When I was younger [though it still applies today] I was a lazy ass mofo, but I was smart about it. All of our elementary school classes had to participate in Track and Field. Training up until the All Schools event.

Now, I am guilty of sloth. I dislike sports for that reason. And competing against and in front of people is not my thing.
We were all required to do 1 event, but had to try out for 4. Now, I stacked my deck and put on my poker face. What events did I choose? Shotput, Longjump, Highjump and 50 meter dash. I have always been the smallest and weakest, and that’s how I won my hand. The only event I ever made it into by default was the 50 meter dash, which meant my participation in Track and Field lasted 15 seconds and I was free to blow off the rest of the day.
I was a smart 10 year old.

We had fitness testing in Gym all through elementary school and Jr High. Going on the theme of ‘I hate putting effort into things I get nothing out of’ I remembered this snippet.
The fitness tests were comprised of jumping jackets, push ups, curls crunches 12 minute runs and a plethora of other terrible things. I. Hated it. We did them at least 4 times a year.
In grade 5 I had had just about enough of this bullshit so I finally confronted the teacher when she announced it was fitness test time.

I went off on her, telling her what a waste of time it was and how one could easily skew the data to get a good gym grade. [Grades were based on if you improved or not] I told her of my villainous plot that had been running strong for 5 years.
The first time we did the test I’d expend no effort into it, the next I’d just barely beat my previous record, and so on and so forth so it looked like I was improving with leaps and bounds!
I capped off my rant with “I’m not improving-I’m just smarter than you!” and proceeded to sit in the change room for the rest of the class.

Now, I’ve never been the most social kind of person, friendly yes, but as a teenager I kept to myself enjoying working on my own projects and chatting with friends online. It’s only in recent years have I really embraced leaving the comfort of my art-cave. This story takes place in the height of my anti-social basement dwelling. I was attached at the hip to my computer, game system and art book. I rarely left the house and living in a small french town as an English speaking kid, I had given up making friends years before.

My mother had gone on her annual camping trip during the Folk Festival, leaving my brother, sister and I with our dad. This meant consuming forbidden foods like fried chicken, chips, order-out pizza and other snacks that were few and far between in the presence of our maternal figure.

This was welcome.

It was when father decided to leave the comfort of the house to take a boating trip that I began my squeaks of protest. I only had around two or three hours of battery life in my game boy advance. This posed a problem. We piled into the car, hooked up the boat and started off on our trip. The first lake that we stopped at wasn’t open to boaters, so we picked up again and started driving further north.

I ignored the world with my small, wrap around style plastic headphones plugged into my bright blue and silver walkman, blasting the Shrek soundtrack like the boss I was while becoming completely engrossed in catching Suicune in pokemon Crystal.

It took around two hours in total to reach the lake. And when I stepped out of the car I was greeted with a horrendous crunch I could hear over ‘Bad Reputation’. To my horror the ground had become a graveyard to the corpses of thousands of fish flies. My siblings were becoming the landing pad for their more lively brethren. The car was already coated and the first foot and a half of water at the shores edge wasn’t water, just a floating mass of fish flies.

I hate fish flies.

I retreated back to the safety of the car, holding my dying game station as my dad worked the boat into the water under the watchful eye of two fishermen at the dock. I was made to abandon my electronics and board the ship. I’m not one to enjoy motor boats, I’ve always had a romanticized view of sailing ships, pirates-adventure. A motor boat just didn’t live up to my vision of water travel. Especially as the boat engine stuttered and sputtered, refusing to start without a battle.

The wind whipped around us as we scooted out into the lake, taking a few large circles through the waves getting into the groove of boating. It was a fairly large lake and was nearly a pitch black on the gloomy day. I sat in the back of the boat and stared out at the water as we moved farther and farther away from shore. When we reached the middle of the lake, the  engine died.

And proceeded to stay dead.

No matter how my dad tried, the engine wouldn’t start. Five, ten, Fifteen minutes of struggling it still refused to start. It was then we discovered there was only one paddle in the boat.

So we sat, in the middle of the lake, two hours from home with no one to call, owning one paddle and no video games. My dad went back to trying to coax the engine into life.

I tried in vain to find something else we could use for a paddle, anything to get us moving back towards the shore. It was then that I found the source of our salvation. Two large beach umbrellas.

I propped the first one up, getting my siblings to grab either side of it, putting my feet on the metal pole to hold it down. I opened the second and grasped the handle as hard as I could onto it to keep it from flying away from me. We started to move. Slowly at first, but gaining speed, back towards the dock.

My dad was mildly flabbergasted.

We averaged at about three point five to five knots, scooting through the water. I was pretty damn proud of myself and rewarded everyone for my misery with sea shanties for the rest of the trip back to the shore. I knew two.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qGyPuey-1Jw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srI1VsRDytw

It took twenty minutes to get back to shore where we were greeted by the roaring laughter of the two fishermen.

I can only imagine the story they’ve told of the skinny Englishman and his umbrella sailboat.

Chan, Aileen and I arrived at McDonalds for supper as it’s close, and it’s the only thing open after 11.

We were dressed like the wonderful people we are-with jeans full of stains and a broken zipper, peacock pants and pirate boots, not a shred of makeup and tank tops galore.Obviously, we were the most attractive things within ten miles.

Upon entering the McDicks we made it to the counter though many people were waiting around for their orders. They had a newbie at the cash and she was being coaxed through every step of the process of the till. Beside us was a skinny little weasel of a kid, and his larger more buxom friend. Both couldn’t have been more than 15 and were equally full of teenage ‘not give a fuck’. They turned their sights on Chan.

As Chan ordered, Leen and I had taken it upon ourselves to act like complete and utter idiots in public. First by butt punching, then it upgraded to hip checking, first just enough to step, then enough to stumble and nearly fall, this upgraded to stomping on each others feet and poking each other in the face.

“What are they on?” Though the weasel kid asked Chan the question, it was directed more towards Chans bosom. Where his eyes stayed for the rest of the conversation.

“Excuse me?”

“What type of drugs are your friends on?”

“None, that’s the problem.”

“Really?”

“Yeah seriously.”

“Give me your number. So we can like, talk about stuff.”

“No.”

“Give me your number, give me your number.”

“No”

“Oh. So. What are you into?”

“Huh?”

“What are you and your friends into?”

“Uh, nothing.” *moves away*

“So, what are they into then?”

“They’re nerds.”

“So they’re totally into World of war craft and stuff like that?”

“They’re graphic designers.” This is when the skinny fifteen year old and his larger friend moved towards Aileen and I, despite how set on the avid foot battle we were.

“You guys look like graphic Designers.” We hadn’t heard the initial conversation and we looked at eachother. Leen smirked at me.

“Oh shit, I can’t even hide it.”

“So, can you do an animation of us?”

“That’s gunna cost you a couple grand.”

“Oh shit-no you don’t make that much.”

“Yeah I do.”

“So you must be rolling in it.’

“Nope! I’m a freelancer, I only get a few jobs enough!”

“That sucks.”

“Nope! I’m young! I’m not flipping burgers :D”

They abandoned us when their food arrived as Chan and her boobies had given them the boot and I was more set on prodding Leens butt into submission. Which was accompanied by the yowl of “Oh yes! I look like such a graphic designer! In my pajama pants and my pirate boots.”

“He at least made eye contact with you-his eyes never left Chans tits.’

“That’s because I have none! Oo sexy ribcage, oh so sexy. You could wash a shirt on that!”

We grabbed our iced coffees and bag, fleeing to the car with Chan giddily squeaking. “They gave us two extra burgers! Two burgers each!”

Our lives are rich an eventful.

I’ve decided to write down stories as I remember them to share the strange things that have happened with my friends and I as every day is an adventure. Or, a terrifying series of human interactions that end in me locking myself in the basement until college.

One such series of terrifying human interactions happened [again] at Aikon. Why I keep going to this thing I don’t know. I theorize that it’s got something to do with Stockholm and Amnesia.

It was my first year attending and I had thrown together a cosplay of Midna [I worked very hard on the mask but it ended up falling apart as I used the wrong type of foam] and was there with a friend from Ontario and a friend from High school. The friend from Ontario had a mask I had made and punky clothing and the Highschool friend had a pair of ears and a LARGE plush tail that dragged the ground.

It was the first Anime Con for all of us so we weren’t so sure what to expect from the people there. It started to go down hill when a girl I will refer to as Special Ed glomped onto HighSchool Friends tail and refused to let go. For three days.

We have a long relationship with Special Ed, from the first time she glomped to the flashing incident at last Aikon. [That’s a post for another day] Special Ed was named as such because she wore an Edward Elric cosplay three years in a row. The costume was stained, dirty, and smelled like a sour rat. The wig she used had never seen a brush or a rinse and was greasy as hell. Due to no fault of her own the girls voice was so deep and she was so androgynous it took us 3 years to figure out her gender.

At the age of 23 she is the least mature person I have known in my entire life. She would tackle her and hug the tail and follow us around constantly despite us trying to ditch her. But special Ed wasn’t the worst thing we encountered that weekend.

Aikon holds a dance every year in the back room. It’s smelly, cramped, full of teenage mammoths in tiny costumes and skeezy older men trying to get with young Weeaboo schoolgirls. We had taken a break from all this wonderous fun to air out in the lobby. It was there that we were approached by a man wearing a collar, Not a strange occurrence in Aikon so we weren’t too weirded out by it. He began to speak to Highschool friend as she was wearing a tail and ears and was in every way a catch.

I immediately began to play the role of older brother. He was speaking to her on behalf of the Furries of Winnipeg. He explained that the Furries of Winnipeg gathered in St. Vital mall to draw furries, talk about furries, and generally have a good old furry time. They used to gather in costume but it had gotten out of hand with teasing so now they just wore normal clothing.

This was all fine and dandy, he was just looking for like minded people blah blah diversity I have weird BJD’s I’m not one to judge odd hobbies even if his are all sexual and junk. But then it took a turn for the worst. He gave HighSchoolFriend a once over and moved in. “You should come up to our hotel room.”

I bristled.

“There’s a whole bunch of us up there. We’re having a party, having drinks and we’re getting together to have a slave trade. We auction off each other, find a master and have a good old yiffy time.”

There was an awkward pause and we laughed it off, and he pressed all the more. He really wanted her to be there. And it was at this point we bolted away, taking shelter in the seething masses of teenage bulk and maid outfits thus proving that there was something worse than having being elbowed in the back of the head by drunk narutards.

There really should be a test that you have to pass before leaving the house. I’m going to share a story of the creepiest creeper I’ve ever come across. Bare with me, he’s a repeat offender.

I’ve been a passive fan of anime, and cosplay since I was a tween but never to the point of deeming myself a weaboo and have friends who share enough interest to purchase manga. And it’s in that section of a large bookstore that the story begins.

Around three minutes into looking through the books my friends and I were approached by a skinny, hunched, haven’t shaved/bathed in days, young Mr. Burns type character complete with awkward hand over hand stroking. He paused and asked if he’d seen us at last years convention. We, being friendly idiots, obliged and said we had been there. It was at this point he asked our names and shook our hands.

I thought it was at least polite to take his hand—This was a mistake. He didn’t know when to let go, and clasped our hands with his clammy talons while making direct eye contact with us and talking. He started to go on about how he had just gotten a series of vampire animes for at least 2 solid minutes, all while shaking my friends hand. She finally yanked it away.

As he’d asked our names we asked his, without skipping a beat he said “No. I don’t want you tell you my name so you’ll wonder about me. You’ll remember me. Fantasize about me in your dreams. And I’ll come to you and impregnate you in your sleep and when it comes time I’ll give you a cesarean with my fangs.”

It was at this point we started to grasp at straws to leave. He saw this and shouted. “Aaron! My name is Aaron! Do you like dolls-My sister and I molest hers.”

We turned and tried to cross the bookstore as fast as we could. Halfway through we bumped into one of my friends’ friends in the second anime for children’s section. We gathered into a close circle and were going to warn them of the creeper when he popped up overtop of one of the other girls shoulders, staring into our circle.

We booked it to the exit, all the while watching him bop through the food court after us.

I’d like to say this is where the story ended, but a few months later I was out with a different friend and we crossed into the manga section once more. Guess who slunk out of the woodwork, hunched, hand over hand, grinning. “Did I see you girls at Aikon?”