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.