As they approached, Jules paused to adjust her dress and Trevor’s suit.  Turning, she gave him a quick peck on the hand and held it to her warm cheek.

“Dates hold hands buddy boy” she whispered and they walked slowly to the double doors, festooned with plastic green strips meant to look like kelp and cardboard cut-outs of mermaids, fish and turtles.

“Sea of Love” Trevor read the sign affixed to the wall above the entrance

“Cripes, are there really only three themes that exist that those mindless cheerleaders that run these prom and dance committees can draw from?”

“Marine theme, princess fantasy theme and..”

“ …and some sort of olden days theme like pioneer times or the fifties”

“Well, what else could they do?  As much as I would like to see a video game themed prom, I have a feeling most girls wouldn’t.”

“True. Well, lets go in but look, we need to set up some codes for “this person is pissing me off” or “I want to go home” okay?”

“How about just saying “this person is pissing me off” or “I’d like to go home”, they usually work best?” Trevor responded after a moments thought to Jules’s visible amusement.

“Good plan.  Lets dive in. Expect idiocy, settle for boring.”

“Check”.

They both walked slowly toward the doors, hands held tight, sweaty, tighter, then walked faster, then as if on cue, burst into the room just as the thumbing bass of the B52’s Rock Lobster began.  Heads turned, heads of late teen schoolmates attached to a multitude of dresses, good and terribly bad and ill fitting suits.  Jaws dropped, others were hidden as people turned away wanting to avoid the issue of the girl who’s father was just buried showing up to the prom like Carrie from that Steven King book and movie.  They waved to those they knew and some that just stared and marched directly to a vacant table to the right in the seating area, set up where dappled light flickered and glittered about with the intention of giving the area an underwater look.

“Okay, we’re in.  What now?” Jules asked over the over-loud vocal styling’s of Fred Schneider.

Trevor’s eyes, still adjusting to the dim light found the small canteen that had been setup on the far side of the gym. He pointed.  A number of guys, the type that hung out in the smoking area and caused grief for the nerdlings of the school were present making inaudible but likely smarmy comments towards people as they danced by.  People unlike them, with dates.  “I could go get us some soda or whatever crappy snacks they have available?”

Jules nodded in agreement, tried to hand him ten dollars which he declined with a look as he pointed to another area of the gym where actual “real” food had been set up. “Look, look there, food.  Christ on a stick I haven’t eaten today at all and man I need something.  You get soda, I’ll get food, ‘kay?”

Trevor looked at her and smiled. In the shimmering light he saw the person he cared most, a wall of normality built up in the space of six hours, hiding a sad, crushed girl. “Or you could get drinks and I get the food? Less to carry and less chance of spilling it on your dress.” the last part being added with quick thought as he saw her eyes flare at the initial suggestion that she was a weak girl incapable of carrying two plates of food.

“Lucky you said that last part you know.”

“I know” he spoke over her.  She reached forward with a closed first and directed a slow motion non-connecting punch to his trachea.

Trevor smiled.

Water is good.  Water is awesome.  Drinking “energy drinks” is just dorky.

‘nuff said.

WE DRINK WATER!

On a cold Christmas eve I stepped out in the snow
Gun held at the ready, pondering where to go
Lantern in my hand, straw stuffed in my clothes
To seek out the creature that everyone knows

One eve every year, it known always to stalk
Those who knew not better and went for a walk
Or poor carolers, out spreading their cheer
A poor drunken worker, coin gone into beer

It always did start with the sound of a howl
A bellow, a scream, or if close, a growl
Next morning would come and someone would be missing
Whispers of monsters through crowd would be hissing

I took up the cause after shots of Dutch courage
donned my thick woolens, and gut full of porridge
Set forth in the snow, to search for the beast
Afor he could ‘pon some poor child make a feast

And it wasn’t long, close to midnight’s bell toll
Till I found me strange marks in the snow (and a hole)
froze solid I saw what was left of Ma Jones
Her soft bits chewed out, flesh been gnawed to the bones

A noise to my left, I dropped to one knee
And turned round the lantern, squinting hard so to see
The mist curled about, and the moon shone above
The only sound creaking, my cold leather glove

And with a crash, branches flew,ice crusted snow
A hair covered creature, from betwixt planted row
Darted toward me, I stepped back and aimed
Pulled both triggers at once, the creature I maimed

It flew at me with screams half man and half other
We crashed in a heap upon the Jones mother
It gurgled and snarled and pleaded then cried
With a single reload, the beast it then died

And as the moon slid oily past in the night
I saw before me the source of the fright
That assailed the whole region but once a long year
Twas none but the Parson, face frozen in fear

I hauled his corpse home, stuffed it in the chimney
To protect those who worshipped with him with anonymity
And tossed Missus Jones through the thin ice of the river
In hopes that downstream the current would deliver

And I sit in my study, just cleaning my gun
And cursing the knocking, I know what’s begun
And I speak to the constable, ‘bout gunshot, a fight
And he leaves to see others. I tend to the bite.

That all being said, I do witness similar shopping mobs as recently displayed on YouTube this past week. Granted, they occur when we have a blackout and people panic and quietly, in a friendly Canadian way, with lots of “I’m sorry” and “excuse me”‘s head to la groceteria and pick up water, propane and a few canned goods. Okay, mainly its because we are always seeking a reason to have a barbecue.

Black Friday is starting to invade the Great White North too though as shown in recent cloying advertisements offering “black friday” deals at car shops and WalMart (Pepper Spray: $2.99!!). Since we don’t get the day off of work its an odd thing to do, sort of like having a Halloween sale during office hours really. But I refuse to take part. There is nothing I need that badly that I will join the mob.

That is all. Just a gripe. As you were.

Cheese Doodles! 50% off!

Autumn, 1979.  When I was a teenager in the very early eighties,  my grandfather, following his and his father’s proclivity toward new technology, purchased a top loading Video Cassette Recorder (VCR) and called us to his portion of the house for a sort of celebration.  My parents, my sister, my grandmother and I all stood or sat in his cluttered huge Victorian livingroom, the multitude of chairs and couches aligned in such a way as top provide all but two seats full view of his new television and the VCR.  It was a silver and grey device, top loading, with greenish LED letters on the front that flashed 12:00 over and over until I three days later set the time.  As we watched, he pressed a button that caused a portion of the top of the large device to open upward.  Carefully, he loaded a T-60 video cassette (Video Home System or VHS) into the top, pressed down the spring and hinges of the internal works by way of the cover until it was cloased with a click.  The whirring from within were heard to engage and at his instruction we stepped backward. 

My grandfather selected a television channel, a football game if I remember correctly, and then pressed the red “record” button.  A series of clicks and more whirring occurred and we waited, watching the game, wondering exactly what we were waiting for silently, a few confused looks passing back and forth between us.  After sixty seconds, one full minute, my grandfather pressed a black square “stop” button, the left pointing arrow “rewind” button and following more rapid, high pitched whirrings followed by a resounding clunk, nothing.  He pressed the right pointing triangle, making sure I knew what he was doing, and after a few seconds of screen lineage and noises, static.  The television displayed noise, snow, static.

Swearing ensued and we all stepped back for a while as he and my father proceeded to attempt to solve the issue, the failure to launch, and after a few more, I said aloud “it’s supposed to be on channel three”.  They switched the television channel and I corrected them again before they attempted another demonstration bound to fail that it was the channel on the VCR that needed to be on three to sounds of derision and “kids..”.  A second successful attempt later and we were firmly as a family in the future.

This feeling was not new to us.  Our family were one of the first to own colour television, first to own a microwave, in my small city hometown.  We like new things always have, whether we were suited to be able to comprehend their proper use or not.  Hell, my grandfather even tried to create new technical devices in his workshop, melding one appliance with another, often with sparks and disastrously messy results.

Up until this time, for a good year before, we had rented a VCR at a cost of $25 a weekend from Clark Stuarts Furniture which existed a block from our home in a small city in southeast Ontario.  For that price we received a unit and all  cabling along with four movies for three nights.  Late charges were $5 or $10 depending on how late you were, though we never paid this due top my father’s friendship with someone at the store, which was good because most often we also rented a further couple of movies and rarely had them finished by the end of the weekend. Being notoriously cheap in some areas and crazy spendthrifts in others, the idea of saving $25 a week by spending $800 seemed logical at the time.

I had always watched many, many movies throughout the week, ever week from my very early years  for much of my younger life.  Having a player in our home only added to the volume of flicks to be reviewed by yours truly and I assure you I made full use of it.  I was able to record shows on late at night after I had gone to bed so long as nobody messed with the settings, which was never guaranteed given my father’s lack of technical abilities.  In the good old days, I owned two players thereby allowing me to rent movies that I truly loved and record them onto another.  Piracy was so innocent back then. Yar.

Over the years, I have probably owned and worn out five different VCRs of my own, the most recent being  maybe five years old.  In recent times, I have attempted with varying success to record TV shows but due to my lack of desire to purchase new video cassettes (can you still do that?) I have had to dig through boxes to find one, then another that still worked.  Last show recorded was River Monsters last May and it only was  partially watchable as the tape stopped recording after 30 minutes.  For the majority of the past four years the VCR has really only been a conduit for the Wii which had three colour RCA cabling and we had no more available ports into the televisions.  Poor VCR, it was merely a catalyst for my video gaming.

The new television is a gem, a joy, a forty inch flat screen wall mounted marvel, with a million inputs and we will be finally getting a PVR receiver for our dish signal.  There is therefore no need for a VCR conduit for gaming or a VCR for recording.  Its use, like my old Visor palm device, my pile of old cell phones, old remotes, cabling for defunct computer hardware, old printers, Sega Genesis and other sundry dead technology, is over.

Goodbye VCR.  I knew you well.

That being said, I am starting my second full novel.  Not the one I had planned as a comrade’s novel just released is borderline similar so I don’t want it to appear that I am riding is coattails.  So aside goes the vampire book and in its stead I shall work on one of two projects:

• First up, a 1985 era teen angst tale of slackers stuck in a small city

• Second choice a 1966 era horror novel set in California, on the beach primarily…yes, a surf-horror book

So, there you go. I should be spending every waking moment editing and instead I am pondering…

That is all

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