wheelchair

NY Post finally caught on to me…

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3609_picture_of_an_excited_woman_speeding_with_her_wheelchair

I saw this article about New York families hiring disabled people to come to Disney with them and although I am not usually a big fan of the NY Post, I got a kick out of it. I don’t pretend to think of myself as a trend-setter but come on people! I was using a wheelchair inappropriately at Disney years ago – now they catch up? How stupid am I to not realize that money was to be made on it though? I guess I should take notes because not one of these people were propelled skyward into a crowd, peed their pants or were mistaken for a retarded person yet….If you don’t remember my famous Disney story when I was mistaken for a retarted person TWICE in less than a half hour – read it here!

Here’s the article:

http://shine.yahoo.com/parenting/disney-world-scheme–entitled-families-hire-disabled-guide-to-bypass-lines-194555620.html

Here’s when I was mistaken for a retarded person TWICE in less than a half hour: https://immodiumabuser.com/2011/01/11/when-i-was-mistaken-for-a-retarded-person-twice-in-less-than-a-half-hour/  If you haven’t read this – you’re in for a treat. If you have already read it – it’s worth another read…

Me and some loonies re-enacting The Goonies

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I was watching The Goonies the other night for the hundredth time and it reminded me of a CLASSIC moment in my life that could have been a deleted scene from the film – I want to set it correctly so instead of mood music, I’ll start off with a quote from a classic Goonies scene:

Francis: Tell us everything! Everything!

Chunk: Everything. OK! I’ll talk! In third grade, I cheated on my history exam. In fourth grade, I stole my uncle Max’s toupee and I glued it on my face when I was Moses in my Hebrew School play. In fifth grade, I knocked my sister Edie down the stairs and I blamed it on the dog…

Now that we’re sufficiently jazzed up, I’ll proceed…

As I’ve mentioned before, the apartment we lived in was on a really wild street in college. It was a line of one party-house after another, leading down the yellow-brick road to the Promised Land (the bars, obviously). My house was diagonal from Lisa’s and we’d usually alternate where each night’s after-hours would take place based on who had beer in the fridge. That, or if it was one of the days that the pizza place had cut me off from getting a delivery because I passed out after ordering and slept through the delivery guy at the door again – we’d be at Lisa’s.

The two most hated words known to man!

It was just past 2 AM and I was stumbling back to my apartment after the bars closed. As I was ambling down the way in my drunken haze, I saw Lisa’s Roommate Sue puttering around ten times drunker than I was. I thought Sue must be on some really good shit to be that out of control, so of course I went right over when she told me after-hours was at her house. You know that instinct that tells you something is obviously wrong and you shouldn’t do something? I don’t have that! It’s notoriously absent in me sober – nonetheless when I’m drunk.

(To clarify before I go any further – no, this is not the night that Sue was drunk and ran over her and Lisa’s other roommate Kathy with the car when she got out to pee on the ski slope. Read that back: Kathy actually got ran over with HER OWN car when she crouched in back of it to pee. It was late at night, they were wasted, and Sue couldn’t see where Kathy was peeing when she moved the car because she didn’t want to get caught because the car was ACTUALLY on the ski slope. I didn’t believe this story since they came right back to the bar after it happened until Kathy pulled down her jeans to show me the road rash. Those two were like the blind leading the blind-folded.)

Lisa, Sue & Kathy lived in the top half of a two-family house. When you entered the front door, the stairs led up into the living room which connected to the kitchen, then led to a hallway where the three bedrooms and bathroom were located. Sue and I were following through on our promise to drink absolutely every single beer in their house before the rest of our crew arrived since it was only the two if us. I randomly looked up and happened to see something I hadn’t noticed before. Although the living room ceiling was about sixteen feet high, there was a barn door with an X on it about ten feet in the air. I asked her what it was and she replied “probably goes to the roof – what else could it be?” and the very same light bulb appeared over both of our drunken head’s at exactly the same time: DING DING – Obviously, we should go on the roof!

Conventional wisdom should tell you that if you’re only 5’ 7” tall, you’re not going to be able to reach a door that’s ten feet in the air without a boost. Conventional wisdom also forgets to inform you that if said boost doesn’t work and you’re going to start stacking random pieces of furniture to reach said door – there is absolutely no wisdom present: conventional or otherwise. It is actually the opposite of any other word for used to describe or related to wisdom, yet it didn’t hinder us.

The adornments in furnished apartments are usually mismatched, cheap, and rickety but their furnishings were an especially random assortment of hodge-podge. In addition to the usual suspects (beat-up old couch, smelly loveseat, scratched up side-table) there was a weird rocking chair that never really “belonged” in the room. It also never “belonged” sandwiched in the middle of our “furniture ladder,” but that’s not really the point now is it? We let nothing stand in our way as we jammed one item on top of another to get to that door. Common sense obviously wasn’t on the guest list for this after-hours party, but we persevered and got our makeshift Tower of Babel up to the doorway. Being the absolute gentleman that I am, I let her climb up first. Obviously, I truly believed that it would collapse as soon as she mounted it, but also, it was her house so letting her go up first was the respectful thing to do. Like I said, she was much drunker than I was so she didn’t protest…

Sue was a limber little thing and she made her way up the sofa, championed past the cocktail table and over the rocker like it was her job. I had been watching her ascent and thinking to myself “That really doesn’t seem sturdy and there’s no way it will hold her…” when I realized that my beer was empty and went to get another one in the kitchen. She was passing over the second kitchen chair we had stacked on the pile and then got by the ottoman when she reached the barn door. She pried that door off like a cat burglar and tossed it onto the living room floor. The huge crash from the door hitting the ground caused her to look around and realize that I hadn’t been holding the furniture ladder steady for her. Holding it steady? I wasn’t even in the same room! Didn’t I just tell you that my beer was empty?  Did I not say that out loud? Also, she tossed that door over her shoulder to get it out of her way and THEN looked where I was – good thing I ditched her or she would have popped me right in the noggin with that friggin door! She was neither surprised nor mad that I had abandoned her. She told me to take the case of beer out of the fridge so we could take it up to the roof with us; it’s really not saying much, but she was the brains of this operation.

I grabbed the beer and headed back into the living room to see two feet crawling into the entryway the barn door had been covering up. She peeked back out the now open doorway and asked what I was waiting for. In truth, I hadn’t actually considered going on the roof at all because I’m deathly afraid of heights. I just assumed that the furniture would collapse or she’d lose interest or fall and hit her head before she could get the door off, but now I didn’t want to miss seeing what was up there. I thought it could become our new terrace or outdoor lounge but actually, I was just really drunk and didn’t think it through at all. I started my climb and the way it shook and creaked when she went up was a distant memory and I was laser-focused on not dropping the beer and not falling, but mostly I was worried about the beer. It took a bit, but I made my way up and that’s saying a lot for a guy that has no coordination or athletic ability when I’m sober, so forget about my dexterity while intoxicated.

When you looked into the hole – which was really dark; neither of us had thought about a flashlight – but due to the high ceiling lights in the living room, we could make out rows of beams with insulation in between heading to five steps leading up to two bilko doors which opened out onto the roof. We walked across the beams, got the roof door open, and headed up. The storm hadn’t let up at all and it was actually even windier on the roof – which thankfully was flat and didn’t have any peaks on it. We got out there and started dancing around in the rain like fools; she looked like Jennifer Beals in Flashdance and I looked like I got hit by a flash of lightning with my flailing arms and supreme lack of rhythm…

We walked over to the edge of the roof to survey the land and low and behold – we saw Weezie strolling up the street with Spento. They had just come back from the nightly late-night jaunt to the diner and were looking for an after-hours spot. “HOOKA!!!” I screamed down at her and she looked all around before finally realizing that we were up on the roof waving.  A normal person that sees two drunken fools prancing around on the roof like Santa Claus should have an immediate reaction to stop these two fools and get them down – not Weezie. “How do I get up there?” she screamed back. “Go inside and follow the furniture trail.” She went into the house, surveyed the situation, and marched right back out again “come down here and help me up – that’s not sturdy…”

We went down to the living room and Weezie immediately latched onto that Coors Light suitcase of beer like she was going to the chair. Just then, Sue and Lisa’s roommate Kathy came in and said “What the fuck? Come on!!!” “We’ll be quiet – you won’t even know we’re here” we chimed as we started heading back up. We got all four of us up the furniture and through the doorway. Weezie went up first and she sat on the steps leading to the roof like a bird on a perch with the beer as Spento made his way in next, followed by Sue, with me at the rear. As we were making our way through, Kathy was making her way to her bedroom to go to bed as she was in no mood for drunken nonsense and had to be up really early the next morning.

To give you an idea about the beams…

Weezie sat facing the entryway with a vice grip on her Coors Light tighter than Kate Winslet had on that driftwood at the end of Titanic when she looked up. “Spento, you better walk on those beams…”No sooner had the words escaped her mouth than Spento took one misstep and it was like it happened in slow-motion. I thought for sure that I was back on the dust because he hit that insulation in between the beams (which wouldn’t support the weight of a fart, by the way) and he dropped through it in a flash. Not only did he go through the insulation and the floor – but he went feet-first right through the ceiling like an atom bomb; those kicks came shooting through Kathy’s bedroom ceiling just as she was opening the doorway. He brought with him a storm of insulation, sheetrock, and whatever the hell else was in between the ceiling and attic all over her, her bedroom, and all over us in the attic. Weezie screamed like they were bringing back prohibition as the dust storm erupted through the attic and bedroom absolutely covering us in that shit. As the cloud approached, I ducked behind Sue to try and shield me from the caustic material, but it was to no avail – it got us all.

As if that wasn’t crazy enough – Spento didn’t go all the way through and he got lodged between the beams. “I’m stuck…I’m stuck” he said, which made us laugh even harder. His stomach was ripped open and bleeding as he was lodged between those beams while Weezie kept drinking, Sue tried to help, and I tried not to piss my pants…Needless to say, Kathy was not amused but actually really pissed off and didn’t see the humor in the situation like we did…She pushed his feet up and Weezie and Sue helped pry him out from the beam’s vice grip, while I tried to stop laughing. Never one to argue with an obvious sign – we took that sign to mean we should head back down and stay off the roof. Granted, the more obvious sign should have been his blood signaling the need for medical attention, but I digress.

We climbed back down without any other incidents and with nothing left to sit on, we were forced to had to dismantle some of the items off the furniture ladder. Kathy yelled at us non-stop because had he fell ten seconds later, she would have gotten a Converse to the cranium – yet we couldn’t stop laughing… I was literally crying from laughing so hard that I felt like I might actually have a stroke.

Weezie was quiet for a long time after and was almost catatonic. “Hey Hooka, What’s wrong with you?” I offered. “I’ve been here for six years, that’s a long time…but…if that was me…I’d transfer…I’d transfer right out of here…I know you’d tell everyone. You’d tell everyone.” Was all she could mutter and I knew she was dead-on-balls accurate because if that had been her that went through the roof, I’d have gotten a megaphone and went up and down the street immediately after the insulation dust settled…

I have never laughed like that in my life – even when my aunt was ejected out of the wheelchair at Disney. The best part of it was that because Lisa, Sue and Kathy were moving out at the end of the semester, the landlord had been showing it to prospective tenants all the time and he came over bright and early the next morning. Besides Kathy, guess who else didn’t find it as funny as we did…Then guess who didn’t get their security deposit back…Lisa was just as pissed off as Kathy was but not for the damage, not for the disturbance, and certainly not for the concern over Spento’s health – she was mad that she missed seeing it. To this day I still break up every time I think about it…if only there were camera phones back then…

For that one quick moment, I got to live out my own Goonies moment, and the only thing that could have made it any better would have been if Spento did the truffle shuffle when they got him out of the floor…I did feel bad a couple of days later as I kept replaying it in my head over and over and laughing because not once did we ask if he was OK – we just laughed…I guess that is selfish, but I never said I was good in a crisis. It has been years since this happened, yet I still just pictured it again and burst out laughing like a fool as if it took place this morning. I almost felt this bad: (cue another great Goonies scene)

HEY YOU GUYS!!!

Chunk: Then my mom sent me to the summer camp for fat kids and then once during lunch I got nuts and I pigged out and they kicked me out… But the worst thing I ever done — I mixed all this fake puke at home and then I went to this movie theater, hid the puke in my jacket, climbed up to the balcony and then… then, I made a noise like this: hua-hua-hua-huaaaaaaa — and then I dumped it over the side, all over the people in the audience. And then, this was horrible, all the people started getting sick and throwing up all over each other. I never felt so bad in my entire life.

 

When I was mistaken for a retarded person TWICE in less than a half hour!!!

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I won’t bury the lead and make you work for it: I was actually mistaken for a retarded person TWICE in less than a half hour. Breathe that in for a second and chew on it. Now that it’s out of the way, here goes. It was Spring Break so I headed to Disney World with my aunt and two cousins and of course, chaos ensued. I will bypass the long drive from New York to Florida and that whole crazy situation entirely because no one wants to hear about a Passover Seder gone wrong, a diet saboteur, dog vomit in the car or a highway flashing anyway; let’s head right to the good stuff.

 

After we checked into our hotel, we decided to hit the water to lounge around and relax. I should clarify this and say that they wanted to hit the water and I wanted to hit the bar to lounge around and relax. I hate the outdoors and I HATE the heat so I was not in my element. After a few drinks in the shade, they convinced me to go in the water. I hadn’t unpacked so my cousin went into the gift shop to get sunscreen for me since I was absolutely not going anywhere near the water without it. Of course, me sending a boy to do a man’s work bit me in the ass because he got the wrong sunscreen.

 

I’m OCD and I cannot touch anything with my fingertips, so I can’t put on my own sunscreen. I usually get a spray bottle, but he got a regular bottle that you have to rub on. I had to have my aunt put the sunscreen on me and then I went into the water with them. Needless to say, I should have gone to my room and got my own sunscreen because the one he got wasn’t a high SPF nor was it waterproof. As a stupid ass is prone to do, I proceeded to spend the rest of the afternoon getting sun poisoning on parts of my face, back, neck, stomach, arms and legs. I say parts of my body, but it was more like sporadic streaks of sun poisoning where the sunscreen had washed off. I easily could have passed for an albino ET with patches of psoriasis. It looked like my normally lily-white pasty complexion had been assaulted by a bus full of preschoolers holding red crayons.

Now do you see how important Sunscreen is?

 

The next day, we hit the parks like a tornado – rushing through to make sure we could go on everything multiple times. Maybe it was the youthful energy of me in my twenties, or maybe it was the delirious nature of sun poisoning, but we were literally running from one ride to the next. Because of my sun poisoned state, I had to wear a big T-Shirt, khaki shorts because they were loose on me, and flip flops because my poor battered skin couldn’t bear anything too constricting.

 

Everything at the park had such long lines to get on and it was getting very frustrating until it hit me – we need a wheelchair! (Keep in mind that you can’t do this nowadays, and I am probably the reason, but back the, this trick worked.) I got a wheelchair, put my aunt in it, she pretended that she was handicapped and we sped right up to the front of every line we got on. People were literally forcing us to the front of the line because they felt bad for us. They didn’t think someone in a wheelchair should have to wait on line and I must say that I actually agreed with them. My two cousins are goody goody’s and felt very hesitant about the wheelchair and the faking until we left them at the back of the line and went on Pirates of the Caribbean ride without them. They met up with us over an hour later (meanwhile, we had been on two other rides and got a churro while they were still on that line for Pirates) and after that, they didn’t leave our sides.

 

My aunt and I took turns in the wheelchair and, in all honesty, I must say that she was really much better at it than me. She was a little over the top sometimes with her facial expressions, grunts, and hand tremors, but it played well. We spent the afternoon shooting through each and every line like we were royalty and it truly was like the park was there just for us. Need a table to eat lunch at? People cleared out of our way for us. Want a good spot to watch the parade? The crowd parted like the Red Sea for us. It was great – until, as it is want to do – karma came and bit me in the ass.

 

It was getting late and the park was closing. Everyone was heading out and I’m not sure if you’ve ever been in Disney World when it’s closing, but it’s like a madhouse getting out of there. For some reason I didn’t fully flesh out in my mind at the time, I thought that we could make it to Space Mountain one more time before they closed. My aunt was in the wheelchair, my cousins were walking on each side of it, and I was pushing her and I just knew in my heart of hearts that we could make it. We had to get there fast if we wanted to make it, so I just started to run like Forrest Gump. Not knowing what else to do, my aunt held on for dear life in the wheelchair and my cousins started running along-side as we made our way. The ground started to slope down a little, but it wasn’t a huge incline so I didn’t really pay that much attention to it.

My aunt leaned back in the chair to say something over her shoulder to me and what I heard was “Go faster – speed up” when, in actuality, what she said was “You Bastard, there’s a curb!” What happened next went by so fast and happened in such a quick instant, yet what I saw felt like it was happening in slow motion and was absolutely the funniest thing that I have ever bore witness to in my life still to this day!!!

 

As I was running full steam not paying attention to anything ahead of us, the wheelchair ran right into a curb and there was a thud of impact just as my aunt was thrown forward from the chair and into the heaving crowd all the while screaming at the top of her lungs. With that scream – the world stood still – and people everywhere froze in an instant. My cousins scattered like mice to get away from us and the scene we were causing. Right on that curb was a vendor holding a huge jug of glow in the dark light sticks that bend and interlock into necklaces and he was right in my aunt’s trajectory.

 

As her now airborne body was thrust forward and she started screaming, his face froze with fear and he threw the bucket of light sticks into the air and reached out to try and catch her – shocked that a paralyzed woman was being thrown from her wheelchair right into his arms. Imagine his shocked look when she landed on her feet and ran off into the crowd because she was embarrassed as I was screaming “It’s a miracle, she can walk.” I then fell to the ground in a heap next to the overturned wheelchair with its wheels still spinning, hysterically laughing with absolutely no control of my body and peed my pants right there. Yes, as a twenty-three year old man, I am not embarrassed to tell you that I peed my pants at Disney World!

 

As I lie there on the ground, tears of laughter running down my face, unable to fully process what just happened because I couldn’t regain control of myself; there were a ton of people in the crowd staring – not quite sure what to make of me or what to do when I heard it. That one voice in the crowd that just rose right above the others somehow: “Oh my God – that retarded boy just fell out of his wheelchair and he’s crying!” and with that I peed my pants for the second time!!! Yes, as a twenty-three year old man, I am not embarrassed to tell you that I peed my pants at Disney World TWICE! I was laughing and crying at the same time while rolling around on the pavement I just peed on – twice – and muttering “She thinks I’m retarded…She thinks I’m retarded…” and just could not regain control of myself.

 

Imagine if you will the memory that I have and am sharing with you – now picture the memory those people who witnessed this must have went home and recalled. I couldn’t stop heaving and laughing and for the life of me just could not get off the ground. When I finally did, there were still a ton of people around trying to help me, but not one of them was my aunt or my cousins. I tried to compose myself and stop laughing, but I just couldn’t. I was pushing through the crowd trying to find them all the while still laughing with tears streaming down my face. I couldn’t even look back on the carnage I had just left because the vendor who threw the light sticks when he tried to catch my aunt was now down on all fours cursing us as he tried to sift through the trampling crowd around him and pick up that scattered mess. If I were able to speak coherently at that moment in time, I might have tried to offered him an apology, but finding a men’s room seemed like a smarter course of action.

 

I thought that since I was wearing soaked khaki shorts and you could tell that I had just peed my pants twice, it might be better to take off my shirt and tuck it into my shorts to hide the wet spot and head for the monorail. (We were staying in the Contemporary hotel and you had to take the monorail to get back to the hotel.)

 

As I walked by, I was trying to control the laughter and the tears, but people were literally parting the aisles to let me pass so as not get anywhere close to me. I guess if I saw a guy passing by that smelled like piss and was crying as he walked by – I wouldn’t get too close either. I could see my family standing on line as the monorail was pulling up and once they spotted me, one look said it all: I was a mess they wanted no part of.

They proceeded to board and get on the monorail hoping I would miss the one they boarded and be forced to take the next one. I was the last person on and tried to shimmy over to where they were when I just gave up and sat down alone – still laughing to myself. That’s when I looked up and saw myself in the mirror and almost died. When I took my shirt off and tucked it into my shorts to “hide the wet spot” from peeing my pants, I wasn’t even thinking of the sun poisoning. I had completely forgotten all about it. Here I was with my pasty white/sun poisoning streaks all over my body like a zebra with blood red enflamed racing stripes and I was laughing hysterically (by myself mind you) when I heard that voice. An elderly lady gasped at the sight of me and said to her husband for the whole car to hear “Is that retarded boy on the monorail all alone? Do you think he’s alright?” and that was it for me.

 

Thankfully, I didn’t pee my pants for a third time, but I did collapse into a heap of laughter and if there were any fluids left in my body – I surely would have peed them out right there. My aunt later told me that it felt like the longest monorail ride in the history of Disney and there was not a sound except for my hysterical laughter and the people that were whispering to each other and pointing at me. They were afraid to laugh because they didn’t want anyone to know they were with me but people staring really thought that there was something wrong with me.

 

There are times when we laugh at other people and there are times when they laugh at us, but that day was absolutely one of the funniest things I have ever witnessed in my life so I don’t care how many people laughed at me. Granted, I was humiliated and publicly peed my pants twice so they did have a really good reason for laughing. Also, I made a scene in Disney of all places and an enemy for life of that poor light stick guy, but until the day that I die it will be one of the funniest memories I have.

 

For some odd reason, my wife still refuses to ever go to Disney World with me. Come on, it’s been years, what are the odds I’d pee my pants again? She also says that you shouldn’t say the word retarded – you should say M.R. but no one in that crowd or on that monorail was confusing me with a Mr. – They actually thought I was retarded. I’m not sure how that should make me feel being mistaken for a retarded person twice, but I guess that if I was walking by and saw an adult man on the ground lying next to a wheelchair while rolling around in the fetal position with tears streaming down his face and he was having fits of hysterical laughter and then literally peeing his pants, I might assume that something was wrong too.

Oh Canada, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways…

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Let the record show that I have a really big crush on Canada! A few weeks ago I was reminded how much I love Canada when I went to Vancouver for a Trade Show. We went to the Granville Island Public Market and look what welcomed me and my friend Jenny-J (her actual CB Handle):       

TALK ABOUT IRONIC...WHAT ARE THE ODDS?

 

This is cereal called Holy Crap! How random and creative and crazy and fitting!!! Of course, I got it and brought it home for my Mother-in-law. It’s a vegan cereal and I knew she’d love it since she always eats healthy. I love the name and although I’m sure it tastes good, there is no way that I would ever try it because it’s primarily made from Chia and you know that old saying “Stay away from Chia or you’ll get diarrhea!”     

Chia, for the uninitiated – and I didn’t know what it was either so I googled it – is the world’s healthiest whole food and chock full of fiber so it’s literally like a stick of dynamite if you know what I mean. If you don’t know what I mean picture the last birthday party you went to where after Willy ate a few hot dogs, a cheeseburger, then had a healthy slice of Fudgie the Whale and a piece of Chocolate Cream Pie, and then ate a piece of Banana Cream Pie forcing him to miss the fireworks. He missed the fireworks because by eating all of that and essentially lighting a very short fuse, he “went to play Dig Dug in the basement”  – which is really code word for destroying the basement bathroom for forty minutes. Ring a bell? That’s Chia! Also, there is no way I’m putting anything that will make hair grow on a plaster bust of Homer Simpson in my mouth. Chia Pets might not be the same exact thing, but I’m not taking any chances! As I write this post my wife thinks it might be constructive to spread Chia on my scalp to combat my impending baldness. Isn’t it a little odd that people eat something that grows hair? Seems strange to me…but if eating Chia made my hair grow and supplemented the hard work of my thickening shampoos and Rogaine – I might just change my tune. Then you could trim my hair and use it as sprouts for your salad – Functional and healthy!    

Now, whenever someone asks my Mother-in-law if I give her any crap, she can say “yes” and really mean it! I can just picture the conversation while she’s eating: “What is that you’re eating, cereal?” “No, it’s Crap.” “Come on, what are you eating – Corn Flakes?” “No, really it’s crap.”     

I don’t get paid for any referrals, but if you would like to get your own bag of Crap (Holy Crap that is) check out their website Here. The owner, Corin Mullins, is super cool and this makes a great Birthday or Christmas gift! There’s also another saying that goes along with this: “Give the gift of Chia and the toilet they will see-a!”    

My love for Canada first started a few years ago when my wife and I drove to Quebec City. I’d always heard that it’s such a beautiful drive but I have no idea if that’s actually true since I slept through almost the entire car ride from Westchester, NY to the Canadian border. I was awake for a small portion of the ride, but I had taken my contact lenses out so I couldn’t see anything past the dashboard and we could have been in Albuquerque for all I knew. Don’t worry, it wasn’t a B.A. Baracus from The A-Team type of situation where I was drugged in order to travel – I’m just borderline narcoleptic. Put me into a reclining position or let my head rest back and it’s lights out. Not lights out instantly like Victor, but close to it. Right as we drove across the border we stopped at a rest stop mere steps into the country. As I walked into the men’s room, what do you think I saw on the bathroom floor? (No, not a pair of “just stepped out of but still holding a huge pile of shit” Hanes blue underwear from the men’s room at Mount Fuji in Suffern, NY! Literally a pair of soiled (Soiled? More like demolished!) underwear right in front of the toilet. Someone shit their pants, stepped out of the evidence, and then went back to their table for dessert! I couldn’t eat or drink a God Damn thing in that place for fear that the owner of that pair of abandoned soiled undies might be our waiter!) Right there on the floor of that Canadian bathroom was an Imodium AD tablet staring up at me; my very own welcome Ambassador to Canada! At that very moment, I knew that Canada was the place for me! Oh Canada – you spoke to me in the only language that I could possibly understand and came right at me with that little tablet of love!    

I would be remiss if I wrote about Vancouver and didn’t mention the homeless people. They might be some of the most creative and innovative marketers that I have ever encountered in my life. I will even go so far as to say that some of these people should be coming up with ad campaigns for Nike and Pepsi. Exhibit A: The man in this photo:    

Now this is how you market yourself!

 

As my friend Ja and I were leaving dinner and heading to another bar, we approached this fellow above wearing a very dapper top hat and holding an eye-catching sign that said: Penis Enlargement Went Horribly Wrong. Spare Change for Fancy Car to Compensate.” He looked me dead in the eye and said “Dude, I just don’t want to hurt anyone anymore.” I figured this poor soul had been through enough and I reached into my pocket and gave him ten bucks. He took the money and then he stood up and got out of the wheelchair! I had to pick my jaw up from the floor and I innocently inquired “you’re not really paralyzed?” He turned back toward me and leaned in and immediately I detected a subtle hint of spearmint on his breath which really surprised me and then he whispered “Dude, I’m out here all day and my back starts to hurt – I need a good chair to sit in!” I reached back into my pocket and gave him another ten bucks – this man is a genius! Forget anyone at the Trade Show, he was the most creative guy I had seen all day. At the next corner, there was a homeless guy pounding on a mailbox with his fists and thrusting at with his hips to keep the beat of the music. Poor guy must be just starting out and looking for his angle. A little tip that I learned right there on that street – no one pays to see a homeless guy hump a mailbox.      

The next night, a bunch of us went to another bar after the street party and we tore it up. I was like an inferno on the dance floor, so much so that I started grinding up on a mid-fifties Asian woman in the crowd. She was wearing an Ascot and I seductively untied it to swing it around like a flag, but I couldn’t swing it because it was so soaked with sweat that it was heavy as a sponge. After vomiting in my mouth just a little bit, I handed the scarf back to her and then she walked away only to come back seconds later with her elderly friend that I could only assume was her older sister or her mother. She put her friend’s hand in mine and said “Now it’s her turn with you” and I looked her right in the eye and then started to rock her world as I lit it up again. Another satisfied customer!    

As we were leaving that bar, we saw a different homeless guy working a different angle: He was letting you kick him in the balls for 20 bucks! We looked over at this girl who took her flip-flop off and really let him have it. She had a wind up like David Beckham and he went down groaning. He must have made a hundred dollars while we were standing there, but I don’t care – there’s got to be an easier way.    

Another homeless guy was standing outside a restaurant as a few friends came out and he approached them and his angle was honesty. He walked right up to them and said “Hey guys, you got a few bucks so a Bum can get a beer?” They gave him money and then he let them record him saying that into one of their cell phones so that every time it rings you now hear his voice saying “Hey guys, you got a few bucks so a Bum can get a beer?” He knows what works and sticks with it.  

Forget about the Hookers, it’s really competitive out there for the homeless guys in Vancouver! The smart ones line up near a busy Japadog truck and work the crowd. I don’t really get the Japadog thing and I actually almost threw up as my friend Heather scarfed one covered with seaweed down – I don’t know what it tastes like but it looked like shit. I mean what is really Japanese about a hot dog anyway? And who wants to eat a hot dog covered with seaweed? Is it Kosher too? Who came up with this you might ask? I’m much too lazy to look it up and I’m really not that invested or curious about finding it out, but if I had to guess – I would say that it was a homeless guy from the streets of Vancouver! Like I said – I love Canada!