Last Saturday morning, Sheila was trimming my hair in the bedroom hoping to make me look more presentable for the WDRA AGM meeting the next Monday evening. We were still in our night clothes and half-way through the cutting when there was a frantic knock at the front door.
By the time Sheila got there, a neighbour was already inside muttering, “Emergency – the washroom”. He whipped past me sitting just outside the powder room, quickly shut the door almost taking off the front paw of our white cat. Peanut limped past Sheila just as she returned to resume my haircut. She finished about the same time as our neighbour finished too. Everything was okay, I guess, as he had a big grin on his face. We chatted there for a while and then he left but without leaving the proverbial quarter.
I was caught in a situation once, shortly after moving into a new house in Wasaga Beach. Arriving home late one night, I couldn’t wait and let it go in the back yard. Suddenly, a floodlight lit up at the back of the house next door. The lady came out, looked at me (I had not finished yet) and said, “Oh my!” For weeks afterwards I wondered what her expression implied; astonishment, disappointment or nothing at all?
Another incident happened in town while working part-time for the drugstore. I overheard some of the girls discussing their preferences for men’s colognes. One held the other’s attention when she related about ‘Yves Saint Laurent’ with its smooth sweet scent. She said, “If I come home and hubby has it on, I get woozy and we usually end up in the bedroom.” Interesting I thought! After clocking out, I bought a bottle and on the way home, splashed it on face, even my wrists, fantasizing what would happen. Not only was there no reaction, I was only told I wearing too much after-shave. Bliss for one man can be poison for another!
If an occurrence or someone’s bizarre behaviour is unexpected, it is a surprise because you did not think that it was likely to happen. So many times I have been caught in such circumstances that I have come to always expect the unexpected.
One embarrassing incident was as a maintenance buyer for Wellesley Hospital in Toronto. I worked on the second floor of the ‘Steam Plant’ while inventory was in the basement, where I happened to be at this particular time. Noticing something partially protruding under a rack of shelves, I leaned down and looked under the rows. It was then I noticed a man staring at me. I let out a blood-curdling scream that two employees from the second floor heard and they raced down to where I was. Still in panic mode and hunched over, I had to wait until composed to tell them about the intruder. Upon investigation, they discovered a mirror had been lodged upright between back-to-back bins. A reflection of my own self had scared the wits out of me. The guys found it so hilarious of course and the news spread around the hospital like a virus.
One friend told me how he turned the tables on a greedy merchant some years ago with a $1,000 bill he had, which were in circulation then, unlike today. He had stopped for gas and pulled his credit card out for payment. The merchant said cash only. The friend put up a protest to no avail but then chuckling to himself pulled out the ‘big bill’ from his wallet and laid it on the counter. The merchant said, “I can’t make change for that.” My guy said, “Too bad for you!” The merchant reaching under the counter for his credit terminal said, “For you, I’ll make an exception.” Apparently, he was reluctant to pay the transaction fees for processing customer transactions.
Albert Einstein preferred his laboratory work to being on the speaker’s circuit. One night, he mentioned this to his chauffeur (who somewhat looked and resembled Einstein). His chauffeur said. “I’ve heard you give this speech so many times, I’ll bet I could give it for you.” Einstein laughed and said, “Why not? Let’s do it!” So Einstein donned the chauffeur’s cap and jacket and sat in the back of the conference room . The chauffeur gave a beautiful rendition of Einstein’s speech and even answered a few questions expertly. Just then a pompous professor asked an unexpected esoteric question about antimatter formation. Without missing a beat, the chauffeur said, “Sir, the answer to that question is so simple that I will let my chauffeur, who is sitting in the back, answer it for me.”
The unexpected can be appalling at times but all the positive surprises outweigh the bad and do bring so much pleasure and interest to a person’s otherwise trifling life.
