Stampede...I always regret it.

I had nothing to update for a while, ironically, because I was working. Working a job where the extent of my social interaction was with the Weird Guy who typically communicates using only surprised grunts. At an office where shoes are optional and a trip to the photocopier is cause for celebration, you can imagine how weird that is.

I've determined that this isn't enough social interaction for a person with my extensive personality (read: likely too much for people with zero personality) and who picks up books entitled things like "Dinner with Friends". I need to be around other people, you get the idea. That and one more day with Weird Guy and I would have suffocated him with a map of the South-Western quadrant of the Yukon.

So thank goodness my contract ended right before Stampede, a 10-day extravaganza where you get just a little too much social interaction, even for me. Serving in the clubhouse doesn't guarantee you great tips, but it does guarantee you great stories. A group of highly civilized customers threatened to walk out and call the police because the chip machine was temporarily down; a woman handicapped by her own obesity fought me over a $3.50 pint of endlessly refillable iced tea because she thought iced tea and hot tea were the same thing. Anybody else see that SNL Celebrity Jeopardy? The Grandstand show has effectively lost any semblance of a plot, the costumes are getting suspiciously more reflective, and pre-recorded songs about the Garden of Imagination make me want to sink my head into a tub of margarine.

Riding the c-train during Stampede is about as much fun for me as playing mini golf against a midget. So this year, my pleasant public transit experiences included rescuing some cracked-out chick from a drunk and lecherous native, enduring the predictable and overpoweringly obnoxious drunken cheer chants people feel the need to have only on the train, and stopping a drunken brawl as half the contestants in that beauty pageant were keeping the doors from closing and thus, keeping me from my final destination, and the sweet embrace of sleep. I did manage to score a free ride on the Slingshot from my undeniably heroic (stupid) actions. Though this wasn't really a reward as I am completely terrified of anything that isn't a children's tire swing. Because of this, in my spectacular video montage, I either look like I'm giving birth to sextuplets, or Hulk Hogan is shoving a JC Penney dining set up my ass.

To conclude, by the end of Stampede I had:

A video of me apparently in labour on the slingshot,
Several stomach ulcers,
A lot more wrinkles,
Disproportionately muscled arms,
1 lost wallet,
1 lost ipod,
Mysterious bruises,
Half a can of pop in my hair,
No job and;
None of my sanity.

Until next time, when I enlighten you all with the wonders of unemployment!