The Great Gerbal Escape

My high school was having a rodent raffle. Gerbils to be exact. My friend and I decided to buy tickets. The school PA speaker crackled to life in our home room. The PA didn't always work. It did one day when I did my Howard Cosell impression in the cafeteria/Auditorium.

Two students were play-fighting, and I called the fight just like Howard. The mic was a prop. So I thought. Little did I know the bout was being broadcast live in every room and hallway. I was a hit. People walked up to me and said how good my impression was. Now, back to the rodents.The speaker chimed in. The winner of the gerbils is Dennis Deschamps.  I jumped from my seat and headed down to the office to pick up my prize. Two gerbils. I was told they were the same sex, so I didn't need to worry about babies. Apparently, this was news to them. My mother, as you will remember, wasn't keen on anything with tails. Our family dog was the only exception. One time, we found a garter snake and brought it into the house to show Mom.  She screamed. My younger brother thought he could carry around a frog in his shirt pocket. It was just a frog. He hadn't had a tail since he was a wee tadpole. She wasn't impressed with the cute frog-in-the-pocket ploy. She wasn't very happy about me bringing home a couple of furry friends. I assured her that they would stay in a cage in my locked room.

I started constructing a cardboard maze and placed a piece of cheese as a reward at the end of the rat race. Inside the cage, a water bottle, wood shaving, and gerbil food finished their habitat. The two lived in rodent bliss. They must have wanted to share the bliss with others, so it was no surprise when I found a bunch of little pink babies. I had decided to keep that a secret, and it worked for a while. I learned a few things about gerbils. They grow up fast.  They don't like cardboard or having to race for a treat.

Then it happened. Mom opened my bedroom door and screamed as the rodents made a run for it. The afternoon when I got home from school, my mother gave me the look. I knew something was wrong. We didn't see that look very often. When we saw it, we ran for cover. "Get those rats out of here." That night, I brought my little furry convicts to the pet shop. The angry look softened, that is, until she saw Charlie the squirrel in the backyard. 

 

Canoe Imagine

Sundown at Kejimkujik National Park 

It was supposed to be a simple canoeing experience. That's how it started. We had spent a day in the pool at Saint Clair College learning to drown-proof. Apparently, it's a thing. Everyone had to fall out of a canoe and pretend they were lost at sea or on the lake. The good news. If you survived, they gave you a life vest. Drowning-proofing requires breathing, rolling into a ball, and floating. Wilson!!! Breath, tread, ball and float. Eventually, we all pass the test. Now, we were ready for the real test. 

One of our teachers lived on Pike Creek. Well, not on the creek. In a house.  The school had parked our supplies of canoes and flotation devices in the driveway. We were paired up, each geared up and ready to hit the water. That's when things got interesting.

I was paired with a teacher who was taller and much heavier than I. He was in the back. His job was steering. I had learned to steer while in the college pool. The sweep stroke and the J stroke, but because of our weight difference, I would have had a real stroke trying to steer the canoe with all the weight in front. For that reason, he was in the back. I weighed eighty-nine pounds. I wasn't too keen on finding out how much I weighed, soaking wet. We soon found out that that was a distinct possibility downstream.

Pike Creek is easily manageable, and paddling was effortless. The mouth of the river and Lake Saint Clair was a little more work. We paddled across to Peche' Island for a little excursion. It was delightful.

As the day went on, we had one last stretch of water to navigate. We didn't plan on the wind picking up from the west or the size of the whitecaps we had to paddle through. We soon found out that it is hard to control a canoe when half of it is not in the water. I could feel the fear behind me. The person I counted on to steer was freaking out. "Lean into it," He yelled. I was leaning into it, and I could barely get the paddle into the water. I was hanging on for dear life, lying across the front of the canoe, stretching to get the paddle into the water. Our extraction point was Pellette dock. On a good day, it wouldn't take long to get there. This was not a good day.  It was almost goodnight. I had my head down as I paddled and only looked up to see if we were making any gains. Sometimes, to make gains, we must endure pains. I was feeling the pain. My arms throbbed,  my body bobbed, and it seemed we weren't going anywhere. The waves were winning. But somehow, we managed to get to our destination. We emerged beat up but still alive. 

Years later, I was in a canoe with a girlfriend. We were paddling on the shallows of Lake Saint Clair. Things were going good, that is, until she moved. Over we went.  I immediately stood up. The water was waist-high. She immediately went crazy and started frantically yelling. "I can't swim, I can't swim." I looked at her and said, "Stand up." This is the same girl who thought going down the rapids at Elora Gorge on an air mattress was a good idea. Over they went, my girlfriend and another. She lost her mind. She did cause quite a stir when she stood up and found out it wasn't the only thing she had lost. Her bathing suit top was floating downstream. Before she even realized she was half-nude, she had a bunch of guys running along the shore to help her, or maybe it was to get a better look. 

Teachers Toast

One class I wasn't a big fan of was Home Ec. I had already learned most of what I needed to know from my mother and my sisters. Mr. Long, our teacher and chef, is dressed in white, from his paper chef's hat down to his shoes. He has two prominent features: a  Fu Manchu moustache and a wandering eye. For that reason (not knowing which one to look into), I never engaged in conversation. 

Today's lesson is breakfast preparation. Some kids are across the hall, setting up the teacher lounge for breakfast. Every place setting is decorated meticulously. There is a huge coffee urn gurgling in the corner. Teachers are hovering, waiting for their morning elixir.

 

I am in the kitchen learning how to paint lightly browned Texas toast with butter. Every slice has a round circle of yellow that never seems to reach the edges, stacked on a plate. I never understood why they gave us a paintbrush instead of a knife. I found this unacceptable. I have never spread my favourite spreadables thin. Edge-to-edge peanut butter and jelly. A paintbrush.  Why? I don't think anyone ever ordered butter and bristle toast, but I imagine it happened by mistake more than a few times. 

The next thing I see is scrambled eggs in a bag. My family is particular about eggs. The bagged egg thing wouldn't fly. It would fly if someone tried to serve the slop. Speaking of scrambled edicate, I don't like egg snot, so that little white umbilical cord gets forked and thrown in the trash. My younger brother hates slime or overdone. Half buttered toast and no yolk is a deal breaker. You can't dunk an egg ball. Back to school.

In front of me, I see a lard-infused grill. Scrambled eggs are poured out of a bag. Next to the eggs, hashbrowns sizzled with onions. When our meal prep was over, we carried the poor example of breakfast to the teachers' lounge. Breakfast was served. Luckily, they had coffee to wash it down.