serves two

My frozen meal: Contains two servings.

Me: Well, I disagree with that.

our French teacher

My brother and I had the same French teacher. The teacher gave an assignment, to draw the classroom and label all the objects in French.

Our French teacher happened to have a receding hairline. My brother drew a caricature of our teacher, with the classroom reflected in his forehead. He did label several things.

They had a parent-teacher conference to discuss respect, and my father assured our teacher that the boy would be disciplined. At the end of the conference, my father requested to have the drawing.

Dad left the school laughing. My brother was never punished. And that drawing ended up on the refrigerator.

The Luge

Jerry Seinfeld has a great bit, about "the involuntary luge".

My family had a luge. My older brother was great at it. It's more complicated than it looks. It's not just a sled, even though it resembles one. To go left, you have to lean right. To go right, you have to lean left. You can also flex the runners, which was a skill I never mastered.

When I finally got my turn, I crashed that luge. I flew off, and smacked my face. Luckily, I was wearing a toque for protection. Blood came pouring out. A man picked me up, and carried me up the hill, dragging the luge behind him. He tried to find my parents, but instead located my brother, who probably recognized the luge before he recognized me. My nose was bleeding so hard, I had blood coming out of my mouth. My brother took me into his arms and said, "Yeah, she sucks at luge."

our social studies teacher

My brothers and I often ended up with the same teachers. Our school wasn't big, and we were close in age. I had to deal with their antics.

Our social studies teacher imposed a rule: No eating in class.

My brother raised his hand and asked, "What about water?"

Our teacher said, "OK, fine. You can have water."

My brother raised his hand again and asked, "What about juice?"

Our teacher said, "OK, fine. You can have juice."

My brother raised his hand a third time and asked, "What about smoothies?"

Our teacher was now getting frustrated, and said, "OK. FINE. You can have a smoothie. Let's just agree on the 'no food' rule. You can have whatever drink you want, just no food."

This satisfied my brother. And the next day, he showed up to class with smoothie ingredients and a blender.

Winter

At this time of year, I set my thermostat to -20 °C. That's money in the bank, right there.

I keep losing toques in my bed.

The Full Cameron.

One time, in the Math Club, my friend and classmate was changing to go play hockey. We had a Math Club team. He tried to pull down just his pants, but ended up pulling down everything, giving me "The Full Cameron".

Our hockey team was mostly ringers. Collectively, we were not an athletic bunch.

Cameron is now an excellent lawyer, and hasn't flashed his genitals since 2005.

The Full Monty.

When "The Full Monty" came out, most of my classmates were forbidden from seeing it. My class was full of Mormons.

While we were at our ski cabin, my mother took me to the local general store, and told me I could pick out any movie.

I chose "The Full Monty".

My mother had never heard of the movie, and asked my uncle, "Is she allowed to watch this?"

He said, "Oh sure. Nothing wrong with that. Just a bunch of male strippers."

She didn't pick up on the sarcasm, and probably didn't hear the entire sentence. I was allowed to watch the movie.

I briefly worked for my father.

He put me on a project called, Fully Automated Relay Testing System

And he laughed, saying, "Now you can put FARTS on your resume!"

He kept laughing. He laughed so hard, I was worried we would have to take him to the hospital.

driver's license

I have to get my driver's license renewed.

I am frequently mistaken for a man, because I look like a man. It doesn't offend me, I just roll with it. Recently, a friend gave me a haircut, and made me look even more like a man. Picture Tig Notaro, except less attractive. And less talented.

Anyway. The driver's license. I sure hope they also renew my gender.

The Winter Olympics

My father is a major fan of the Winter Olympics. When I was a kid, we didn't have cable tv. We did have crappy "bunny ears" antennae, which got us the CBC, but it required one of us (for technical reasons, it had to be a child) to stand behind the tv and hold the antennae. 

Every four years, my father would build a giant antenna, that went out the back door, wrapped around the house, came in through my bedroom window, and then went back to the tv. It worked! We got three channels clearly and could watch the Olympic games. Of course, we couldn't lock the house up properly, because we couldn't close the back door. Quoth my father, "Whatever."

We generally left our house unlocked anyway.

During the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, we watched Herman Maier crash spectacularly on the men's slalom. I regret that I didn't think of the perfect thing to say until 20 years later: "Oh, the Hermanity!"

A few hours after that event, the power went out. Dad was initially distraught and furious, then loaded us kids and a generator into his truck, and drove to our grandparents house. They had cable, but had also lost power. He used the generator to run the tv. And we left our house unlocked.

the toonie

When the toonie first came out, it featured Queen Elizabeth on one side, and a polar bear on the other. Dad was excited to get home and show me. He ran up the stairs, and said, "Look! It's the Queen... with a bear behind!"

The Math Department.

When I was at UBC, studying math, some fancy board of directors decided to remove all the chalkboards and replace them with whiteboards.

The math professors were furious -the UBC math department has a reputation of being a bit stodgy. They launched a campaign to keep the chalkboards. They didn't want projectors, or whiteboards. They needed their old chalkboards. They referred to the chalkboards as "Weapons of Math Instruction".

It was successful. They got to keep their chalkboards.

Hobbies

 My current hobbies are:

-talking about how late I started puberty

-talking about how early I've entered menopause

-tooth decay

Why am I not getting any hits on dating apps?

education

Everything I know about reproduction, I learned from Bernard Kliban cartoons. I still don't understand how babies are made.

They tried to teach us in school, but as soon as they said, "When a man loves a woman very much..." I passed out.