Every once in a while I get an itch to go outside for a long walk. One day last week, upon the inspirational dare of a friend, I decided to walk to school. This is my story.
I woke up at quarter to four in the morning, so that I had time to brush my teeth before I had to leave. I got all decked out in my rain gear (mackintosh, galoshes, three pairs of socks and a telephone book) and headed out into the great unknown. I also brought a map so that it wasn't completely unknown, and an inflatable tour guide who I kept in my pocket for emergencies. It wasn't long before I was met with a perilous hurdle: an angry mob of pre-Halloween trick-or-treaters dressed as slightly-more-modestly-clad Spice Girls, canvassing the neighbourhood for nutmeg and ginger and cinnamon and all of those other valuable spices. When they saw me and my phonebook they began to charge, assuming that my phonebook was actually a coy disguise for an internationally sought after million dollar recipe collection exposing the true uses for myrrh, which, of course, it was.
So, with the hand that I was not using to balance the large not-quite-a-phonebook, I reached deep into my pocket and pulled the inflatable cord of the tour guide. Immediately he inflated and began giving me directions to the nearest teleportation centre (conveniently located Cassells Street), in a weird Australian accent that may have almost passed as Norwegian, in the dark. "Run!" I yelled, "And here, carry this stuff. It's heavy." I passed off my burdens to the helpful guide but alas he was only inflatable and under the weight of my not-actually-a-phonebook he crumpled. The Spice Girls approached in a mob, so I reached back into my 90’s repertoire and in a desperate cry, I sang "STOP! In the name of love!!" And zap, they froze in place... until they also realized that that is not a Spice Girls song and charged on. CRAP, I thought to myself as I tried to scoop up the guide. “CRAP!” I shouted when the deflated guide refused to peel off the sidewalk and collapse back into my pocket. My guide looked up at me from under his plastic explorer’s chapeau. “Go, run! You have a class to get to! I’ll hold off the mob while I can! Save your GPA!”
Reluctantly, I grabbed the not-a-phonebook and booked it (so to speak) to Cassells. To my surprise it took a solid thirty-nine seconds for the Spice Girls to round the bend and start nipping at my red-high-top heels. Alas, they did catch (in a cloud of confectionary sugar that didn’t quite fit their usual modus operandi), and I was knocked suddenly to the ground and pummelled with dollar store microphones. Just when I thought I was going to be echoed to death I was rescued from the depths of the bedlam by a vine swinging safari man! My re-inflated guide (now reinforced by duct and duck tape) was swinging by a thick yellow cord... you might even call it a rope... of hair?
“It’s a good thing that the teleportation centre is on Cassells. Tall towers with long blonde locks are hard to come by in North Bay, but I knew there would be one around here if I knocked on the right doors. But it was simple dumb luck that Red Green and Dudley the Dragon were next door. Well, either dumb luck or clever authorship. Anyway, here I am and here we are!” he said as he touched down, right in front of the Tim Horton’s. I laughed. “I should have figured it would be a Timmies that connects the world by lightning speed. I just have one question for you... how did you stall the mob?”
He smiled with a broad, hand painted smirk. “There is only one thing that can distract a girl band away from their mission: a boy band. All I had to do was sing a few bars of “Bye Bye Bye” and they were eating out of my hands... until they realized that NSYNC was a five person group and I was a solo act. Then I lost them, but not for long, because I made a call from my inflatable walkie-talkie to Rapunzel (we go way back... used to date in her pre-Disney days) and she hooked me up with help from her neighbours.” I have to admit, I was impressed.
“I have to admit I’m impressed,” I confessed, “but I'm also nearly late for class! Do you have my not-even-a-little-bit-like-a-phonebook?” He handed it over. “Thanks again, for everything.” He put his hand to his brow as though to salute, but instead pressed a small button on his temple, saying “All in a day’s work.” And then he deflated, folding neatly into a rectangle the approximate size of a deck of cards. I put him back in my raincoat pocket.
Tim Horton’s was unusually busy, but it transported me to the cafeteria line with seven minutes to spare... seven minutes I used to buy a hot chocolate with hazelnut, a much appreciated moment of peace after such a crazy and unusually unpredictable morning.
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