firefighting chili

Thomas and I kick it back with a bottle of pinot noir from Jackson Triggs.




After that, we decide to head out to Mocha for a coffee. It was all good. Bumped into a few friends we didn't expect to see. Cory was there and coined the phrase: "Thomified". Thomification refers to the score a female receives, from Thom, based on her physical attractiveness. She's been Thomified; on the Thomification scale, she's a 5.

Thom drives me home, and a block away, we see the flashing lights of a fire truck. Come around the corner, and we see, what is likely all the firetrucks in Lethbridge, on my street, with a bunch of firefighters outside my building!!

The firefighters wouldn't let me in. Said something about a pot on a stove on the fifth floor. !!!!! I live on the fifth floor!!! Did I leave something on? I'm looking for smoke. Don't see anything.

Walking back to Thom's car, I notice my neighbours outside on the sidewalk, so I stop to talk with them; it was the greasy rednecks. They were burning something in their flat, and it was stinking up the whole floor, and the fire alarm was going off. The neighbour went down to the super's flat, and all he did was turn off the fire alarm!! The neighbour decided someone should call 911. Hence the fire department. As we're standing out on the street, we see some firefighters on the balcony of the rednecks, trying to get into the bedroom window. ?? Can't they just open the door? Weird.

Just after midnight and too chilly to wait anymore, Thom and I head to Tim's.

---

Thom's discussion with the server at Tim's:

Thom: "Do you have any chili?"

Server: "Yes."

Thom: "Ok, I will have the chili combo." Turns to me and says: "But I don't want the donut, do you want the donut?"

Me: "Sure, I will have the donut."

Thom: to Server, "I will have the chili combo."

Server: "Would you like anything else with that?"

Thom: "No thanks. Just the chili combo."

Server: "Ok, that's $4.22."

Thom: "How is it only $4.22, when the sign says $5.11 plus tax?"

Server: "You ordered the chili combo, it's $4.22 with tax."

Thom: "But that sign right there says $5.11 plus tax. I'm just wondering why it's almost a dollar cheaper than the sign."

Server: "You ordered the chili combo, chili and a donut. It's $4.22."

Thom: "The combo comes with coffee, right? I want the coffee."

Server: "You said you didn't want anything else."

Thom: "That's right, nothing in addition to the combo."

....

---

Seriously, that conversation went on for another 10 minutes. At least. I had to go outside because I was going to burst out laughing!!! And I did!!! I went outside to meet the neighbours from my building coming in to Tim's. Word from the street is: the fire department was gone and the all clear was given. Word from inside Tim's is: if you're going to order the combo, make sure you order everything in the combo as well. Otherwise, you won't get the combo, you'll just get whatever the name of the combo is, without the combo.

Thom asked me if he was just confused, or was the server really messed up. I said the server was messed up. The "combo" traditionally indicates a combination of items from the menu. If I order a combo, but then have to order everything from that combo separately, then it's not really a combo, is it?

Apparently, the server often has customers ordering the "combo", but only wanting the chili, and not the combo, so he asks if they want anything else. Typically, it is his experience that a customer will also order a coffee, not one in addition to the combo, but the coffee which is included in the combo.


When did the world become so complex?


Could I get the chili combo? No coffee. No donut. No bun. Just the chili....combo.



Then Thom fills us in on the rest of the conversation about the damn combo.

Some other person had to come "from the back", to assist the first server with voiding the other combo, to put the real combo on the order. Somehow, they ended up with three Tim's servers getting the fucking combo ordered. At last! Success! The combo is served, but wait...

Server: "Would you like white or whole wheat with your combo?"

Thom: "You have whole wheat donuts?"

lotterY

According to the headline of this CBC article, Camrose is a "small Alberta town".

Disgusting.

Who did the fact checking on that?

According to Statistics Canada, Camrose is a city, with a population of 14 854 in 2001; an 8.2 % growth from the 1996 census.

This is yet another gross injustice of the lack of attention anyone in the east, nay Ontario, nay Toronto, pays to anything north of St. Clair as having any value.

---

Looking and seeing. Looking is active and willful, it involves something volitional. Choice. Seeing is inactive and only occurs because one's eyes are open; the images which the brain receives and processes are not there due to choice.

Last night, at the Y, after playing squash, Jeremy and I hit the locker room.

1. fat man standing at sink meticulously hiding his bald spot with a comb over of horrific qualities; why not graft some of the carpet from your ape-like back to the top of your head?


2. two men in the hot tub, one old, fat and hairy, standing in the water; the other man, younger and trimmer than the first, "lounging" on the side with a foot dangling in the water, lying on side, leaning on shoulder, knee bent up, exposing genitalia to the room, in what I thought could be nothing other than some type of pornographic pose; this one made eye contact with me: locked in a gaze!

Yes, I merely saw these things. And yes, I did NOT go into the hot tub. And yes, I left the shower room as quickly as possible. Jeremy too thought that whole hot tub thing was just a bit too creepy.

merlot

I've been in Calgary for 4 days now, attending a convention for WABE. It's been good. Technical papers, meeting people for the first time after having only ever talked on the phone or emailed. Bumping into people from college (two instructors and a student from my class).

Staying in a hotel. Not just a 'hotel', but the Executive Royal Inn. I even ordered in room service tonight. Mmmm. Turkey burger and fries, and a bottle of Chilean merlot.

But the reason why I ordered wine was this:

Lynnwood Ranch.

For what reason I thought that this would be a nice place, I do not know. The first night, on Sunday, we had awesome catering of appetisers in a great pub downtown, just a few blocks from the convention centre, the Unicorn.

Lynnwood. Lamewood. Lamejoke.

First of all, I wasn't sure where I was going, aside from "Okotoks".

I took the wrong exit. Drove for a long time, stopping at every sign looking for Limeworm. Drove and drove. Then the road curved. Roads don't usually just curve on the grid without a good reason. And there was none this time. No Lamedumk found.

I pull over, call 411. Get the number. Call the place. No answer. Just some old cowboy on the voicemail telling me to visit their web site.

I fire up the BlackBerry browser to find their web site and find a tiny little graphic of a map to their place. I go back to the highway, drive nearly half way home, before going down some other nearly dirt road to another nearly dirt road that was only wide enough for 1.5 cars and had no signs or shoulders or painted lines to indicate where the road ended and the Sheep River began.

I get to the place...


I was expecting a classy resort type place. Instead, I find horses and a bluegrass band and a barn. A freaking barn. With hay bales for tables and beer being served in cans! molson beer in cans!

It was cold, so I had to get out by the "fire", which was just charcoal briquettes being burned to "cook" the "food" on.

molson products in cans!

Cans!

Horse shit.

Horses.

Beer in cans!!! Not even real beer... shitty cowboy beer!

---

Let me check this out:

• belt buckle small, too small really; in fact, any cowboy would likely say I wasn't even wearing a belt because my belt buckle was too small (small to a cowboy = tasteful to everyone else)


• my jeans were not tight; I wasn't wearing jeans at all; I was wearing wool pants, blazer, dress shirt and tie (I was at a convention all day downtown)


• beer is being served in cans while horses are walking around pulling wagons


• I know Dawn VTH

These are all enough reasons to make this place hell in the Sheep River valley.

---

I promptly snuck back to my Jeep and drove back to Calgary and got into my hotel room and ordered room service with a bottle of merlot.

Sorry Miles. Had to see why you hate merlot, and I now know why.

---

I'm off to the bath tub for a soak and the rest of that bottle of merlot.

beeswax, squash, wine & cheese & Jesus

I am not hairy, nor am I hairless. I am somewhere in between. Let's call it manageable. Pretty much on a 3 - 4 week rotation. Yes, I do have my aesthetician. Her name is Stacey. I am Stacey's Jack.

Today I was in for the routine eye brow maintenance. However, it had been a few weeks longer than normal because Stacey was on holiday when it would have been our normal time together. I was looking the part of the lumberjack quite well. Eyebrows returned, I ask if she's got time for something else [wink] [wink]. I was her last client for the day. I lift up my hoodie to reveal my second puberty of chest hair. (Relatively akin to a second baptism, and about as Biblical too.)

Chest hair.

Yes, I don't recall ever having chest hair until some time after I turned 25. And in the past few months, it seems to be multiplying at exceptional rates. Sure, a 300% increase will yield 24 hairs, but it's still quite discomforting and an affront to my manhood and masculinity. (Real men are not hairy. Real men maintain themselves to be attractive. Big fat bushels of body hair are not attractive, on men or women.) How can I maintain the look of a 24 year old, if I've got big phat black hairs growing several inches long out of my nipples?

I didn't have enough cash on me due to adding the last minute chest waxing. Therefore I had to go back to my office, where my wallet was, to get my debit card. No worries, it's across the alley.

By the time I'm back, Stacey is already gone, and my bill is waiting with the receptionist. $15.

$10 + $5 = $15.

I had two items waxed. My eyebrow and my chest (meaning, my nipples and the other four hairs in the middle of where my pectoral cleavage would be if I went to the gym regularly).

Eyebrow to eyebrows:

$10

Chest wax:

$5


Now, I'm reasonably inclined towards mathematics and business math. A job is charged at a certain rate, and other jobs are typically charged at corresponding rates on some scale of comparison of work involved.

If my eyebrow costs $10 and my chest costs $5, what exactly does this mean?

Seriosly, I'm asking.

---

Played squash tonight, as per the regular Wednesday evening schedule.

Sweating and chafing and pink nipples sore from having their hairs ripped out with beeswax and cheesecloth is not a desirable combination.

Unless you're some type of socially acceptable masochist, sexual or non.

But I suppose that the only type of socially acceptable masochist must be deriving said pleasure from a non-sexual masochism, if such a thing is possible. Semantics? Etymological impacts?

---

Last night I had my very first official wine and cheese gathering.

Gouda.

Havarti.

Aged cheddar.

Whole wheat Bretons.

Reduced salt Triscuits.

...and...

A dry red Pinot Noir from the Okanagan, grown and bottled by Inniskillin (I put the link here somewhat unwillingly as the deeper parts of their web site are horribly outdated; I couldn't find any information about the bottle or vintage which I purchased).

---

We sat and relaxed and drank Pinot and ate cheese and crackers and discussed Jesus.

It was a great night. Which will apparently be repeated every Tuesday as we are fed up with the lame "bible study" (which is actually quite Bible-free most nights) some of us have been attending and are now starting our own rogue 'study'.


W³JD?

how big is your company?

I work for a rather large corporation which has offices, services, assets, and people in just about every province and major city in Canada.

Now, I often forget how big the Company is, since I'm part of a small "backwater" office with a minimum of staff.

But occassionally, I am reminded of the largeness in an obvious way.

I got an email from someone in the company whom I've never dealt with before. Wanting to know just who this person is, I looked up the properties in the global address list (GAL for the acronym). This person's manager has the title: Director of Innovation & Improvement.

Director of Innovation & Improvement.

Just what is that? What does that person do?

Then again, I suppose that someone looking up my profile in the GAL and coming across the title Engineer may not have any idea what I do either.

Something to think about on a Tuesday morning.

button down oxford cloth psycho

show me the money

$400


Alberta is rich, and Ralph wants to pay it forward. And apparently there are some tax-loving tax&spend liberals and/or ndp-ers out there who are bemoaning the tax rebate.

That's right, it's a tax rebate.

If you don't like it, then don't cash it. Or give it to someone you know who may need the money.

Should the homeless be getting it? Well, I have my opinion on such things, and it doesn't involve more affordable housing or increasing welfare payments. Yeah, there are a minority of recipients who would benefit, but for the most part, I know from first hand experience that the system is overly abused by people who actually could work.

Q: What will I be doing with my $400?

A: I've got a mastercard and an overdraft. That money isn't being spent on anything other than trying to get me up to zero balance. And it's about time. I pay taxes and I work to support this great and better, nay, best province. It's about time I get some kick-back. If you're envious, then move here.

happy Thanksgiving

I had 12 people over for dinner this afternoon. But I totally forgot to take pictures until after everyone left. ;(

However, here's the table full of leftovers.





Do you think I cooked too much? I mean, 12 people ate, and that's what's left!! Notice the entire un-touched pumpkin pie.

are you a boozer?

I decided, quite on the fly, that I would host a Thanksgiving Dinner at my flat for Monday afternoon. This was mostly due to not having any real invitations extended to me to go somewhere else.

And even with such short notice, I've already got nearly ten people confirmed to come.

Then I decide that I should buy some wine for the occassion. Being as I'm not a wine drinker, but I want to become a bit better about knowing about wine beyond what I learned in the movie Sideways, I give a phone call to the only boozer I know: the pastor's wife.

Now, I'm not saying that Carla is a boozer, but she does know her wine, and port, and beer, both domestic micro brew and imported.

On the phone with her, in the liquor store, she asks me what store I'm at. I say I'm on the southside. She says that if I was at a liquor store on the westside, she would be able to explain to me where a specific recommended wine is located on the store's shelves.

Odd, how would she know?

"Oh, not that I drink it often."

Another suggestion she made ended with: "...and it comes in a litre and a half bottle."

To which I replied: "Do they even have paper bags that big?"

It was quite humourous. And remember, this was the pastor's wife.

---

Going with a Canadian theme for my Canadian Thanksgiving, I bought the 2003 pinot noir from Mission Hill, and the 2004 cabernet from Pelee Island.

there's a whiteboard on the door to my office...

I am the communication man!

I am wired.

I am unwired.

I text.

I BlackBerry.

I blog.

I am the new mullenium man.

Totally on.

Completely connected.

Yet, somehow, somwhere, I lost touch with real live people.

Reduced to a virtual life.

Mediocrity veiled behind technology.

Everyone does it.

I am no e-pioneer.

I am just one bit among a silicon layering of terrabytes.

But thanks for the compliment.

R E N T !

Alberta is likely the only place in Canada which does not have any sort of rent control at all. The only guideline is with a monthly tenancy, the rent cannot be increased more than every six months. There is no limit to how much the rent can be increased.

I remember living in Calgary with a couple of housemates in an apartment building. The people upstairs were really annoying tenants. However, they weren't really doing anything that could be eviction conduct. But, most of the building had complained about them, in addition to us. The property manager couldn't do anything about them because their rent was paid on time and in full every month. However, I do remember that one time, when the property manager was quite tired of those tenants, she raised their rent from $900 per month to $1150 per month. And they accepted it!!! The property manager thought for sure they would move out. But they didn't! We ended up moving because we couldn't handle the neighbours' sex life.

Just yesterday, I got served notice of rent increase. 7%.

7 %

Considering I won't be getting a raise in salary at work until March, and the raise in rent is effective in January, and my salary raise won't likely be more than 3.5%, I think it's time to move.

The sly thing about this is that the notice was served on Friday, "sometime before midnight". Well, I didn't find the notice in my mailbox until I checked for the regular mail on Monday. I saw the superintendant in the lobby today and I suggested that I should be able to give notice for the end of October. He said no, because that wouldn't be a month.

Waiting until two minutes before midnight to serve a notice of rent increase is kind of underhanded, considering that many people may consider moving, or will be forced to move, because of the rent increase.

I've already started looking. But it is kind of premature: most rentals will be available for November, and I can't move until December.

Bah!

Church of Ned

I've got to admit that from time to time, I do enjoy going to a church service. Mostly because it gives me those warm feelings which are reminiscent of when I was a child and life was simpler. Maybe not simpler, just childhood.

I went with Brian and Lynn to their church this morning. Does anyone ever claim ownership to such a thing? I sure wouldn't want to. Not even to the churches I may have donated money to in the past.

Well, this church is alright. The music is predictably low key and, dare I say, bad. However, they still do hymns, + 5 points, and they don't typically do anything with a copyright of 2000 or greater, which means, I know most of the songs, + 10 points.

The other major bonus of this church is that the meeting facilitator, aka pastor, is actually a good speaker. I quite enjoy listening to him. He's vibrant and lively and knows what he's talking about. So often, mediocre and downright horrible people are permitted to speak in public, and they just suck. No preparation, no validation, no interest. I think that if I were to make a list of the five things I constantly and consistently hear, from the pulpit, which cause me to reach for the iPod, are:

• I'm really sorry, but...
  

  ...I have a cold

  
  

  ...the kids/wife kept me up all night with their cold(s)

  
  

  ...I forgot I was speaking tonight, and I'm totally unprepared

  
  



• Bear with me, this is a long passage and some of it is irrelevant to my talk, but I've got to go through it all because you need to hear the context.


• I really felt God telling me to speak on [insert topic here]


• I'm not really a public speaker, and I'm really nervous.


• Does anybody know that story about that guy and the water? Who was that? Where can I find that in the Bible?

And if I don't have my iPod, I'll actually get up and leave. If I hear any of the above, that means that the speaker doesn't respect me enough to prepare. If he's not prepared to speak, why ought I be prepared to listen?

Church leaders (I'm speaking generically here) wonder why no one comes to church. Perhaps this is because your services are irrelevant to daily life because your speakers are so ill prepared. It's just a cascading reflection of the whole outfit.

Anyway, moving on, the speaker at the church this morning has never given me cause to get the iPod or to leave. But this morning, something did happen...

This particular church is quite large, and currently under renovation. As such, the main sanctuary is closed, and the services are held in the gym. For some reason, the city decided to shut off the power to the block the church is located on for some maintenance work. Kind of silly, if you ask me. But at least they had the decency to inform the church officials. It was announced at the beginning of the service that the power may be shut off. It finally was cut off, about half way through the sermon.

And that was when I took my chance to exit right. I needed a restroom break, and I thought I was going to explode.

I get into the hallway and walk around a bit trying to find the restrooms in the dark. I finally find the mens room, and then I realise: this is bad. The door to the mens room is open, and there's a clear view right into the gym and up onto the stage area!

I really have to go, and now it's dark, and there's no fan, and the door is open to let some light in, and also to let some noise and stink out.

I take the stall farthest from the door. I fumble with the latch and then I can't find a hook to hang my suit jacket on, so I hang it on the stall door latch. Then the door swings open. Then I fumble again, in the mostly darkness to maintain my jacket being hung on the door latch while the door remains latched.

Now, typically, when I've been holding something of that size for a long time, it's going to be noisy. And I tried real hard to make it quiet...but sometimes, it's just impossible.

Well, let me tell you, wiping in the dark is not as preferred as wiping in the light. And flushing and making sure that everything goes down is nearly impossible. I was squinting from the darkness and the fumes.

Okay, fine, wash my hands, get out into the hallway again, and the lights come back on. The pastor was in a fervent point, and I didn't want to re-enter the gym, making my way to the second row (which Brian picked for some stupid reason) from the front, on the aisle. So I chill back in the hallway.

A woman comes out of the gym and goes into the womens room. I can hear everything! Seat goes up, bum goes down, pee splashes in bowl, bum goes up, seat goes down, toilet is flushed.

Crap, crap, crap!!

How many people heard me?

Round St Café

Some days I wish my life was a reality show and that a camera crew was following me around. Seriously, it's just that good being me some days.

I wake Doc up shortly after noon with a call to his mobile (Doc is a real nickname). I convince him that though he only went to bed at 6 am this morning, he should get up and come to the gym to play some squash with me.

We were going to meet at 2 pm at the gym, and I got there first to find that there is a league playing and they have booked all the courts. I call him again to find out where he is: still at home. His new idea: let's go for coffee.

Discussing the options available to two single guys who live downtown and don't own cars, we choose the Round St Café. Neither of us had been there, though we both know where it is.

We get to the Round St Café: a cozy atmosphere and it's very warm inside, which is nice, because outside it's a typical windy Lethbridge day, and quite chilly because of the clouds blocking out the sun. It's the kind of place where you're unsure if you just sit down and someone serves you, or you order at the counter, and then get served, or neither happens and you eventually leave because the staff are completely vile. After a couple minutes of trying to decide what we want, it becomes apparent that we need to go to the counter to order.

---

Me: I'd like a full sandwich, multigrain, all dressed, with turkey.

Server: Oooh. I've only got enough turkey left for a half sandwich.

Me: Uh, okay, I will have a half turkey sandwich, multigrain, all dressed, with a side of the soup of the day.

Server: We're out of the soup of the day.

Me: What other soup is there?

Server: We have no soup.

Me: Alright, I will have a full sandwich, multigrain, all dressed, with ham.

Server: We're out of ham too.

Me: What do you have?

Server: Yeah, I guess that would be best, for me to list for you what we've got left; it was a busy lunch hour. Let's see [looks into the sandwich making station stock of ingredients]... roast beef.

Me: That's fine. I will have a roast beef, full sandwich, all dressed, and a large mocha with an extra shot of espresso.

Server: That will be $12.52.

---

$12.52? Where am I? An airport? Geez. Whatever, after all that, I didn't really want to change my mind... or even try to change my mind again; there might not be any roast beef left by the time I speek.

Then Doc proceeds to tell me about his week at work. He's part of the security team at the mall downtown. This usually includes stories of shoplifters and drunks and hooligans and rowdies. And the conversation always ends with...

---

Me: And that was a white guy?

Doc: [look of incredulity on his face] No.

Me: I don't really care about the politically correct-ness about it, but being an anti-racial profiler is just stupid. Stereotypes exists because the majority of people behave or act a certain way. One can easily categorise this into terms of race/ethnicity and financial position in society. How often do you find a white guy, dressed in a business suit, stealing something from HMV, or drunk in the movie theatre? Rarely, if never. How often is it a greasy/skid/poor native from the reserve?

Doc: 99% of the time.

Me: What a sad state.

---

[Sidenote]
This is proof of how small and possibly sad Lethbridge is: both the mall and the café neither have any sort of web presence. Do these business owners not realise the power and potential of the internet?
[/Sidenote]

Meanwhile, there's an old guy sitting at the back of the café whom I have a hard time keeping my eyes diverted from. I was getting a vibe, like in a movie, where there's a creepy guy, like in Breakfast at Tiffany's, that just shows up and follows you around, and then later talks with you. Anyway, he was there the whole time and it was kind of strange. I wonder if I will see him later sometime tonight?

We get our food and coffees, and then Salem comes in to the Round St Café to get a coffee. Salem is one of the enigmas I know (and it's improbable when one considers the high per capita ratio of enigmas I actually know; I'm just one guy who knows at least a couple dozen enigmatic characters). Doc and I wave to Salem, and I lean across the table to Doc and say: "Salem: living proof that there was no famine in Ethiopia."

[Sidenote]
Salem, in his enigmaticity, is originally from Ethiopia, and also manages to maintain a healthy BMI score of about 29.9 or 30. I'm not too sure if he's overweight or obese, but he's got a huge pot belly, which I suppose some women could find quite endearing. I find it enigmatic and disturbing. He's also half deaf, and that's because he's only got one ear. Serious. One ear. The other...well, the other place where one would expect to see an ear is just a crumpled up piece of skin, like a large belly button, but on his head, where there ought to be an ear. This just adds to his enigmatic score.
[/Sidenote]

Continuing on, Salem comes and sits down.

---

Salem: Hey.

Me: How's it going? What are you up to? What do you do to keep yourself busy these days?

[Sidenote]
I'm not all too sure that Salem even has a job. He never seems to be working, and he's usually asking people, his friends, for money in unobtrusive ways: Can you pay for my bill? or rather: says nothing, leaves, and you don't see him for a week, having been left in the restaurant to pay his bill or be embarassed for not paying it. And I'm not joking.
[/Sidenote]

Salem: I'm hanging out with my girlfriend today.

Me: [Looking around the café.] Where is she?

Salem: She's at my house.

Me thinking: [But your flat is ten blocks from here, and you don't have a car, so you're walking, and you don't walk all that fast, due to the BMI, you must have been gone for at least a half hour just to get here...]

Salem: She's watching movies.

Me: So then, because you're here, and she's not, how is that you are "hanging out"?

Salem: I'm buying her a tea.

Me thinking: [I don't even drink tea, yet I have a box of tea in the kitchen cupboard at my flat. You've got to go out to get a cup of tea? Oh wait. You are Salem.]

Me: Well, that's nice of you to hang out with her by not hanging out with her....

Salem: I'd better bring her the tea before it's cold.

Me: See you around....

---

I'm currently being distracted by a large influx of patrons at the Round St Café, one of which is a rather tall and fat chap who is standing beside the table of the old creepy guy, leaning over his coffee and food, taking packets of sweetener out of the little table top holder for such things, and eating the contents of the packet. ("Chap" = native guy who is either drunk or high or both drunk and high.)

Salem is also gone.

I finish my $5 sandwich, wondering if I should have had the $5 milkshake instead.

The fondue from last night is pushing its way out, and I've got to hit the restroom. There's only two in the back, one with the stick man and the other with the stick woman on the door. The door with the stick man icon is shut. I go into the other restroom.

And this time of reflection allows me to develop this theory of operation:

When in a café, be it the Round St Café or any other similar establishment, and there are only two restrooms, each a fully contained private commode (ie: no stalls, not intended for multi-use), if possible, without offending others or lowering my own dignity, I will choose to use the room with the stick woman on the door. In this, I am mostly guaranteed that no one has been in here standing and urinating all over the seat.

I manage to slip out off the restroom without being spotted by another patron, although someone did try to gain entry to the room while I was occupying it. The other door was still closed. Maybe that's where the old creepy guy went?

Gosh, all that happened in only an hour! I wonder what other excitement will be entertaining me yet on this Saturday?