EAT ME

 

No Satisfaction

 

The digital age has eased communication between consumers and their preferred brands. By this I do not mean something as passive and pathetic as ‘liking’ Coca-Cola or Lululemon on Facebook. Companies are to be lauded for embracing the Internet and social media to encourage conversation even if their motives are self-serving and viewed internally as an inexpensive source of promotion. The inadvertent result of course is providing consumers with a simpler, much broader and much more public avenue to criticize and complain. In 21^st century marketing and advertising the elusive philosopher’s stone is how to elegantly spin negativity rather than just hitting ‘delete.’

 

Our fridge, like yours, is the keeper of our condiments. There are six types of mustard and five different hot sauces. The problem lays at the bottom of our jar of Bick’s Gourmet Zesty Onion Relish. There’s enough left to dress only one cheeseburger or bratwurst. There are two of us in the house. It’s rather primitive to compete against one’s partner over food even if it’s just a spoonful.

 

Out and about on the weekend we visited three grocery stores seeking more. We learned that the product no longer existed. And more die of heartbreak on the eve of Canada’s national holiday and in the prime of barbecue season. Bick’s Gourmet Zesty Onion Relish was not a WTF!? consumer commodity like New Coke (Why?), Kraft Burger Slices (Processed cheese with radius corners!), Campbell’s Soup and Sandwich (Look for it in the frozen food counter!) or Dad’s Root Beer Flavoured Milk (Nuff said.).

 

So I found three free minutes in my insanely hectic life to flip Bick’s a note, a gentle admonishment, jaunty in tone. I included the human readable bar code numbers from the Bick’s Gourmet Zesty Onion Relish label. I even mentioned our fondness for Bick’s Gourmet Tangy Dill Relish and instructed the company not to mess with that. I did everything right.

 

I received a prompt and courteous reply from the Consumer Relations Department stating apologetically that essentially nobody else can stand the stuff. I was further advised to visit the Bick’s web site with other questions or concerns even though I had obviously already done so. While there, perhaps I could find an acceptable alternative condiment.

 

This transparent one-to-one brand engagement did not feel empowering. This miniscule non-result did not match the expectations of my rich and varied fantasy life. Bick’s was supposed to start making more Gourmet Zesty Onion Relish on my say so. At the very least, Bick’s could’ve scoured the country for the last carton of it and then couriered it to me. Jesus, I would’ve settled for a generic Bick’s $1 Off coupon. But no. And so it’s come down to this: those unresponsive and insensitive automatons at Bick’s are doomed to feel the wrath and the lash of the mighty, mighty meGeoff blog.

A FAN’S NOTES

 

Sporting News from the Capital Region

 

Edmonton hockey fans today are pleasuring themselves in the city’s streets. A new downtown ice rink slated for completion in September 2016 has been made manifest after years of local debate. The foundation poured, a titanic skeleton of structural steel now rises at the intersection of 104^th Avenue and 104^th Street. Even bigger news is this evening’s (about 15 minutes from now) National Hockey League annual draft of amateur players. The Edmonton Oilers by virtue of their ineptitude and a little lottery luck have been awarded the first pick.

 

A teenaged forward from the Ontario Hockey League named Connor McDavid has been hailed by all those involved in the industry as a ‘generational talent,’ professional hockey’s equivalent of the Second Coming. The NHL was formed in 1917 so young Mr. McDavid might be something like the Tenth Coming. Anyway, the kid’s supposed to be that good, a savant on skates projected to outshine or at the very least match such modern legends as Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux and Sidney Crosby. The hopes and dreams of a relatively remote, northern winter city rest on the shoulders of a boy who graduated high school last week. His job as a hockey player will be to pack that new arena, that new public building we’re all paying for. No pressure, kid, failure is not an option.

 

Although baseballer Pete Rose, A.K.A. Charlie Hustle, did his best (or worst) we know that nothing in sport is guaranteed. That’s why we watch the games played. Guy Lafleur skated through three mediocre seasons before his Ascension in Montreal. Eric Lindros’s spirit was willing but his flesh was weak; he never earned his wings. Edmonton’s potential Saviour is already in the harsh glare of hysterical hype. The Globe and Mail, Canada’s national newspaper, has assigned a reporter full-time to the Connor McDavid beat (Shawna Richer, that publication’s sports editor, shadowed Crosby his entire rookie year).

 

Locally there is evidence of an ecstatic ecstasy despite a cynical and comic undercurrent convinced that the hapless Oilers could actually botch their overall number one pick. Down in the river valley a green directional sign for CONNORS ROAD has been altered by some wag fan to read CONNOR MCDAVID. A decent pub in Old Strathcona has sold every single ticket available for a happy hour draft party (all proceeds to charity). Edmonton’s newspapers have gushed ink and picas on what just might be their biggest story of the year: A Hockey God This Way Comes.

 

My complaint about all of this civic insanity is relatively simple. If this guy’s really all he’s cracked up to be and his career shakes down as anticipated, he won’t be doing it in a Montreal uniform. I have the same issues with Bobby Orr, Gretzky, Lemieux and Crosby. Sure they were and are okay but they never played for the Canadiens.

HUMAN WRECKAGE

 

Burn, Baby, Burn

 

Ann’s brother Jim is staying with us this week. Dawn comes early to Edmonton at this time of year, the birds begin their morning territorial chirping around 4:30, a half an hour or so before sunrise. Jim rises with the jays and magpies, and after he does his Zen-voodoo-yoga exercises he looks around for something else to do. Yesterday he swept every single inch of pavement on our property to magazine photo shoot pristine. Jim is a good guest.

 

Alberta may or may not be on the verge of drought. Wildfires burn throughout the province but civic reservoirs are topped up. Nobody really knows anything for certain except that we’re better off than California for the time being. Due to intermittent though frequent provincial fire bans I have over two years gathered pruned or wind blown tree branches and bundled them with twine into faggots resembling the weighty wooden load of the back of the hermit on the cover of Led Zeppelin IV.

 

Jim and Ann this morning decided we had a perfect day to burn our stash of twigs, the air was still and the government had lifted the open fire ban late last week. Anyway, Jim needed something to do. Using yesterday’s papers Jim soon had a hot and healthy blaze going. He sat tending it, methodically snapping sticks and piling them on. We tossed in a couple of broken wooden coat hangers which burned beautifully. I caught the fire fever and caught myself peering around the yard searching for more stuff to burn.

 

Fire is primordial and hypnotic; innately we are all pyromaniacs. I remembered the mob madness of another Jim’s summer solstice party held about 20 years ago. My old friend from Montreal lived about 20 minutes outside of Calgary on a piece of land big enough to accommodate a pick up baseball diamond. As I recall Jim was on the ball enough to construct some type of containment for his pagan bonfire, saturate the turf around it and have a garden hose at ready. This forethought was definitely out of character but theoretically an out of control fire could have scorched its way across the prairie to the base of the Rockies.

 

The main event was to be the sacrificing of his family’s Christmas tree, saved since the previous January. The dead, rusty fir went up with a spectacular WHOOSH! FOOM! The scene and the sound were awesome. And doesn’t alcohol make everything and every idea wonderful? The frenzy of needing more and more fuel took us; we raided his garage for hockey sticks and maybe a Louisville Slugger. The tomato plant stakes were pulled up next. The lattice shrubbery demarcating Jim’s wife’s herb garden was ripped from the earth. Then we went inside hunting for brooms and empty picture frames.

 

The fire eventually petered out. Piled among the ashes of some of his former possessions was evidence of some discord within Jim’s marriage. The fallout reminded me of the time my big brother Bob, his best friend Jack, our friend Stats Guy and I gerry-built a sauna on John’s vacation property utilizing the carefully chosen stones decorating his wife’s elaborate and well-tended rock garden. John had a neighbour with whom he did not get along. Worse, the offender had a tree that cast a shadow on John’s front porch. We hatched a plan beneath the steaming tarp. We would take magic mushrooms, get chainsaws, fell the tree but make it look like beavers had done the deed. This was sheer Wile E. Coyote genius. Meanwhile the hot rocks harried by dousing scoops of cold lake water split into halves with resounding CRACKS! Even though we later attempted to recreate the rock garden as it had been the day before with our fractured shards of stone, there was soon evidence of discord within John’s marriage.

 

If I was of the criminal kind, I’d specialize in arson. I’d advertise my services as meGeoff the Torch: Solutions Provider to Failing Businesses. It’s never too late for a mid-life career change and that would be a pretty sweet gig, playing with fire a few nights a week and getting paid for it. A man can dream. It’s strange to imagine one that really would go up in smoke.

EDMONTON EXISTENTIAL

 

The Miracle of the O Ring

 

Ann said, ‘That’s it. We’re ripping out the entire kitchen counter. We’ll replace the backsplash tiles, the sink, everything.’ I was thinking, ‘Maybe we just call a plumber?’ The swivel kitchen faucet was dribbling, leaking. The dark and horrid cupboard storage space beneath the sink was damp. We ferreted out the cloths, sprayers and tins of household cleaners. There was unused stuff in the modest pond that good money had paid for which made me wonder, ‘Why? Why is this here, why is anything here?’ The timing was especially bad, guests were due for dinner and the idea of food prep and later dishwashing in the bathroom sink seemed lose-lose as that drain is painfully slow. We could not cancel.

 

I plucked a cold beer from the fridge and then went outside to sit in the backyard. I lit a cigarette. Most problems need a little time to either fix themselves or go away. When I went back inside I was disturbed to learn that the water was still finding its own wrong way. Ann said, ‘Why don’t we take it apart and have a look at it.’ I thought, ‘Why don’t we book the plumber and cancel dinner?’ I said, ‘Okay.’ I thought about things. I would have to shut off the water. I would need a tool, a wrench or something. We keep our tools in the basement; I would have to go downstairs. Perhaps I could find a wrench or something like one in the workroom.

 

When you take out a mortgage on a home you’ve signed up for much more than just the payments. You owe it to yourself and your neighbours to maintain the exterior and the property. You owe it to yourself and your visitors to maintain the living spaces, and the domestic machines required to make everyday living comfortable. Any home repair or improvement is by definition good. Anything and everything you can do yourself saves you money immediately and may save you aggravation, and stacks more of each down the road; the gratification which accompanies the completion of a successful D.I.Y. project may even meet or exceed whatever satisfaction you derive from your life’s paying job.

 

It seemed as if everything we owned was either on the kitchen floor or the counter. The cats, curious, glided around and through the mess, getting in the way. I figured out how to turn off the water to the sink – knobs, one for hot and one for cold, who knew? Using an adjustable wrench I managed to removed the faucet from its anchor. Just above the thread at its base I found a compromised black rubber Cheerio. What was supposed to be an O was now a C. I said to Ann, ‘I think we can fix this. We’ll have to go to the hardware store. We have to go out anyway,’ I said, ‘we forgot to buy wine yesterday.’

 

I looked at the wall clock. I looked at the clocks on the coffee maker, the stove and the microwave. Time was getting tight. Not that I was diffusing a time bomb, it was just that we both needed a nap before our friends were to arrive. Our errand should have taken less than half an hour. When we left our neighbourhood we hit heavy traffic and delays, the confluence of Edmonton’s unfrozen road maintenance window and the city’s annual Gay Pride parade. I seethed in the CRV: ‘I want a black rubber ring worth pennies; we don’t even have pennies anymore, but that’s all we want. Why don’t they take their rainbow propellers and just ram them… Do what you like just don’t do it here; they should be marching downtown along Jasper Avenue. We need an O ring. And two bottles of wine. Cigarettes too. And for fuck’s sake, why does fucking everybody need a fucking parade? Everybody’s fucking special these days. Whatever the fuck happened to ordinary people? We’ve got a plumbing problem and we’re on a fucking deadline.’ Ann said, ‘Everybody loves a parade.’ She then gently suggested that it might be a good idea if I rolled down the window, breathed deeply, lit a cigarette and reverted to being a liberal once more. Well, fuck. ‘Crabby indifference from the mainstream means you’ve pretty much achieved your goals,’ I replied; I’d like to believe that a fair majority of us have come a long way.

 

The miracle outcome of our infuriating excursion was that a near worthless bit of rubber that might be a tight fit over the tip of your pinkie solved our faucet crisis. We had avoided a plumber’s inflated weekend hourly rates. We had deked the necessary decisions, patience and thousands of dollars required for a kitchen reno. I felt that Ann and I were now qualified to inspect O rings on NASA space shuttles. I imagined our portraits on Chinese and Soviet propaganda posters, the pair of us in baggy, ill-fitting genderless tunics clutching wrenches against our hearts as our noble profiles peered up toward the brave new future which lay ahead. We were indeed masters of our house, and there was still time for a quick nap.