HELL IN A HAND BASKET

Why is it that everything always goes wrong when my friend Fish comes for a visit? I mean it I could be having the best life, I could be a multi-millionaire, have twelve books on the best seller list and have Colin Farrell in my bed but as soon as the words ‘I’m coming for a visit’ are uttered, my life always goes to Hell in a hand basket. I don’t know what it is about Fish and I but bad luck seems to follow us wherever we go.

Fish (who got her nickname because she drinks like one) and I have been the best of friends since the seventh grade and our friendship shows no sign of ever diminishing; we’ve seen each other through absolutely everything. I don’t know how we’ve done it but we’ve somehow managed to keep in touch with each other on almost a daily basis despite the fact that half a country has separated us for thirteen of the twenty-three years that we’ve known each other. I know that I can call her up at any moment of the day and she will be there to listen to me no matter what, but it just seems to me that no matter how hard we try we can’t seem to get rid of The Curse.

The Curse. It began in the seventh grade when I was friendly with a young girl who didn’t like Fish at all. Hated her actually. This young girl wanted to be my best friend and told me that she had put a hex on Fish so that she would have bad luck for the rest of her life. I didn’t think much of it at the time because I thought the girl was a whack job, but now that I think about it it makes perfect sense. Fish and I have been cursed since the day we met and I don’t think there’s any way to stop it.

When Fish last came to visit I was forced to sit with her through the Super Bowl down at Wayne Gretzky’s, which she still talks about to this day, and which I’m amazed I sat through without slitting my wrists. That night ended with us being hauled down to the police station for nearly starting a bar brawl because Fish caught someone trying to steal her camera. Think that’s bad? I was in the middle of it trying to stop her from assaulting the idiot and she nearly broke my arm, and this was only the first night of her visit. Fish and I have been through many accidents and near death experiences (caused by the fact that she drove like a maniac out of my driveway while my passenger door was wide open and I toppled out. To this day I can still smell the scent of my flesh being burned as I went ass over tip down my unpaved road.) but we have never had our friendship tested like it was this weekend.

It began with the fact that the airline gave me the wrong landing information so while we were waiting for her at Terminal One she was panicking at Terminal Three because she thought I had forgotten about her. As soon as we got her luggage we ran outside only to be confronted by an irate airport policeman who yelled at us that our jeep was blocking traffic and who refused to help us with her luggage. Now I know that we were in the wrong but he had no right to yell at us the way he did. He was rude to the point of being offensive and made no effort to help us. This should have been a warning sign of things to come but I was so angry that I didn’t even notice. I ended up yelling at him that if he didn’t like his job he should just quit instead of being bitter about it. That did not go well and I am now expecting a ticket in the mail. After that little episode we drove home through a blizzard and surprisingly made it in one piece, and when we got back to my apartment we wasted no time in cracking open the large bottle of gin that she had brought with her.

So two women with severe hangovers got on the bus the next day to go to the One Of A Kind craft show only to find that all transit had been delayed indefinitely due to the previous night’s storm. (Remember that this is Toronto, we once had to call in the army to help shovel our snow. We don’t deal well with winter.) So what should have been a twenty minute bus ride turned into an hour long odyssey with Yours Truly yelling at two young men who wouldn’t let a visually impaired woman with a seeing eye dog have a seat. Fish could see that I was getting a bit hot under the collar and wisely gave me some breathing space but by the time we met up with my mates my mood was more evil than Medusa on a bad day. And what better way to compound a bad mood than to stick me in a building full of people who don’t know the meaning of the term Personal Space. I ended up spending the next three hours being pushed and shoved around by thousands of people too greedy to wait calmly for openings in front of the booths, and Fish stood by looking very much like a Fish out of water.

By the time we finished going through the entire craft show I could see that Fish was in a great deal of pain but she wouldn’t tell me why. I finally got it out of her after she said she couldn’t walk anymore. An old back injury had acted up after she had slipped on some ice in front of my building but had become unbearable after someone had pushed her out of the way of a booth. If steam could have come out of my ears it would have. We ended up having to make an emergency run to an acupuncturist so that she could get some relief, but when the cab we took decided to take the scenic route I snapped. What should have been a five dollar cab ride had stretched into twelve due to (what he said) all the snow. My reply? Bullshit. Again that did not go over well and we ended up walking the rest of the way. The rest of the weekend went relatively well but Fish was not herself; I don’t know whether it was because of all the painkillers and alcohol that she had consumed but she just seemed so tired and sad.

I don’t know why but I truly believe that Fish and I were cursed that day back in the seventh grade because every time we get together it never goes well. She is more than my best friend, she is my sister and it makes me sad to see her so down and lonely; I was really hoping to make this weekend a good one. This curse has run its course. I am going to fight whatever it is that follows us and I am going to make sure that a weekend like this never happens again.

I have to fight the curse. She’s coming back in January. God help me.

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