face but I'm not really a violent person and he's bigger than me, plus it was unlikely to generate the outcome I wanted which was that friggin' week off!

He erased M.K.'s name from the sheet and handed it to me so I could sign for that week. He was laughing and once I was granted that week's leave I was smiling and laughing too. He got me good and I can appreciate a good prank, even when I'm on the receiving end.

"Should have pulled it on your mother," he said once I handed back the leave form.

"Oh hell yeah. No one ever gets Mom except Bro. I bet you could get her!"

So once again he erased the form and went off in pursuit of his next quarry. I waited, one ear cocked towards where Mom was working on the nearest multi-line, which is an automated mail processing machine.

I knew the second he told her because I could hear her raised voice over the roar of the equipment, even though I couldn't make out what she was saying exactly. Finally she came charging up to the side of the machine and the supervisor skulked his way back to me.

"How'd it go?" I asked him. "Did you get her?"

"Quick sign this," he said, thrusting the form back at me. "I thought she was going to hit me."

I laughed and went in search of Mom, who was by now actively threatening Jen Number 1 and the Gimp. "What did he say to you?"

"He gave me the form and said you went to the toilet. I took one look and said I wasn't dealing with it, but then he asked me who got the week. When I saw it was M.K. I asked how because she's not even here anymore."

I started laughing. "Yeah I said that too."

"Then he said she was still on the list and I told him he'd have to deal with Mom then, because I'm not telling her you can't go because of someone who's not even here anymore. He said that's what you had said too. And of course the Gimp came rushing down to tell me I was looking flushed and what was wrong."

"I can't believe Jen Number 1," I said. "Who knew she was capable of such villainy?"

"I seriously considered kicking the Gimp in the balls for that. I'd have kicked the supervisor too but we need that time off."

We were driving home later when I got an idea about how to pay back Jen Number 1. I'm sure it's only a matter of time before we come up with something dastardly for the other two as well.

I'm content to wait a bit though. Right now they're expecting it and I want to spring some nefarious trick on them when they've forgotten all about this mischief they've perpetrated this week upon poor innocent Mom and me.

Soundbites:

While driving in a car with Da Nephew, Bro started griping about a driver in front of him.

"What did the lady do, Daddy?" asked Da Nephew.

Bro spent the rest of the drive home trying futilely to defend himself from his mother's wrath about his sexist remarks against female drivers. "I never taught him that!"

I don't think Mom believes him though.

Speaking of Da Nephew, after playing for two hours with his father in the snow he finally joined Mom and me for the day. In the car en route to a store he sighed tiredly and declared most solemly, "It's been a busy morning."

 At the store Da Nephew decided he wanted an oversized lollipop.

Me: No. You already got a treat. See? I bought you this sticky tumbler.

Da Nephew: I don't want a sticky tumbler (pronouned ticky tumbler). I want a damned lollipop!

To their credit, the cashier and the people in the lineup managed to refrain from the guffawing which would have made this worse, but there was a lot of serious grinning going on.

*****

Me: What is with you liking the Leafs lately anyway?


Mom: I like Joffrey Lupul.


Me: There's more to the Leafs than Joffrey Lupul.


Mom: Not really.


*****


After yet another trip to the liquor store:


Me: If we quit drinking we'd be rich.


Mom: (laughs uproariously)


Me: We would! Look at all the money we spent on booze again!


Mom: It's not the money. I was laughing at the notion of quitting. Especially during hockey season.

The Albatross

George Jones, one of my Mom's favorite singers, sometimes used to be called "No Show Jones". He was an alcoholic and sometimes didn't bother to show up for a performance. Mom says Scott Gomez is worse than that, presumably because he does show up and always gives such a shitty performance.

Gomez does not always give a shitty performance, and since his return he's had good nights, but unless he starts putting up points regularly the guy is not going to get much of a break. It really does suck and I feel for him even as I rail about his play at times. He seems like a nice guy.

Look I like Scott Gomez, but if I could trade him for someone who didn't go over a year between goals or could offer up more consistent points yet still brought some nice karma to the dressing room I'd sell him upriver in a heartbeat. Luckily for Scott Gomez I'm not Pierre Gauthier and Geoff Molson or else he'd have been waived to the AHL quite awhile ago.

It strikes me as odd, this ability to like someone and yet not really enjoy seeing them. Gomez, as evidenced by his recent interview with Dave Stubbs on hockeyinsideout.com, is quite a likeable fellow. Open a Gomez soundbite and the man is simply fun to watch and full of character and sarcasm and potty mouth and humour, all of which I find terribly endearing in people.

Put him in skates and throw him out on the ice in the bleu, blanc et rouge and I grind my teeth. Put him next to me in a pub and I'm going to lean over and say, "Hey, how YOU doing?"

C'est la vie.

This paradox exists for me in my workplace too.

I had a coworker state at full volume to anyone within a 10 mile radius that he "Didn't give a shit" about another coworker. See, when I don't give a shit about something I just don't address it. It doesn't rate the thought or the vocalization, particularly at maximum possible decibels.

If it's not talked about here or not mentioned on one of the other sites I write for chances are pretty damned good I just don't give a rat's ass. That's just how I roll.

And this is my whole problem with Gomez. He talks an excellent game. He just doesn't play one.

Are there nights he looks great on the ice? Absolutely. The same can be said of some of his struggling teammates. But when one's record is so completely abysmal I have to wonder how long Gauthier and Molson can continue to protect him.

At some point, something will have to give and it's likely going to be the upcoming CBA (please Hockey Gods no strike) which will end Scott Gomez's career in Montreal. He's a good guy that deserves better, the team that adores him deserves better, and it is what it is and damnit sometimes I just really hate that.

Still, I have found some inspiration allow for the extraction of some humour in all this. Full apologies to Edgar Allan Poe and Scott Gomez in advance.

The Albatross

Once upon a Habs game losing, while the crowd was liberally boozing

Because the Habs were constantly snoozing and turning over pucks galore

And I bitched and griped and grumbled, watching the Habs continue to fumble

Upon the ice causing them to tumble out of contention to the basement floor

“Tis the Hockey Gods,” said I “causing them to hit the floor;

Only that and Gomez can’t score.”

Ah, distinctly I remember, it was way back prior to November

Friedman gave stats for contenders which most fans did then ignore.

“Faith!” they cried while staying cheery, even as I grew leery

Jaded, ambivalent and truly weary as only happened once before

When Houle and Tremblay gutted the team of its very core,

Hopefully repeated nevermore.

And the descendent down the ladder has made fans so much madder

Frustrated the Habs are so much badder than only a year or two before.

Markov lingers hurt and broken, yet from the brass no word is spoken

Of important matters scarce times a token of which the fans now bore.

While on the ice the Canadiens resemble not the team of yore.

The power play no longer scores.

But smiling, laughing, acting brave though the situation is now quite grave

Though the pundits still often rave about the fact that he can’t score

The albatross returns to action. His struggling play a quick distraction

While I hunger for full retraction from fans now oft behaving poor

Down the ice he streaks and suddenly the whole crowd roars

“He’s actually gonna score!”

Out of my seat jumped I with glee, dizzy from the sheer poetry

Of Gomez scoring easily on a puck deflected at Pavelec’s door.

Silent fans in the Bell awaited, hopeful the drought had thus abated

While I remained quite agitated, chewed my nails, drank, and often swore.

Potty mouth aside I truly wished the Albatross had scored

Hoped he’d soon get many more.

Yet still endures the great misery of the Albatrosses next goal, so key

For the quiet faithful fans to see and treasure in a year so poor.

La Sainte-Flanelle, Le Bleu-Blanc-Rouge, Le Tricoloure did not often lose

Still I sit and quietly muse upon The Cup they won times twenty-four.

And missing the post-season show is a wound so terrible sore

Keeping faith at times a chore.

All around discuss new bosses, fantasy trading team albatrosses

Analyzing insurmountable losses and offering up excuses I do deplore

My love may be never ending but not at all do I savour spending

Playoffs where I am just pretending interest in this sport’s yearly war

And Les Glorieux are ghostly echoes of great legends of hockey lore

I’m a Habs fan and I want more.