Oh no Aunty Christ didn't

For some reason, my brain has latched onto the term/TV show title “Tool Academy” as its new favorite thing to talk to itself about. You know, maybe I’m at the store, or driving down the street, or sitting in my interview class listening to some diapersack spouting forth about how awesome he is, and all I can think is: “What is this? Tool Academy?”

Anyway, Rich is gone, leaving me once again to stare helplessly at the stove. It makes food, when Rich is here. But now it sits cold and empty and unproductive. Where’s my dinner, stove? Oh, it’s at Arby’s? Okay, then.

North Saskatoon is filled with fast food drive-thrus, but the closest is Arby’s. Oh, what’s wrong with Arby’s?, I asked myself. I mean, of course it’s disgusting, but a chicken sammy is a chicken sammy, right? I was ready to flip on the turn signal when I looked up at Arby’s giant red penis and said: Oh god. I cannot do this.





Any kitchen that prepares shaved penis on bun is not for Aunty Christ.

Good thing, anyway. Two weeks ago I went to the office for the first time in seven months and ended up talking with a little flibbertigibbet of my acquaintance, who turned the conversation, eventually, toward her dislike of people who don’t take care of themselves. And then she kind of very meaningfully stopped herself and looked at me. “Oh, not you,” she said. “I mean someone like _____,” and proceeded to name two or three really obese people in our office. Finally! Someone who doesn’t consider me morbidly obese—that’s awesome. I guess I can stop wearing my “THIS IS WHAT 400 POUNDS LOOKS LIKE” t-shirt (size medium, but it’s a little snug).

That awesome guy from my interview class? Turns out that when he’s not talking, Pregnant Black Teen is. Pregnant Black Teen kind of stole my instructor’s heart the first couple classes, her being preggers and my instructor being a mother. To introduce one of the film clips we watched (it’s a community college course: we watch a lot of movies), my instructor informed us that in this scene Denzel Washington’s film wife had just had a baby, and the mother next to me looked at the mother behind me and they both said: Aw! A baby! But Pregnant Black Teen killed off any good will her fertility had bought with the unfortunate habit of yelling at the movies we’re watching, and then yelling at our instructor as if she were a movie. The instructor, for example, put on Erin Brockovich and instructed us that although Erin’s interview skills were good, we perhaps should think twice about wearing a short leather vest to talk to clients. “She look good!” shouted Pregnant Black Teen at Julia Roberts’ sassy little figure. “I’d wear that! What’s wrong with the way she look?” Later, when the instructor said that she didn’t really like Julia Roberts but she—“Oh yes you do!” Pregnant Black Teen yelled. Instructor: “Well, no, I just don’t really like—” Pregnant: “Yes you like Julia Roberts!” It went on for perhaps a minute, and the instructor (a seasoned litigator) won, but only barely.

It was a wonderful moment for law, and for community college, and for humanity in general, probably. But there are moments in everyone’s life when you just want to take someone by the shoulders and tell them to stop being a stereotype and, oh, I suppose I just feel like that’s happening more and more frequently lately. That and the Tool Academy thing.

So, that’s what I’ve been up to. Now, stove, make me dinner.