Wash the road salt from your favourite négligée.
It's Friday.
My buddy Dom Pare (pah-ray) just left town.
Raised in the city and on the farm, Dom is one of those guys who's ready to go back to Toronto.
"Yeah, this place is pretty good, but in Toronto this spot wouldn't be as shitty."
Much like my jaunty movements, his demeanor is alright once you get used to it.
The America of Canada, everyone hates Toronto.
No one truly knows why.
People hate it the same way straight men hate a gay bar.
No, they haven't been there, but they know that they wouldn't like it.
It's not that bad, y'know.
Some people yell at you when you walk past them, but if you hand them change it seems to calm them down.
Dom and I performed in The Homegrown together.
We both lost equally.
Really, he did a better job of losing.
We once ran into a guy outside of the Halifax Yuk's who had been living on a submarine.
For 7 years.
I was glad that he mentioned it because as soon as he did I was able to think to myself:
"Oh, that's what it is."
He looked like a guy who had spent seven years in a submarine, now that he mentioned it.
Wild-eyed.
Anxious.
Frightened of lights and automobiles.
The dude looked thoroughly, thoroughly unbalanced.
I was trying my best not to be frightened, so I only caught snippets of what he was saying.
These referred to making women do things because there was no escaping him in a submarine.
Not like...sex things (though I couldn't say for sure - I wasn't down there).
Lifting heavy stuff and this sort of tripe.
I don't know what he said, but his face was really red when he spoke.
And his voice had this strange, strained quality, sort of like he'd just left his first anger management class and he was angry about it.
I'm not exaggerating at all.
Like, if he was at The Gap and someone said, "Do you need help with anything?" you could easily picture him wheeling about to strangle the person with their headset cord.
Eventually we managed to disengage him.
More than I could say for his co-workers.
Imagine what that must be like.
Many of you probably already have colleagues who infuriate your psyche.
Now imagine spending several months with those same people on a submarine.
It's like being trapped in an elevator, but there's a washroom and a cafeteria.
The novelty of being in the vessel probably wears off after about three days.
"Wanna use the periscope again?"
"Nah, fuck that. All I've seen so far is plankton. I guess we'll play crib again."
And again.
And again...
Withstanding elements you have no business finding yourself in, cocooned in a mobile trailer with a couple of propellers strapped to it.
Wandering an otherwise unpopulated universe ("Where the fuck are the whales at?! You said there'd be whales!"), searching for an enemy who was due about fifty years ago.
All the while hoping that you don't collide with a seahorse that will rupture your hull, ultimately crushing you to pulp before you have the chance to drown.
Sounds awful, doesn't it?
Now, imagine that environment while sharing it with a guy you wouldn't want to speak to for three minutes in a parking lot.
It's Ben Folds twice this week, but I have to include him in this post.
The song is kickass, sure, but I'm only putting it in here because he has a line that goes:
"When you're all workin' in a submariiiiiiiiine."
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