As It Wasn’t

Once upon a time that wasn’t, SmartyPants lived in the east end of Saskatoon. Across from a pub I used to frequent, in a house that never was. He invited me to his house for dinner, and we’ve been talking about writing lately, and he asked me to look over some of his work. His youngest was performing for us – a song and dance routine involving animals of the African savannah.

After dinner, Mmrilla showed up, and she brought our friend the Actor. We talked about writing, and we talked about books, and we talked about gaming. And we got hankerings for snacks. This is the sort of neighbourhood that has not only a 7-11 on every corner, it has *multiple* 7-11s on every corner. However, as is the case with People Like Me, I couldn’t find any of them (there were two at the intersection closest to Smarty Pants’s house).

So I got on my scooter, which was really just a double-wide motorized skateboard, and offered Mmrilla a ride. She was a little leery at first, but I showed her the winter tyres I’d put on the day before. They were ridiculous, for the record. They were these huge rubber-spiked things attached to, for all intents and purposes, a plank. Mmrilla took a ride around the snow-filled parking lot with me (the plank only took up one parking space), and then thought the whole thing was so ridiculous she would just walk. It was, after all, only half a block away.

I followed behind, after making sure I had my winter boots securely placed on the steering stick (it was a stick. At the front of the plank. Probably you should never ride in, on, or around a motorized vehicle of cenobyte’s design). I parked my plank close to the corner, and ran to catch up with Mmrilla, who was, by this time, already in the parking lot of the convenience store. But it was the wrong sort of convenience store.

As in, it was inconvenient. It was a tiny, dark thing up several flights of stairs. And it had no convenience items; just kitschy “authentic Aboriginal jewellery” made from the kind of metal that turns your skin green out of spite. And watches. Which is to say, the shop had watches as well, not that the jewellery also turns watches green out of spite, although I wouldn’t put that past it.

So we left the inconvenience store and tried to find our bearings.

Let me spell this out a bit more clearly for you: we were standing in the parking lot of the 7-11, which backed on to the inconvenience shop. There was another 7-11 across the street, and we managed to find that one after a while. We trekked across the street. The Actor caught up with us there, and then some strange things happened in the gum aisle, mostly involving a heated argument about candy floss.

This argument ended with The Actor storming off. I had no idea people had such closely held beliefs about candy floss. Now I know. After The Actor left, Mmrilla and I milled about feeling a little out of sorts, and eventually decided to try the 7-11 back across the street, the one we hadn’t seen earlier, because it was all right in the middle of the parking lot and all.

That 7-11 had *exactly* what we wanted. Which was a commonly available confection. Thank God for that.

Back at Smarty Pants’ house, we made our apologies to The Actor, and all was well.

The dreams I had upon waking were much more…visceral. I kept dreaming that I was waking up and having incredibly amazing sex with His Nibs.

Some dreams come true.