One of my absolute favourite regulars is who we call the Matcha Man. He comes in and gets a large Match Tea Latte every Sunday morning before we get busy. He isn’t particularly social, chatty, and he doesn’t exactly feel the need to small talk while his drink is made. This is nice in the morning because my co-worker and I , to be frank, aren’t all that social first thing in the morning either. The Matcha Man comes in every weekend, and he is still shrouded in mystery.

We decided last week that when he came in, we’d give him his drink for free, just for the hell of it. His drink isn’t cheap, and it can be nice to have one on the house every now and again. So, as we saw him walking towards the shop, I began making the large Matcha Tea Latte, and my co-worker went about informing him that his was on us today. He smiled, and said thanks, then waited, and as I passed him his drink he said: “you guys, must have known that it’s my birthday, thank you! This is wonderful!”

We had no clue it was his birthday, we just thought we’d do something nice, and it turned out to be better than we could have planned.

We were laughing and talking about the logistics of getting on the bus when an older woman looked up from where she was loading her trunk and asked to clarify that we were going to bus with all that stuff. I replied telling her that we were, and she said that she could fit us in the car. We were still waiting for my other friend to pick up her sweater for the third time, as it fell out of her overflowing bags several times, when the lady said to put our stuff in her trunk. My friend and I exchanged a glance, and trying not to laugh, we loaded her trunk with our stuff, his face was red with concealed laughter and we placed our bags and boxes in the back.

He sat up the front and my other friend and I were in the back, we talked to the kind woman driving us about where we had come from and what we were studying at university. She took a wrong turn at one point and we were going over gravel on a blocked off construction street and she kept saying, “oh shit, I should have known they were working on here. Hmm, crap, we’ll have to take another road. Sorry, I just swore didn’t I”.

She was an incredibly nice woman, and the ride was hilarious and took way longer than we thought it would, which made it a little awkward when we ran out of things to talk about, but we made it back in one piece, and it was a lot faster and more convenient than taking the bus laden with all of the stuff that we have somehow crammed into our tiny dorms.

Thank you Walmart lady for both the ride and the entertainment!

I forgot how much energy kids have, and my cousins, being 5 and 7 were like the energizer bunny, nonstop and all over the place. On day one, on the way to the park I realized that in order to survive this, I’d be needing a lot of caffeine, so we stopped in at the coffee shop, and I told the girls they could choose a cookie or something to eat for when we got to the park.

Sasha, my younger cousin began jumping up and dow and pointing at the pink lollipop, saying “can I have the pink one, look, Cheryl look! It’s piiiiiiiiiiink!”

Meanwhile, Holly, whose seven was looking at each of the options in the display case and carefully figuring out which makes the most sense and all that. I reach the front of the line, order my coffee and the pink lollipop, and Holly at this point has decided on the ginger cookie after carefully reading and sounding out the name, making sure that she really likes that one.

Sasha is still jumping and pointing, and her eyes go huge as the man behind the counter hands her the lollipop. “Cheryl, look, it’s so piiiiink! Yum, yum, can I eat it? It’s so loverly! You have icky coffee, and I have the pink!”

Holly tells me to save hers for the park, and  after a few licks Sasha allows me to put hers in the bag as well. I thank the man behind the counter and he says “Good luck today, have fun at the park!”

So, we go up to a coffee shop a few blocks from home and stake out a table, guzzle coffee and cram stuff into our brains. However, around mid-day during one of our study sessions, the back door of the coffee shop opened and about 4 guys wearing tuxedoes, a bride and three bridesmaids came in followed by a photographer. They proceeded to buy coffees and take photos sitting at the tables, in front of the cafe, and holding various breads and bars up.

This was a distraction we never thought we’d experience in a coffee shop of all places. Turns out the bride used to study there, as my sister and I were attempting to do, and seeing as they had time to kill before the ceremony they went off to take photos and remember the simple times of forced learning in the coffee shop prior to starting another chapter of their lives.

We were standing outside, not far from the door, just killing time till the next band started, when a taxi pulled up, and we watched this extremely drunk girl’s friends try to put her in it. They were in the process of loading her in, she looked passed out to be frank, when the cab driver said he wasn’t taking her home. One of the other girls started to get really angry, blame it on the drinks if you like, but started yelling at the driver none-the-less. The door was still open, and the girl half draped in the car, the other girl yelling and carrying on, until she slapped him.

She slapped the cab driver, so what did he do? Called the cops. It just so happens that the venue was about ten blocks from the police station by the Cambie street bridge, so they arrived almost instantly. Two cop cars, people slowly began to scatter, trying to look inconspicuous and disguise their obvious drunkenness. Everyone was ushered back into the building, followed shortly by the cops IDing people. My friend and I slipped out and up the road before getting in any sort of trouble. Although, the girl and the cab driver were both questioned, and the charges of assault were dropped. What a strange night.

He says: “Where do babies come from?”

He watches a lot of movies about animals in the wild, which include births and the growing up of animals like tigers and cheetahs, so it didn’t seem that far fetched that he would be curious.

He asks again: “Why does a baby grow in your tummy? Is that where babies come from?”

Me: “Pretty much, if you imagine there is a seed in a mummy’s tummy, so when they daddy waters it, it grows.”

“Then you poop it out?”

“Not quite”

“Does it come out your belly button?”

“Between your bum and belly button!”

“Your wee-wee?”

“Your what?”

“Your peenie!”

“Girls and mummy’s don’t have those”

“Oh, then that’s why girls can’t pee standing, right?”

“Yeah”

“Boys are better then”

“Ok”

“Will my tummy grow with a baby?”

“Not quite, you’d have to water the seed, not grow it.”

“Oh, will I grow these?” as he asks this he pokes my boob

“Nope, that’s another mummy thing too”

“I saw a man with those! He had a ball for a belly!”

“Yeah, boys grow them sometimes if they get really big bellies”

“I don’t want a big belly”

“That’s good then”

“How does the seed grow?”

“What?”

“Turn the page already! I already looked at the picture!”

“Ooooh, back to the book…”

Panago Dude: “Thanks for calling Panago, can I please start with your phone number”

Me: (insert phone number here)

PD: “And now your name”

Me: “Cheryl”

PD: “Thanks Cheryl, can I please have your address?”

Me: (insert address)

PD: “We don’t seem to have that on file. Perhaps you mean the address on 23rd?”

Me: “Nope, I’m on 20th.”

PD: “Well, we don’t have that on file.”

Me: “The other address is my friend’s place”

PD: “We do have an address for 59th”

Me: “Nope, I’m on 20th, that’s my school’s address”

PD: “Well, I’m unable to add anymore locations to your account. Perhaps I can delete one?”

Me: “Ok, you can get rid of the school address then.”

Darcy: “Hurry up and order the damn pizza!”

We continued to talk like this as he went through my previous orders and tried to add in things instead of accepting that I just wanted a medium Mediterranean pizza

We’d made it safely around some corners and had ventured up and down the gears when we came to a stop sign. A stop sign isn’t usually all that daunting, you stop, wait for people, then drive. However, what ended up happening was stopping, then jerking forward and stalling the car. The few people who were stopped behind us gave up and drove around, until the cop car showed up.

She got out of her car, and walked up to my window, tapping it gently. I quickly unwound it, and looked up at her, fear and discomfort displayed across my face. She asked what the problem was and dad explained that it was my first time driving a standard, and that the clutch was proving to be hard to learn. Her face showed her understanding, and she told me to put on the hazard lights, so people would know to just go around. I thanked her, and she returned to her vehicle and drove around me and the leaping then stalling car.

Eventually, I gave up and just told dad to drive, it wasn’t working for me. He got in and the car stalled as he attempted to start driving. It was then that we realized the car had been in gear 3 the entire time, not one.

I could hear some guys talking up ahead, and saw one dash across the sidewalk, and begin peeing on the tree by the side of the road. His friends were laughing and talking, until one shouts “holy shit, someone’s coming!” I shook my head to myself, and continued to approach them, planing to just sped up and advert my eyes as I walked past.

Suddenly, one of his friends leapt up, and tackled him from behind, pinning him into the snowy ground. The guy in the ground started screaming out and the other guy stood up and brushed off the little bit of snow which was on him. His buddies called over “can you believe they’re still single?” as I walked past attempting to hide my laughter.

“Pasta?” the boy said, looking at me.

“Pardon?” I replied.

“Is that pasta in your bag?”

“No… cinnamon buns actually…”

“Oh, that’s cool, where are they from?”

He proceeded to ask me questions, which I was happy to answer, I felt bad for him to be about 10-12 years old and bussing alone. I was surprised first of all that I was having a conversation with a stranger on the bus, and they didn’t think I was crazy, and secondly when the lady sitting across from me chimed in, and it became apparent that her and the boy knew each other.

This newly discovered relation (to me at  least) led to a very forced conversation about cooking, and the lady’s obsession about spices. She explained that cooking and swimming were her hobbies, the boy agreed, saying that he loved swimming and drawing. Then they turned to me, and said “what are your hobbies? People nowadays don’t have enough hobbies. What do you do?”

I felt slightly as though I was under interrogation, but also knew that I was getting off in about three minutes, so I just had to stall until then. I explained that I knit, somewhat compulsively. The lady brightened up at this, and asked if I knew how to cast on because she didn’t know how to start or finish, only the middle part. Hoping to avoid the awkwardness of her potentially asking me to teach her, I explained that I usually get my mum to cast on for me.

The lady thanked me, introduced herself, as did the boy, then they explained that this was there stop, I smiled, hiding my grimace as I realized that it was also mine…

They stood up and were the first out the door, as they got off, I stood up and ran the opposite direction and up an alleyway. May seem extreme, but being interrogated about hobbies, food and cooking on the bus is something I can take in small doses, and walking home with them seemed a little too crazy for me.