Shorts, Guelph, Credit Card

Back in Katimavik, when I was moving between Summerside and Thunderbay, Air Canada lost all my luggage. Because of this discovery, I was a little distracted and didn't pay too much attention when my group came across the group leaving their Thunderbay rotation. I did however, notice that among them was someone a little taller and larger than me, and with a pin hat that had more pins than mine. Being the tallest and largest in my group, and having taken on a project to collect and attach meaningful Katimavik pins to a toque, my insequrities briefly spiked, and I silently wished to myself not to cross paths with this man again, before resuming my anxious thoughts about my luggage.

Air Canada never found my stuff and didn't honour a claim I made for what I lost, even though they directed me through it. Instead they gave me an incredibly minimal blanket reimbursement. Like, $140 for over $1000 worth of lost luggage (Katimavik's list of recommended items to bring was pricey). I made the best of it, but things move fast during Katimavik, and it was a while before I could schedule a trip to the Salvation Army, so I needed a wardrobe quick. Fortunately, the previous group had needed to leave behind some of their clothes before moving to Chisasibi, so I got to pick through their discard pile.

Unfortunately, throughout the duration of my Thunder Bay and Chisasibi rotations, I would find myself continually compared to "Big Rob", the giant man with the crazy pin hat. Turns out, in addition to the pins and physical stature, he was also the Katimavik Communication Counsel Chairman, like me, and he kept a dream journal, like me.

He also lived in Southern Ontario, and I wound up working in the city he lives in. We're good friends now.

I didn't put the pieces together at the time, but since he was the only person my size, and because I needed to take clothes from a discard pile from his rotation, that means I was probably wearing his clothes until my belated trip to the Salvation Army.

It also means that the hoody with the greyed-out skull that I gave my mom, and the basketball shorts that I've been wearing as summer pyjamas and as a swim suit for years, originally belonged to him.

So it's with a heavy heart that I must announce, after ten years of use (and never telling him I was wearing them) that I finally tore my friend's basketball shorts irreparably.

This loss was softened somewhat, when my girlfriend suggested that we go to Giant Tiger to get a new pair. For my international readers, Giant Tiger is a Canadian department store, with very cheap prices and a lot of store-exclusive brands. Because of changes to bus routes and because the pandemic has limited my movements, I hadn't been to a Giant Tiger in a long, long time. In fact, this would be the first time since the pandemic that I would take a city bus. While we were waiting at the stop, I did an Easygo text to see when the next bus would come, and I saw that the last time I'd used this feature was March 12, my brother's birthday, about half a year ago.

Anyway, I got new shorts. I have since slept and swam in them.

Not too long ago, my mother, brother, cousin and me got take-out from Crafty Ramen in Guelph. Because of this, I saw how the layout of downtown Guelph has evolved since the pandemic. Since it's mostly made up of small food establishments and specialty stores, they blocked off traffic and put picnic tables in the roads, so all the small businesses can safely abide by the patio-only rule. It's actually really nice, and it's not such a hassle for vehicles because Guelph is such an abnormal city, traffic isn't really reliant on downtown anyway.

Speaking of Guelph, they've recently opened at least six locations to buy cannabis for recreational use, with more opening soon. It was really funny earlier in the pandemic, when there was a division of "essential" and "non-essential" businesses, and cannabis dispensaries were considered "essential", despite a year earlier being illegal.

I recently got a new credit card, and boy am I relieved. I won't share my new information, except that the CV code isn't "666" like it was last time, or "666" like it was the time before that.

Twice in a row, even though the numbers are supposed to be randomized. Here's a game for you guys to play. Google "random number generator", select the range to be between  "100" and "999" and just keep spinning until you get "666" two times in a row. Let me know how long that takes you. Keep in mind, this happened to me when there was one chance over several years.

At this time, "The Devil" card was showing up a lot in my tarot readings, and one time I was at a KFC and my order number was 666. It really messed me up. But a while back, The Devil in reverse showed in my future, which means a release from the devil, and the new credit card backs me up by having a CV that is anything but the number of the beast.