Kathryn McLeod

“THAT LOOKS GOOD ON YOU – YOU SHOULD BUY IT!”

by Kathryn McLeod

Each issue of Galaxy Brain will contain one chapter of Kathryn McLeod’s fantastic book, ” THAT LOOKS GOOD ON YOU–YOU SHOULD BUY IT! This is the second installment:

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Chapter Two

Is That Your Penis Touching My Nose Or Are You Just Happy To Be Riding the Bus

“An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered.” G.K. Chesterton

“Either I was phuck wasted last night or I saw a Thai woman pull a live bird, 2 turtles, razors, shoot darts and ping pong, all out of her pu$$y.” Rihanna

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And so the next day I headed downtown again, this time in my cranberry/black outfit, and with my resume in a shiny red purse that my mother had passed on to me back in the 80s when she was trying to dress me for an eventual perch atop the corporate ladder.

A crisp white shirt, tailored navy blue suit, proper shoes (and underwear), accented with a shiny red purse that said, “That’s right, I may dress like a man, but I’m still a woman, as you can see by my shiny red purse.”

It could still happen, a perch atop the corporate ladder, although more likely to her than to me.

The shiny red purse didn’t match my peacock blue snowmobile boots – or pubic hair, either, if you’re wondering – but I didn’t think about that until I found myself staring down at it – my purse – for the twenty minute bus ride that’s never less than forty. And that’s after waiting at least a half hour beyond the time posted on the schedule. All of which meant that, unless I wanted to be fired before the end of my first week for chronic lateness, I’d have to give myself a good hour and fifteen minutes for what should have been a twenty minute commute after a two minute walk to the bus stop.

But I should count myself lucky because Steverino knows a guy who got fired from a restaurant dishwashing job before he even had a chance to be late even once, thanks to public transit. It was on the eve of the Great Ottawa Bus Strike (GOBS), winter 2008/09, and he’d just given up his car, which he couldn’t afford anymore, and adjusted down to becoming a bus person. As he headed out the door of the restaurant after his shift, still pleased with his sound economic decision, his boss said, “There’s no way you’ll make it in tomorrow now that there’s a bus strike, so I may as well fire you right now. I need a dishwasher who can get to work on time.”

I myself was on what’s known as a casual government contract (90 days) at the time of GOBS, but at public servant pay, not agency pay, and ended up doing an on foot commute that took an hour and a half one way, an hour and a quarter the other.

Shifting winds?

You’d be amazed, too, by how many women on hearing about my commute expressed the envious sentiment that I’d lose weight thanks to GOBS, even though I’m 5’5” and 110 lbs.

Or maybe you read women’s magazines and wouldn’t be amazed at all.

Fortunately, my boss was an actual real life princess highly placed in the royal line of succession of a tiny village located somewhere in Burkina Faso, and she insisted I eat a second breakfast after arriving to work and a pre-dinner before setting out again, so horrified was she by my pedestrian circumstances.

So I ate brunch, lunch, and lupper in a federal government building cafeteria, where the food was actually quite good, and I managed to break even weight-wise and still make enough money that it was worth it.

That’s with muscling through a bout of swine flu, too, I’m pretty sure.

(Obviously, if I’d known I had swine flu, and I don’t know that I did, I wouldn’t have continued going to work. But being on a casual contract meant I had to take time off to go to the doctor, and taking time off to go to the doctor meant taking time off getting paid, so I didn’t. And sure, we’re supposed to get annual flu shots. But it’s surprising how much easier it is to be a good citizen when you get time off to be one.)

But back to my commute in to Chestertons.

I was staring down because I’d forgot to bring the book I was reading, Unless, which is a book that was started by Carol Shields and published posthumously, having been completed by her daughter. It’s about the mother of a young woman who leaves her university student life and the apartment she shares with her boyfriend to sit catatonic on a downtown Toronto street corner holding a sign that has “Goodness” written on it.

It was a drag not having a book because after many years of taking the bus I’ve learned that avoiding eye contact with other people also taking the bus is as good as it will ever get on the bus, and to always have a book handy for that very purpose. Plus, I have a terrible knack for making wrong time/place eye contact because I’m egalitarian in my eye contact but I travel in circles that can result in a lot of irksome encounters with people whose circumstances are such that they’re riding the bus in the middle of the day.

And yes, I see the irony in the previous statement.

So there go I and my shiny red purse, seated beside a young man who appears to be on his way to do battle in a snowy jungle, young gentlemen’s fashions being what they are in these days of mass self-expression. Then another young man gets on, also dressed like he’s off to do battle in a snowy jungle, and stands next to me. And he’s kind of leaning in to where I’m sitting because the bus is crowded for early afternoon, the previous bus having been a no-show.

It’s a frequent occurrence, the no-show bus, and it’s all in the name of efficiency for somebody somewhere, I’m sure, just not anybody who relies on the bus to get from point A to point B within a reasonable amount of time, or even an unreasonable amount of time.

Now, normally, it wouldn’t have been a problem, the latest passenger’s crotch being at eye level, except that this passenger’s zipper was undone and if he was wearing underwear it wasn’t covering his penis very well. And every time the bus driver hit the brakes for a stop or the gas for a start, and it was like Nervous Rex was at the wheel, the passenger whose crotch was at my eye level, swerved in so that the tip of his penis almost touched the tip of my nose.

It was awkward, and I’ve been married, and to someone I didn’t like very much, or he me, and yet we still made three kids together. But it was the bus, so it could always get more awkward.

“Jake? Hey! Jake? Is that you, man?”

“Hey, how ya doin’, Carl? I heard you were in jail, man. Did ya bust out?”

“Nope, did my time, man. It’s bullshit, but whaddarya gonna do? Julie hooked up with some other guy while I was in jail, though, so I guess that’s over. She was kind of a bitch, but I miss her. Well, I miss having her around. For food and stuff.”

“Yeah, she’s tough, man. Julie. I dunno. You might be better off. She wasn’t just kind of a bitch, she was, like, a Bitch. Capital B. Guess she took the kids, too, eh?”

“Yeah, that’s okay. They’re mostly hers. She sold my truck, though. I was gonna drive out west, maybe to Fort Mac. Lots of jobs there, eh, but now I gotta stay here. There’s nothin’. What’s up with you, man? You join the army or somethin’?”

“Like they’d ever let me have a gun again. Hey dude, your dick’s practically touching this lady’s face. Holy jeez, tuck it in, man.”

“Aw, what the, I’ve been walkin’ around. Shit. Sorry, lady. What the hell. When did I last-”

“Dude, ya just got outta jail. You’ll be back in for exposure, man.”

At this point I was trying to re-read in my head what I’d managed to read already of Unless. It’s a book by Carol Shields that was posthumously published- oh wait, did I tell you that already? So while the eldest of a woman’s three daughters sits catatonic on a sidewalk with her “Goodness” sign, her mother drives from her home in Oakville to check up on her a couple of times a week, being careful not to be seen. I don’t why she’s careful not to be seen. I would have sat down beside her with a sign that had “More Goodierness” written on it.

I recommend Unless, especially if you’re a catastrophizing worrywart like me, with every imagining about the future lives of anyone and everyone you care about ending in horrific horribleness, and you’re second-guessing a sound and responsible decision to not have kids.

Then Carl, whose penis I’ll never forget (just kidding, it was completely indistinguishable from any other penis I’ve seen on the bus) realized he’d missed his stop.

“Aw shit, man, I’m supposed to be meeting my dealer at that Tim Hortons!”

And with rushed goodbyes and more embarrassed apologies he darted to the side door to stand, awkwardly, until the next stop, because Nervous Rex at the wheel was also a bit of an asshole, and I was left alone with Jake of the Jungle.

“Sorry, lady. He just got out of jail. Guess he forgot how to do up his pants.”

Now, having told that story, I don’t want to give you the impression that every day is like this on the #2, because I’m not on the #2 every day. Perhaps days I’m not on the #2 no one sees a penis at all. And I don’t want to give the impression that I’m a snob, either, even if I am, because it’s not just me who deserves better public transit, it’s all of us who do up our pants. Or at least have the courtesy to wear underwear if we don’t.

One thing’s for sure, though, you don’t have to worry about seeing a politician’s penis on the bus, because in all my years of bussing it in Ottawa I’ve never once seen a politician, let alone his penis, bussing it with me.

Anyway, about forty-five minutes after paying the fare I arrived at the mall. And unfortunately, my stop is on its down-and-out side, causing me to make my guilty way inside, guilty because instead of giving money to people who really need it, I did that thing we all do from time to time, or maybe always, and continued to avoid eye contact, as if it’s better to pretend people aren’t there at all than to nod hello.

(I should clarify here that I have learned to compartmentalize my guilt and don’t feel any for not making eye contact on the bus, but do feel guilty for not making eye contact on the down-and-out side of the mall. Did I mention it’s referred to as a luxury mall? That some jerk got the A-OK from council to plunk down between bus routes?)

Then I circled back and pretended to all and sundry that my purse was just for show, so empty, which of course it wasn’t. I just didn’t want to part with any bills, having dumped all my change in what Steverino calls his retirement fund. It’s an old plant pot in the hallway that’s halfway to full after a few years of both of us dumping change into it. It’d be all the way full but we take change back out again for newspapers and bus fare.

“What? This purse? Just for show. Cripes, you probably have more money than I do. My EI ran out months ago. Great while it lasted, though. Second highest salary of my life. Just on my way in to the mall for a job interview. Part-time, minimum wage retail, here I come! You’re working harder than they are up there on the Hill. Hey, how come you’re not on the Hill? You should go up there and ask, aw, never mind. I just remembered, MPs don’t have change because they never break a bill paying for anything out of their own pockets.”

Then I circled back again and gave $5 of karma to a gentleman I didn’t realize until my next shift was there every day passing out free newspapers, because that’s his job, a job for which he was paid the same minimum wage that I would be making for the next two years.

I’ve done worse. I gave change once to a woman I thought was panhandling but who was actually waiting in line outside the bar I’d just left, which is reason #1001 why I don’t drink anymore.

Geez Louise, it’s been fifty years since scientists got a man to the moon, and, like, twenty or thirty years since they got a woman to, well, not quite the moon, but – where the hell is my selective memory eraser? I mean, I don’t know about you, but every other day I find myself imagining how much better my life would be, how much more accomplished I’d feel, if, every time a humiliating memory surfaced I could just take my handy dandy selective memory eraser and <rub rub rub> poof!

Employee bag check in front of customers after every shift at Chestertons? What employee bag check in front of customers after every shift at Chestertons?

But that’s not until later. Right now, I’m headed in to the mall to find Chestertons again and have an interview for a job selling ladieswear.

Wish me luck!

Kathryn McLeod lives very frugally in Ottawa where she continues to be a sporadically employed office temp. Although a professional disappointment to her late mother, who enjoyed a physician assisted death a year or so ago, her office temp tales were always a big hit with her late mother’s dining companions when she would visit her seniors’ residence in Sault Ste. Marie, which she did dutifully twice per year – on her mother’s dime. But it was when she landed a much needed job selling ladieswear at the mall that her tale-telling reached a whole ‘nother level with her mother’s dining companions until, finally, even her late mother joined the chorus, “You have to write a book about that place!” Normally, this would have resulted in Kathryn NOT writing a book, about anything, ever, because, for whatever reason, she simply could not seem to do what her mother wanted. But then, as fate would have it, Arlene, who worked in “Chestertons”, said, “I should write a book about this place”, to which Kathryn replied, with commitment so absolute she actually did it, “No – I should write a book about this place”. And thus was “That Looks Good on You – You Should Buy It!” brought into the world. Enjoy. And remember, we’re all in this together, wasting our lives working for money so that when we’re old we can hang around and get in the way of younger people wasting their lives working for money. And so on and so forth and more of the same etc etc.