My Canada Adventure: Part Four

One of the perks of my promotion (and I don't know that it's a promotion per se, but rather increased responsibility) is that I now have a laptop. I also have a Blackberry, but I haven't decided whether or not that's a perk yet. As of this moment, I am completely baffled by the thing and I'm not usually stupefied by technical things. (Only things that are blog-related.)

The point of bringing that up is that I'm typing this on the laptop in my garage (aka my smoking lounge). This makes me incredibly happy. It's the little things really. I can now blog AND knock hours (or days or years) off my life AT THE SAME TIME!

So, when we last talked about Canada, I had just fallen asleep...

WAIT!

First, I must mention that Cindy and I will be kissing as the new year rolls in! She's coming to visit for New Year's Eve. I'm quite excited. I'll be even more excited when I persuade my ex-husband to take the children the weekend prior to New Year's Eve, out of the kindness of his heart (hahahahahahahaha), AND New Year's Eve night. More likely it will be that I switch weekends with him and I'll have them on NYE and have to get a babysitter (aka Grandma). Whatever the case, Cindy and I will be together and that makes me giddy.

But back to Luke/Austin's retreating backside and my subsequent snoozefest:

I awoke the next morning because the sun was trying to sear holes through my eyelids. It was about 7:30am and, even though I'm a professional sleeper, I couldn't go back to sleep in a room that was as bright as the light the box doctor uses to see inside my hooha. (I feel like I'm getting a tan during the examination it's so bright! I have my yearly exam the week after next, so I'm trying to get into that frame of mind.)

I lay there for a moment trying to recall where I stripped the clothes off my body, and I hoped that they weren't on the floor of the kitchen on the level below. Since I wasn't entirely sure, I tapped Luke/Austin and asked him for a shirt. He was still decked out in his long-sleeve orange shirt with nothing on his lower half. He rummaged through his dresser for a moment and retrieved a t-shirt for me. It was from the Alamo.

"Fitting," I said. "Oh, and Advil? Aleve? Anything for my pounding head?"

"The kitchen," he croaked.

I slipped the t-shirt over my head, and tiptoed into the bathroom. I surveyed the floor for my clothes while I peed for the next twenty some odd minutes. I always have to pee FOREVER in the mornings anyway, but it seemed like I had to go an inordinate amount that morning. I kept trying to hurry the process up because I hate for people to hear me pee (because I'm the only person in the world who does it, and I just know everyone else is judging me for my inability to process my urine more efficiently), but I kept going and going and going. I hoped that Luke/Austin had fallen back to sleep immediately, but I was sure that he was listening to me and wondering whether I was overflowing the toilet with my substantial liquid output. Despite my peeing anxiety, I did manage to locate my jeans and underwear, but my shirt, camisole, and bra were nowhere to be seen.

Since I had on a t-shirt, I wasn't too terribly concerned about my shirts. I knew they were most likely downstairs somewhere, and since my breasts were being guarded by the Alamo, I didn't have to worry about running into Luke/Austin's roommate, lest he be an early riser, with my breasts flopping in the wind - though, truly, there wasn't much wind in Luke/Austin's townhouse - and if I'd had to leave the bathroom bare-chested, he most certainly would have been an early riser. (I brought Murphy with me on the trip.)

I slipped on my jeans and underwear and slowly opened the door to the hallway. I looked to my left and saw that Luke/Austin's roommate's door was closed, so I assumed he was likely still asleep. I crept down the stairs and headed for the kitchen. Along the way, I surveyed my surroundings. Luke/Austin had a pretty nice pad. Upon arriving in the kitchen, I espied my clothes in a heap on the floor. I picked them up, shook them out and hung them over a chair to de-wrinkle. (Fat chance.)

I realized that I had urinated out what little hydration I had remaining in my body, and I opened the fridge to find something, anything to drink. I was delighted to find a can of ginger ale. I felt it would be the perfect accompaniment to my somewhat-upset stomach. I chugged the ginger ale, popped some Advil and let out a satisfied, "Ahhhhhhhh." I spotted my cell phone on the table and thought I ought to call Cindy and let her know that I was still alive. I left a message for her at the hotel that I was indeed still kicking and was planning to gather my belongings and call a cab. Then my battery died. So much for calling a cab.

I went back up to the bathroom and changed into my own clothing, and then reentered the bedroom where Luke/Austin was sleeping peacefully. (Apparently his sleeping isn't disturbed by being under interrogation-bright light.) I sat down on the bed, and he stirred.

"Hey," I said. "Could you call me a cab, please? Oh, and here's your shirt back. Thanks. I found my clothes."

"I can get you another shirt," he says. "I just can't let you keep the Alamo shirt."

"No, I have a shirt. I just need a cab."

He picks up his phone, hits a speed dial number, and calls up the cab company.

"I need a cab, please," he says, and then pauses as they respond.

"My house," he says, and then he hangs up. I guess he's a regular passenger in the fine cabs of Toronto since they didn't need his address. "Five minutes," he tells me.

"Thanks."

"I'd drive you, but I don't feel well."

"It's fine," I say. "A cab is fine."

I was pretty sure that his car was back at the party, but I didn't really want to remind him of it right at that moment. I figured it would be better when he made that realization after a bit more sleep.

"I'll walk you down."

He gets out of bed and heads for the door with his goods bouncing happily along the way. I suppress a smile. It's actually kind of cute. He looks like a little boy in a man's body. (I don't mean that to sound creepy. He just seemed a bit childish right then. Wearing a shirt with no bottoms is something little boys often do.)

We go downstairs and banter politely while waiting for the cab to arrive. "I had a great time." "Yes, it really was fun." "It was fun, wasn't it?" "Yes, quite fun." "Indeed."

The cab arrived, and I insisted that his bottomless self stay upstairs and not walk me down to the lower level and the front door. "There's really no need," I said. "You'll just get cold."

We hug goodbye and I start down the steps and he calls out, "Goodbye, Princess! It was great meeting you."

It hit me that he didn't even know my name. Still. If only he had known my name ... (That was an inside joke, and quite probably a story I'll tell at some point in the future.)

I get into the cab, narrowly escaping falling on my ass when I slip on the ice, and find that I've been sent the chattiest cab driver in all of Ontario, perhaps even all of Canada, to take me back to the hotel.

My cab driver had a very strong accent and he was quite difficult to understand. I'm sure that was exacerbated by the fact that I was quite likely still a bit drunk. My incomprehension didn't slow him down a bit, though. He talked about the weather, the United States, where his different family members lived throughout the States and Canada, his favorite city in the U.S. (San Francisco - we had a commonality); just basic small talk. I'm nodding when it seems appropriate and daydreaming about the hotel room with its black-out curtains and a comfortable bed.

Just then the driver started talking about Bell's Palsy. It was so out of left field that I reached up to touch my face to make sure it was working properly, and that I hadn't contracted a case of it since getting into the cab. After ascertaining that both sides of my face still responded to signals from my brain to smile and frown and to move period, I tried to figure out what he was saying. For the rest of the cab ride, I heard about his trials and tribulations since he had contracted Bell's Palsy six years prior. (His affected side wasn't in my line of vision.)

I felt terrible because all I really cared about was getting to the room, changing into pajamas, and sleeping until they were ready to kick us out. I just wanted to have a pleasant, QUIET cab ride home, but he WOULD NOT STOP TALKING. This is my retribution for all of the times that I, drunkenly, tried to engage stoic cab drivers into inane conversation against their will.

We finally arrived at the hotel; I paid him; and I managed to restrain myself from running out of the cab as fast as I could. As I walked in the door of the hotel, I see two of the hotel's male employees at the front desk, and I give them my best smile and wave. They smile and wave back at me.

"I'm doing the walk of shame," I tell them.

They chuckle. I rattle off a few more sentences before the elevator arrives to take me to my utopia.

As I'm standing in the elevator, it hits me that I shouldn't be talking about doing the walk of shame to anyone in the hotel. I'm there as the WIFE of a manager of a hotel back in Texas. (We used to be on record as brother and sister, but being that we're from the south, we decided to take it to the next level and get married. You can't beat the hotel discounts.) I was going to blow my cover if I went around advertising that I'd just spent the night out, presumably with a man, and had returned sporting the same clothes that I had worn the night previous.

The elevator arrived at my floor and, once again, I resisted the urge to run. (If only the urge to run would come when I'm back home where I stuff my face with anything I happen to encounter that's even remotely edible.) I walk, quickly, to the room, and let my self in. Cindy wakes up and I give her the synopsis, "We went to a strip club and we didn't fuck." I change into pajamas, close the black-out curtains, and crawl into bed where I stay until Cindy taps me on the shoulder to let me know that I had to get up and get dressed.

Speaking of bed - you knew it was coming, right? - I have to go to sleep. I'll finish the story over the weekend; my child-free, sleep late weekend.