Ditch Doc

…Nail in Coffin, for the picture. But did you have to use the one from my weaker years?

The decidedly gray nature of my work status that summer after grad began to make me uneasy, and I wondered how to explain to Cait that I’d be missing her grad, and probably her wedding as well. I liberated all the charm at my disposal and contemplated how to make it sound perfectly natural to apply for a year’s work visa, stay in the States for three months with approval pending, and then go home before getting an answer. I carefully crafted a response that would truthfully answer the customs official’s question and give her a sense of confidence in my honesty, all without suggesting any further lines of questioning. I swallowed hard on the inside, smiled casually on the outside, and said ”Because I went home.” Bullseye. We returned immediately to pleasantries, and she explained that that anonymous college had passed over the check box for people who’ve just gone home and ticked the one for crack dealers and members of Hamas. My name well on the way to being back on the feds’ don’t-watch list, I breathed a sigh of relief and headed for the food court. I polished off the single worst egg and cheese bagel in the universe, slept through the half hour delay for engine trouble, and woke up in the skies over St. Paul Minneapolis. In closing I have one question: can anyone tell me what those huge white mushroom-looking things are all over the city?

There was nothing for it: I booked myself onto the last flight of the day to leave town, at a price that, had I laid out a couple of weeks previously, would have gone a good way toward buying a new, non-explosive car. No matter; the overwhelming relief of hearing that my ticket was booked and that only divine intervention could now prevent my getting to Edmonton was almost worth every penny. I was asleep before we started to taxi. The next morning, I made my way to US customs, hoping my luck would change. The official was friendly at first, but a nearly visible cloud of doubt fell across his face when he swiped my passport. Containing his fear, he escorted me into the terrorist triage room and directed me to the laser fingerprint scanner/mug shot taker, and thence to a seat. I watched a “random bag check” victim come and go, so I knew I wasn’t one of them. I tried to see if the suspicious looking Asian ahead of me would be arrested or just denied entry. I looked back over my chequered past, wondering which heinous act had finally caught up with me. Had I been fingered as the guy who accidentally poisoned all those California poppies at the trailers? Had someone found out about our unlicenced show in New York? Was it the Serbs? My name was called. The interrogater started by exchanging pleasantries. “Yeah right,” I thought. “Cut to the chase.” “After college, you terminated your Optional Practical Training visa early.” Her gaze turned to steel as she stared searchingly into my eyes and said “Why?”

In such a slow town as Fort Nelson, we’re always waiting eagerly for a chance to bring our nurse friends a really gory trauma case. Kind of like cats bringing home small animals for their owners. They always say they’d rather we wouldn’t, but we know they really like it.

“Excuse me, my plane doesn’t leave for an hour. Do you mind if I just look around for a while?”

“Certainly sir. Would that be blasphemy or non?”

It’s generally accepted that going from a town of five thousand to a city of five million is a shock to the system. Not that I’ve noticed. On the other hand, going from having no Catholic Friends in town to being surrounded by them is like having your soul melted down and recast.

Having secured a ride back to town for myself and the remains of my car, I began to look for ways to get to Edmonton in 16 hours on no notice. It was looking like hitchhiking when a friend called and told me there would be an airvac to Edmonton the following morning. Since the plane would be empty on the way down, I could hop on for the ride. This was even better than my original plan. I went to sleep happy.
At shift change, I called dispatch to confirm the plan. “No, we ended up doing that flight from Fort St. John.” In a panic, I phoned every company at the airport, even the fuel depot. No flights until the afternoon, not by anyone. I started exercising my thumb. My flight that day was toast, but I could still hang out at the commercial scale shack and wait for a trucker headed south. After two hours, I was comfortably acquainted with the scale operator and a good part of Fort Nelson’s local shipping, but I wasn’t any closer to Edmonton. Then the operator had to close early, and my latest plan had gone the way of all its forebears.

First they gave me a month’s notice to move out of my room in the basement without giving a reason. Now they’re talking about banning smoking outside the station. But what really astonishes me is that they’ve been able to put up for so long with our most glaring vice of all, and are only now talking about a city bylaw banning hacky-sack in the parking lot.

Given ten or twelve hours on the Greydog, godlike Achilles himself would look like a washed up halfwit skid.

I’ve always been a bit bemused by people who get slighted in traffic and then make it a priority to cut off the offending driver. I do understand the desire for revenge, I’ve just never felt like cutting the guy off would be satisfactory retribution. For that, you’d have to follow him home, wait for him to go inside, and torch his car. Failing that, I don’t mind giving him the extra car length.