COMPLIMENTARY BLOW JOBS...five dollars a POP!!!

I just had my first staff meeting at my new job...at Ben & Jerry's.

















This has provided ample oppurtunity for no fewer than 3 much-appreciated BJ jokes an hour, lovingly shoved down my throat in recent days...














It's a step up from the underpaying under-the-table gelato slangin' job I held down the past two summers.



















A step up by $1.50, which is great for someone as stingy as me because falafel sandwiches at Nilufar (1923 St. Catherine W.) are only $1.25!
















And I reckon I'll be wanting them for lunch sometimes instead of Half-Baked or New York Superfudge Chunk.















The manager gave out one high-five during the meeting and I was the starry-eyed recipient.
















It came after discussion of the decoration of the pint containers. One girl apparently wrote "SHOUT OUT TO THE 5 BOROUGHS!" on New York Superfudge Chunk and the manager was saying (but not like in a bad way, just like she was just saying), "I mean come on, does anyone actually know the 5 boroughs??"
























And then I recited them and I got a high-five and then someone said "Spell borough" and then I spelled it and I got a punch in the face.















I didn't ACTUALLY...

Come on! Do you think I have a death wish?!?!
















Although it might have been an okay way to let this girl from small-town Nova Scotia know that I'm not a total dummy, after I said something foolish when she trained me that let it be known that I forgot that Moncton is in New Brunswick not Nova Scotia, yeah I said it, what can you do.





















And let us think back to a time when my sister Hilary's favourite joke was "Do you think I have a death wish?!" or it might have been "What, you think I have some kind of death wish??" after anything and everything that applied or didn't (which was often when it was funniest).


















She used to also say, in relative monotone, "That's a great story, you should tell it at parties."
















I thought it was great and I've tried (with limited success) to develop a thicker skin over life as my sister is fond of straight-up disses for jokes and sometimes I forget that I'm not as good at being mean and getting away with it and I said the party joke a few times but quickly learned that people seem to find it highly offensive and if you're in a situation where there's you, a friend, and a friend of the friend and you say it to your friend's friend who you presupposed would think it was funny, you're likely to get looked at by your friend like you just grew a Hitler mustache during a barmitzvah bathroom break and then you might have no friends left.












I guess Hilary has no room for the faint of heart in her circle of friends which is funny,once again considering this (which is still funny-ish, admit it).





















Also funny was that my long-lost friend Kweku turned up at the meeting too, so we're new in this together and that should be fun sometimes and we both laughed about how it's been years since either of us have had a job with fancy stuff like staff meetings...

Kweku and I were in the choir and the chamber choir at Ashbury in 1999 and four months into the year 2000, we travelled to Austria with the chamber choir to sing great songs like "Java Jive" and hear great songs like "My Heart Goes Boom" which was all the rage over yonder at the time.


Furthermore, it's interesting I should run into Kweku and think of Austria because on this very trip, we visited some cornerstones of The Sound of Music WHICH I REFERENCED IN MY LAST BLOG, cornerstones including the back of the house that served as the back of the house in The Sound of Music...

















As well as the gazebo that served as the gazebo in The Sound of Music!



















This was a great milestone in my young life and I look back on it fondly.


As fondly as I look back on the time I went to Toronto a couple of weeks ago and was wined and dined to the max and served flowers for fun and cookies for breakfast.












There was some funny barbecuing!












And some fancy cheese and fancy crackers too...












The coolest was how my steady tried to woo me with the very same Riopelle de Québec that my sister's steady had tried to woo my parents with the previous day in Ottawa.

My sister's steady had never met my parents before and he heard a rumour that good cheese was the first step to getting into their good graces and you can't blame the kid for trying.














No but really, both succeeded and everyone who needed to be wooed was wooed and the cheese probably did help protect my sister's steady's neck!





















High-fives all around (as my ex-roommate Caroliner would say).

















And shout outs to Caroliner for always being willing to shower me in champagne for no good reason and for being awesome overall and Happy Birthday Caroliner for growing older with grace...which is her middle name by no coincidence.

Caroliner is unable to process gluten without having a hairy fit but I present her with a flour-filled cake anyway, so what.
















BYEEEEEEEE!!!

P.S. Relax Caroliner, I'm looking into this incredible basically flourless cake my mom made for Stephanie Anne Gaty's birtday cake at Easter and I think you'll love it eventhough you won't eat it on your real birthday because I accidentally got confused and am going to be out of town at my steady's mom's retirement party and I'll make it up to you, I promise.