Three Things I Learned in the Past Week

1) If You Love Your Deck Furniture, Set It Free…

…And if you see it lying smashed in the street, just keep on walking.

Alana and I live five stories up and have a huge deck, which is completely awesome for barbeques, watching sunsets, avoiding street noise and drinking beer. We’ve also learned the hard way that we bear the brunt of some crazy-ass windstorms. Last year our BBQ cover blew away, taking to the wind like a vinyl ghost, we had chairs fly across the deck, our table flipped and smashed into the BBQ, taking a chunk out of both. You’d think we’d learn. Ha.

It suddenly warmed up here, so we put it all out again and once again allowed our cavalier attitude towards plastic outdoor furniture to rebuke us. I was at work when a massive, pounding rainstorm hit – the type where the wind drives the rain sideways. I had a sinking feeling, remembering that the deck crap was left out.

Sure enough, two of our chairs blew right the hell off the deck, five stories below into the street. I saw the smashed remains on the way home, tossed to the curb. One made it down with only a broken leg, but the other was smashed up good, most likely the result of being run over. I walked quickly past both, imagining the pants-shitting havoc they may have visited on some unfortunate commuter in the middle of an already stressful downpour.

Aside from the obvious option of properly stacking them from now on, I figure my best course of action is to either attach a parachute to each piece of furniture or smash them into less dangerous bits before leaving them up there, so when they eventually blow away I’ll have minimized the potential damage.

2) That is a Gnarly Tranny!

There’s a gnarly tranny that’s spotted in our neighbourhood on occasion, and I don’t mean gnarly like, “Holy shit, did you see that tranny shed that monster wave – gnarly!” No, one of my co-workers, Gary, dubbed the Gnarly Tranny gnarly because she is at the very least in her ‘60s, has scraggly white hair with a bit of orange dye clinging to it, a face that makes no attempt to hide its weathered maleness, and what seems to be army tattoos on her forearms. She’s been known to walk around in a cheerleader outfit, and I only saw her the other morning in a mini-skirt, white blouse and ‘80s-style cable-knit sweater-vest. First thing in the morning, that is indeed one gnarly tranny.

On a side note: last fall, Rue Morgue president and founder Rod was interviewed by a local publication about the magazine, by a transgender journalist. She was not a gnarly tranny by any means, but rather very put-together cross-dresser. Anyhow, she arrived while Gary was on lunch, he didn’t know she would be there, and just before he arrived back at the office he ran into the aforementioned “Gnarly Tranny” on the sidewalk. The transgender journalist was in the washroom; Gary walks in the office and announces, “Hey guys, I just saw that gnarly tranny outside!” – just as the non-gnarly, and much taller, cross-dresser walked out of the bathroom, literally right into him. It was like something out of a Seinfeld episode, where he was George. I was pretty sure Gary’s eyes were gonna bug right out of his head. Luckily, his faux pas was only noticed by his co-workers. Later he shook his head and proclaimed: “Aw c’mon, what are the chances?!”

3) Mailmen are the Envy of Crackheads, Apparently

There’s a particularly off-putting crackhead that wanders around the Junction. I’ve seen her come into the office during a film shoot and help herself to food, park herself in the office and start going through a bundle of movie posters she stole from the Blockbuster and generally wander about, in a hoodie and no shoes. One time I saw her wandering around late at night in a different neighbourhood, talking to herself while inexplicably wearing a paramedic’s jacket. I've also been told she’s quite fond of stealing from local businesses – pretty standard crackhead shennigans.

Well, today one of the Rue Morgue writers was in the office and popped over to the local coffee shop. On the way he ran into her and she asked him if needed “a girlfriend for fifteen minutes.” Shortly after that we closed shop for the day. She came by, stuffed an old flight itinerary between the front door, along with a little pink plastic spoon from Baskin Robbins. Special crackhead delivery, I suppose. After she dumped her garbage, she violently shook the doors. If she wanted in, shouldn’t she have tried that first?

I’ve seen much crazier crackhead behaviour around these parts, though. One morning on my way to work, this guy told me he just got out of prison, offered to pay me a handful of grubby cash for a ride, then offered to have oral sex with me before running out into the street to shoot imaginary six guns at a city bus, which had to stop. Now that’s crackhead panache!