Scotty as promised
So as promised, here is the story of the hard boiled egg. I am a person who enjoys an egg salad sandwich. I have been known in the past to boil 6 or 7 eggs and eat nothing but egg salad sandwiches for the entire day. Some of you may find this gross, but it’s my story so you can just shut up (grin). I used to live with a guy by the name of Scott Ulriksen. The link to his blog is available at the top right hand of the screen. Scott and I lived in a basement suite. The layout was in the back door, down a flight of stairs, to the right was my bedroom, to the left was the bathroom and Scott’s room. This house had the distinction of being heated with a boiler (having no idea of the cost of such things, if I ever build a house, I would like to have a boiler in it). This house had three areas in which heat was distributed. One in each bedroom and one in the living room immediately across from the staircase. Immediately beside the staircase was the kitchen.
Scott was working framing houses at this time which meant he was up quite early and would tend to have a snooze in mid afternoon. I was currently looking for work and therefore this meant I spent most of my time at home watching TV. My then girlfriend, now wife, lived in Saskatoon. I had decided that for lunch on that particular day I would have an egg salad sandwich. I began boiling three eggs in a pot in the kitchen. Shortly after putting the eggs on to boil, I received a phone call from my father asking me to come help him with some car related activity. Cars being something sacred to me, I of course went, helped my father and returned home to find that I had boiled the eggs dry and burned them to a crisp. And as anyone who has ever burnt an egg can attest, the stench emanating from a kitchen was 100% worse than secreted rat puss.
Regina, SK in January has been known to reach temperatures slightly below the freezing point. If memory serves, (and it does), on this particular day, we were well below -40’. In order to facilitate the removal of the stench left behind by thoroughly charred eggs, (I had to throw out the pot as well) I opened the kitchen window and the window in the living room which was in a direct line with the one in the kitchen. This created a stiff wind which my hope was would remove the smell from the kitchen. Scott, oblivious to all of this, lounged in bed with the luxury only afforded to a person who is in love with a redheaded girl who wants nothing to do with him (this was a long and tearful story). Here’s where the story gets funny.
My buxom blonde girlfriend called me and said that she was in town for a short while and wondered if I was free for lunch. I, having recently developed the lack of lunch plans (no pot and out of eggs), thought this was a wonderful idea. I wondered if she was paying and as I grabbed my coat, I mustered all the speed my petit 300lb frame could endure, barreled up the stairs, out the back door, through the backyard and into my Jeep, daring it not to start. It, assessing the situation, deemed my urgency worthy enough for it to grind into life and begin the dangerous task of negotiating the 5ft high unplowed snowy streets of Regina in mid-January (4-wheel drive helps a lot).
I met my future wife for lunch and enjoyed a romantic meal consisting of Burger King Whoppers and Poutine and a diet Coke. She was gracious and paid and I was post-modern and culturally relevant enough to understand whole-heartedly why it was so important to let the woman pay on occasion (flat broke and 300lbs, you do the math). We had a joyous lunch and with tears in our eyes, bid each other a fond farewell until our next rendezvous (if you know my wife, that last sentence ticked her off).
With hearts in my eyes and burgers in my stomach, I climbed back into my Jeep and in a driving style best described as poetic, continued my quest for the perfect mid-afternoon lounge. Upon returning home, I was greeted by an angry, angry man. I was thrown a little off guard by this. Scott’s emotions tend to be best described as Metamucil-consistency so you can imagine my confusion at beating back this small, hairy ball of wrath. Finally securing Scott to an immovable pole with ratchet straps, chains, and an angry dog named Bijou, I asked him (What in the Sam herring stupid dad-blasted of all of the good for nothing world is the matter with you?) with all love in my heart, what was the matter. I found his response less then loving when he seethed my name, entered a spazmatic fit and promptly evacuated any hope of an adult conversation that would meet both of our communication style needs.
He said to me “you left the windows open!” this did not make any sense to me. What was the big deal of me leaving the windows open? Perhaps it got a bit cool. He was closed up in his room under blankets and is world-renowned for being much happier in very cold weather than in even the slightest bit of heat (I recall clearly hundreds of times walking into his bedroom in deep freeze Saskatchewan while he had a fan propped up in his open window blowing the most frigid air directly over the top of his bed so he could sleep at night). You can understand why having windows open anger him would cause me thorough confusion. When Scott finally deemed me worthy of a response, the story I heard was more than I could stand. As a result, has become the stuff of legend and a long time favorite of anyone who has ever heard it.
The story from Scott’s point of view was (and you have to see Scott’s small round, furry body telling this story to get the full impact of his wrath and indignance). Scott had gone to sleep at roughly 11am. The next thing he knew, he was awoken by a great discomfort. The case, as it was, was that the thermostat for the enormous boiler better suited to heat an elementary school than a house, was directly in line with the two open windows. Therefore, the thermostat registered a -40’ interior temperature and kicked the boiler into nuclear winter Armageddon is here mode. The temperature of the air coming out of the radiators would have been sufficient to maintain living hell here on earth. Scott, sound asleep in bed, began to perspire. Scott, being of equal girth as I, is perfectly capable of growing rice paddies on his chest when perspiration is deemed necessary. Therefore, as Scott was sleeping in a state as only one of two bachelors in an apartment can, slimed out of bed and glerped to his door, realizing that if a shower was not immediate, the bouncy little redhead of his dreams would slip from his grasp forever. He opened his door and stepped out into nuclear Saskatchewan winter. Much like a blowfish deflating, turned to solid stone. He rectified the situation by shutting off the boiler, closing some windows and opening others. When his equilibrium had been established, waited at the bottom of the stairs with the patience of a child on Christmas morning or a bachelor after a redhead and planned his savage attack.
This experience has taught me a great many things. Boilers are well worth having, 4-wheel drive is a necessity to get women, one should let the woman pay when she offers, but most importantly, it is quite difficult to contain a slippery, small, hairy ball of anger. By the time you are done, it feels like having been in a fight with a pre-pubescent rhinoceros who has just been embarrassed by its mother in a lingerie store while shopping for its first bra. “last sentence written by Mandy”. Part 2: Scotty’s retaliation is coming. It’s well worth the wait.
posted by something witty at 12:34 PM
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