Shit Storm 2004

The title of this entry on Plan 10 should give you some indication as to why the Guns of the Blogerone went silent for so long. I still think the title is a bit weak, but if I called it "Afterbirth Storm 2004" would you still have read it?

Since last time, a lot has gone down. I'll do this chronologically, so try to keep up.

After the arrival of Mr. and Mrs. Claus, or my parents, it rained everyday. Not only did it rain, it typhooned! Not once! Not twice! But, thrice! The first typhoon wiped out a tree in my garden and pulled it right out of the ground. Luckily, there was a saw in the shed and I hacked it up real good-like before dumping the remains in the park. So after the first typhoon, I had the pleasure of going to the zoological garden of wankerdom until 7 pm and then coming home to talk to my folks. I taught the oldman a bit of Japanese, but he kept forgetting it. We also just sat around drinking beer. My mom made food. It was good, except her pork pie, which tasted more like salt in pie form. Anyway, work was getting on my tits limitlessly. I just wanted to hand over my work to everybody for the next couple of weeks and go on a well deserved vacation. On my last Friday, I handed over my responsibilities to a bunch of people, talked my Dad in to the building ("I'm lost. There is a building with a red sign and yellow Chinese writing all over it.") and went down to the pub.

I had a coming of age moment at the Pub when the Colonel used the word "fuck" in conversation with me. It's not like I had never heard him say it before, but this was the first time it wasn't used in a mad rage. It was exactly the fourth time I heard him say it. Thankfully, Mrs Claus wasn't there to give some bullshit explaination like "he was about to say "for Christ's sake!", but stopped himself."

The next day, in the rain, my sister showed up. From that moment, her and the oldman argued and fought for the next 12 days, straight. We went to Tokyo station the next Monday to cash in their JR rail passes for unlimited travel after spending Sunday going all over hell's half acre trying to figure out where to cash them in. When we got to the place, we found out they were useless because they had already expired. My parents, convinced that all flights to Tokyo in October would be sold out, bought their tickets back in like May. The train tickets were only good form 3 months. Did anyone check this detail? With so much shit Canadien TV to watch, who would? So, at that point everyone was fighting and brooding. The oldman went off in a huff. I took my mom and sister to Nikko. I also got completely hammered on the train ride up there. And yes, I had to pay for the tickets. Then my sister whined that there were no monkeys. I had another beer, or 4.

Then, I quit my job. I accepted an offer from another company for more cash and holiday time. I spent one afternoon trying to write a resignation letter with everyone, myself included, on the cusp of cabin fever. What a nightmare. Of course, the person who help set up the job was just bothering me incessently as to whether or not I had finished/sent the letter to the point where I wanted to tell him to stuff everything up his ass. (If people are so busy, why the fuck are they bothering you and not getting on with their own work?) All of this is the stress talking, believe me, I am glad and thankful I made the switch. Thats when the second typhoon hit, forcing me to buy emergency plane tickets for the Friday to get to the wedding venue for 5 people. $3000 US later, we all arrived in Fukuoka on our way to the wedding.

To punish my parents and sister for giving the dude grief for the previous week with their antics, I forced them to all stay in the same hotel room while the wife and I stayed at the in-laws. The next Saturday I saw the Sun for the first time in like 2 weeks. I couldn't believe it. We actually had a nice day that day and a good lunch to boot. That night on the news there were all these earthquakes in another part of Japan. I dodged that bullet. But there was another typhoon, that was just about to slam into Hong Kong, but decided to make an abrupt 110 degree right turn and steam straight to my wedding ceremony.

I was convinced at this point that I had offended Neptune himself in some way. What did I have to do? Climb to the top of Mt.Fuji and erect a ship's oar on the peak? Luckily, the typhoon hit on the Monday and the wedding went off without a hitch.

I am not going to get into the wedding details. It is more of a story I wish to bore you with in person over multiple pints, and cones, depending on the laws at the moment.

Everything was pretty relaxed until I had to get the family to the airport at which point I realised " OH, Fan-Fucking-Tastic! I lost my bank book and Passport". After tearing the house apart looking for it and listening to everyone's well intentioned/shit advice, we went to the airport. We went in two seperate taxis to the train station. The driver of my cab was not only the world's oldest rookie taxi driver, but also the world's most retarded taxi driver. But, I'll give his doctor credit, you couldn't even see the lobotomy scar.

We got the airport at 2:30pm, and all the women in our party decided to go to the toilet. It was at this point that I realised my parents had lied to me months earlier. The flight wasn't going to leave at 16:10 (4:10pm for those of you never saw M*A*S*H), but 15:10. I had less than 40 minutes to get them checked-in, through security and out of Asia. I had already burned through my life's savings to accomodate them for my wedding, there was absolutely no Goddam way they were staying a second later. I barged into the United Airlines line, commandered a buggy, argued with some fat American twat and pushed people out of the security line like I was a fucking cop, but my parents and sister got on the flight and I have been avoiding their calls since.

As a footnote, I went to the bank the nextday and got the bank book shit straightened out. I went to the embassy today and got the new passport in the works.

Congratulations to Ralph Nader for taking all 541 Electoral College votes.