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Mister Tickles
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: People
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Ken, back at the restaurant full time - his town job, the dive pub run by the Village Idiot and his wife, didn't work out.
I'd worked there a couple of years ago. They were without a doubt the Village Idiots. When someone looks like they're the village idiot, talks like the village idiot, acts like the village idiot and then shows you they're the village idiots it's a pretty safe guess to say they're the village idiots.
They've a bit of a reputation, but in a town where no one wants to speak ill of anybody else you have to read between the lines. They'd lobbied to get the the spouses of Selkirk College students work permits - ostensibly so they could have a lower paid employee pool. Poor Ken was a victim of that, the "Browning" of the kitchen, a certain nationality working minimum wage jobs at 7-11 and Pizza Hut (and driving Cadillacs and Mercedes...) had taken over and didn't want Ken there anymore.
This is funny. They said that Ken is too slow.
And - you know, he is slow - but - go into any of the minimum wage jobs they've taken over and find one working passably hard - I dare you - double dare you. The 7-11, you'll find one person ahead of you in line, an 7-11 employee just off shift, and you'll wait 10 minutes for service.
Anyways, the Village Idiots gave him they're condolences and let him go. "Wasn't their problem..." the owners said. For a locally focused business they have surprisingly few locals working for them.
They're the kind of people that complain that nobody wants to work, when in fact nobody wanted to work for them, at the wages they pay and the hours and conditions they offered...they took the Covid relief from the government and used it to build a 3 story patio that if either the owner or her husband had to run up and down it 3 times they'd be dead of a heart attack.
They have political ambitions, and while easy to refute - the sort of Alberta Conservatives that believe that speaking louder than their opponent wins the argument - they're a pretty toxic bunch.
Back to Ken.
As we've a whole new contingent of under-aged child staff this year, pretty 14 year old girls and such, certain of my topics about Ken will have to remain off limits.
It kills me.
So I've renamed him "Mister Tickles" and introduced him to the young girls.
They're young but they're not stupid and they get the implicit caution, and I'm free to elaborate with the aid of certain therapy puppets I've acquired...skits performed for the benefit of those staff sitting at the bar to eat their staff meal:
"Mister Tickles You can untie me now...noooo, Mister Tickles I have to go home...Mister Tickles that hurts...."
While on that bent I've taken the liberty of elaborating upon Sean: "I thought I heard Curtis still screaming in your basement..." and Ankush- a likeable & harmless (albeit Useless) kitchen Helper hired under the same "Selkirk College" umbrella, chosen specifically because the owner liked the fact that he was taking women's studies "The Butcher of Bengal...He took women's studies!!! WOMEN'S STUDIES!!!"...
And suggesting to Ken that we take the 2 kitchen helpers to DQ on a double date, Ken's denials that he ever goes to DQ somehow implausible given his appearance, his laughing "Shhhhh's" aren't fooling me...Ken's arguments they're "too young" is irrelevant, they're saved from him not by his better judgement but by his own bumbling incompetence, the inept aspiring pedophile...
...One of Us...One of Us...
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: People
- Hits: 652
Talking to JR, explaining to him that the homeless, they've more or less accepted me as one of them. I'm on the same schedule, up too early in the morning, scrounging for coffee, I'm the better dressed homeless guy with money for coffee and cigarettes and then disappears with places to go...
...but the café owners, they know, I'm fooling no one, and JR is joking as we pass a few of them on the street and they greet me and after they pass he begins the low chant..."One of Us...one of us..." and I'm laughing, my fate appears inescapable...
A substitute Physics Teacher...
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Dreams
- Hits: 971
Dreams, that I was the sub for a bunch of High-School Physics students in Toronto, the class, more an old school library with the green shaded lamps and bookcases, a class out of Oxford or Eton, I was to sub for a week and now was time to administer a test...
Only I don't know what questions I should ask, let alone the answers, it's been a week and I haven't yet figured it out, I'm confused, know nothing, and the professor shows up, back from vacation, indignant, to throw chalk and curse at me, call me a fraud...
There's another sub I'm getting along with, talking, he's telling me nothing,...
Another dream, more dreams, still images, this next, I'm being pursued through an abandoned factory by giant disembodied ghost heads, like the the demons in Miyazaki's "Spirited Away", only these aren't cartoons or anime, more real-world renderings of his nightmares, nightmarish but not a nightmare...
New Roads in Ordinary Time...
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- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Images
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(Views from the Sat Night Milford Lake Excursion)
South, for my day off, checking out new roads I've never explored, there are still a few...
The day, gorgeous, the highway, driving the shoulder to let everyone pass, I need a combine or something so people understand, one of those warning blinking "Yield" signs on my rear window like they have on Snowplows or Sanding Trucks, hazards, this is bloody torture. Evenings I should drive to my destination, so that I don't snarl traffic, it's so bad I have to speed up to get through construction zones and it's a relief to get onto the logging roads where the road sets a speed limit I can maintain.
First up, Porto Rico Road, 10 KM or so up, the rocks, all ultramafic basalts, some shales (not fossiliferous), musical, you check them, throw them back, a pleasing ringing sound. A bust, but great views of the Salmo Valley. It would be interesting if only for gold or metals, the rust colored patina they all acquire shortly after breaking suggests possibilities if only you could find some Quartz stringers, notably absent.
(Basalts, ultramafic, bedding suggests they might make for good black countertops)
(View down the Salmo Valley)
A bust.
This is the job.
Next stop, slowly slowly down towards the Beaver Valley thrift shop, where I turn up a UV Flashlight, $1.00, then on to the Dollarama in Trail to get batteries for the many headlights and flashlights I've acquired.
Then back, this is the furthest I'm going south, way back stop at Champion Lakes, always curious what lies there, home of the Western Painted Turtle, I'm curious, how did they get up here? A (herd, flock, swarm) of discontented turtles making a wagon train, working their way upstream, I never thought of turtles as adventurous, but - clearly here again I'm a victim of my own prejudice because here they are...
Anyways, charming beaches and campsites, a great camping location for families with young children.
(Views of the Champion Lakes, home of the Western Canadian Painted Turtle)
Eerie Creek FSR, the dust, the dust, my laundry, why did I do, the dash, seats, me, covered in the dust blowing in through my window, the rocks the same, the ultramafic basalts that break black and weather to red or yellow, some beds of quartzite, again no quartz or intrusions that might offer up hope for crystals or gems.
(fresh roadcuts, always a good thing, but nothing exposed of interest...)
(roadside stacks)
And that's it...
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