Holiday in Cambodia
Jan. 10th, 2004 06:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_siobhanI think I'm fighting off the flu. Ugh. I'll be staying in tonight where it's warm.
Fortunately, my mother has passed down her infallable recipe for curing any manner of viral unhappiness. Hot tea with lemon, ginger, honey and big fuckoff slop of whiskey. Ain't no bug born that can mutate to resist that.
Anyway. Haven't been keeping up with a lot of you as regularily as I could -- too much other stuff going on these days. Which means I also haven't really been writing anything terribly interesting lately.
However, I am fully cognizant of the fact that I did say I was going to start writing down some of the sillier things that have happened to me. I've actually been recording this one since I finished the last one all those months ago, logging in to add a paragraph here and there, forgetting about it for weeks, then getting a long boring shift at work and adding a couple more.
It's a long bastard.
I've told you all about how I worked for SCOPE when I was a teenager. This story also has to do with my work for them.
Administration of the program was usually handled by the faculty of the high school, but during the the summer breaks the staff were all off site. So they gave some training to a student they trusted and during the summer months she was responsable for manning the phone and arranging the scheduling.
So it was this student who got a call from an elderly man I'll call Mr W and forwarded him on to me. The only reason I mention this is that I found out much later that he had also called during the school year. That time the adult who spoke to him had told him that they would not be sending somebody to his house. I don't know what red flags were raised, but they were missed by the less experienced person who sent him to me.
So anyway, I got the job of going and cleaning at Mr W's house. He was 81 years old, had adult children who wouldn't or couldn't help him with his chores and he needed somebody to do simple cleaning and dusting.
So I called him up to introduce myself. "Hi, my name is Yvonne and I'm calling from..."
"HELLO? HELLO? IS ANYBODY THERE?"
"Uh... Hi! My name is..."
"HELLO? WHO IS THIS? I'M 81, Y'KNOW."
I've since known a number of people who are hearing-impared and it doesn't phase me any more to be shouted at or to have to shout at them. But he was really deaf, and for a shy 16 year-old this was pretty disconcerting. I almost hung up, but I did eventually manage to make myself understood and we made plans for me to come over.
Once I met him he was very talkative, insisting that sit down with him at his kitchen table both before and after my work so he could tell me his life story. This was no great surprise, a lot of the folks I did work for were lonely. I did find it a little odd that an 81 year-old man would get so petulant if I failed to show enough enthusiasm for his war stories, but I chalked it up to living alone for too long.
So after a couple of weeks of this, he told me he wanted to hire me for an additional job.
He made a habit of going to a cottage every summer in the area of Ontario called Beaverton. Only this particular year his doctor had told him that he was not allowed to go without an additional driver because of his age. If I drove him up there and did some basic chores for him for the week, he offered to cover my expenses and pay me $X00.
Since this is one of my stories, y'all can tell right away that this is going to be a Really Bad Idea, right? But I was 16, and didn't know anything, and the money was a good chunk of what I was living on back then. I told him I would have to get back to him -- even though he pressured me for an answer right there, offering more and more money, I insisted that I had to go home and think it over. So I went home and consulted the girlfriend and the following week I told him I was in.
So on the afternoon of our departure I went to his house, packed his things in the car and we hit the road.
So at this point I'd only had my licence for a something like a few months, but Beaverton is only a couple of hours away from Toronto so I figured this would be an easy drive. I was also a little nervous when I saw his car -- one of those old 60's jobs that could seat more people than the apartment I had in University. I'm talking land-yacht here.
Still, once we got out of the city and away from pesky things like highway dividers notthatI'mgoingtoadmittoanything, I started to relax and enjoy myself. It was a gorgeous summer day, and I rolled down the window and opened up the throttle a little bit. Mr W wanted to stop frequently to stretch his legs, so we browsed the local shops and stopped at a grocery store to pick up supplies for the week. I did draw the line at letting him buy me clothes even though he pouted when I refused.
Country roads in Southern Ontario are scenic but they are never deserted. We were only about twenty minutes away from our destination when we passed a few of those big orange signs that let us know we were approaching construction. The road was sloping down so I could spot a road crew ahead of us with a stop sign and a line of cars waiting to pass. I tapped on the brakes to slow the car down a little.
Nothing happened.
I hit the brakes a little harder.
Nothing.
I grabbed the emergency brake.
Still nothing.
I looked over at Mr W. "PUT ON YOUR SEAT BELT." I yelled.
"WHY?"
"JUST DO IT. I'LL EXPLAIN LATER."
He fumbled with his seat belt. The road crew was getting really close now. I held my breath and threw the monster into park.
A noise came out from under the hood like a bag of running chainsaws falling down a flight of stairs. Then the car shuddered. And stopped dead.
Well, he heard that.
I started the car up again and crept slowly past the construction while Mr W scolded me for what I had just done to his car. He refused to believe my story about the brakes, so at his insistance I coasted to a stop along the side of the highway and let him take over the driver's seat. I put on my seatbelt, and we continued on our journey with him driving and bitching loudly about the irresponsibility of teenagers until we finally reached our turnoff. He turned the wheel and the car started to make the curve, then gave in to centrifigal force and gracefully launched itself off the road and into the ditch.
He stopped yelling at me then.
Rear-wheel drive and a strong back got us out of the ditch. He insisted on driving the rest of the way and there were a few more near misses but no more actual ditchings. I was still pretty farking relieved when we finally rolled up in front of the cottage where we were going to be staying.
The first night there was pretty uneventful. Our cottage was one of a row of almost identical buildings that ringed a small lake. We met the neighbours right away, since we were pretty much right on top of each other and spent some time chatting to them. Once it got dark we retreated to the cottage where we played cards around the kitchen table. Everything seemed to be going smoothly.
When I got up the next morning, Mr W was not in the cottage. He continued to be not in the cottage for the rest of the day. I wandered around the lake, discovered the cabins with the vacationing college kids, explored the woods, and spent a lot of time sitting on the dock reading. It was starting to get dark and I was actually starting to consider how best to pack my stuff if I was going to have to hitchhike home at the end of the week, when he finally showed up. He was dropped off by a tow-truck driver.
Around the kitchen table, I got the story of where he'd been. He had decided to bring his car into the shop without waking me, and on his way into town he had managed to completely drive off the road and land in the forest. And there he stayed, hidden by the trees and unable to get out of the car because the doors were held shut by brush. Hours later he was finally rescued by a passing farmer who towed him out of the woods.
I was half way between wanting to laugh and being completely horrified - it would have been hilarious if it had happened to me, but the guy was 81! I made him tea and made sympathetic noises whenever it seemed appropriate. He wanted to play cards again, so I dug out the deck and we played while he talked about what a rough day he had just had.
Then the weird front rolled in.
He asked me to kiss him.
...
What?
Um. No.
He pouted. He whined. He reminded me of how terrible his day had been. Her advised me that he was being very generous by paying me to come up there with him. He grew more insistant. He described in graphic detail exactly what he could do for (to) me that younger less experienced men could not. He promised that he knew that he could "give me a thrill."
I told him no. Told him he was being silly. Begged him to act his age. Refused over and over again.
All at the very top of our lungs, mind you.
Then he lurched to his feet and headed towards me. My brain immediately went out for lunch. I stared at him unbelieving as he approached. He was leaning towards me when my brain checked back in, looked around to see what was going on, then slammed on the adrenaline switch that jolted me out of my chair. I darted around the table. He followed. He couldn't move very fast, so I had no trouble keeping the table between us as he shuffled after me.
I walked slowly around the table over and over again, repeatedly imploring him to "SIT DOWN, MR W! YOU ARE GOING TO HURT YOURSELF. PLEASE SIT DOWN, THIS IS RIDICULOUS."
He finally ran out of breath and sat down.
He was indignant. Offended even. Didn't I know how good he was being to me? He could be even better to me if I let him.
The details of the rest of the evening is pretty much a blur to be honest, even though it seemed to go on forever at the time. I remember finally saying I'd had enough and retreating to my bedroom. The door had no lock and the first thing I did was shove the dresser against the door so that it couldn't be pushed open.
I sat on the bed, watching the doorknob turn and rattle, and I remember thinking to myself, "well, the hell with this".
It wasn't a very big window. But then I wasn't a very big teenager. I managed to fall off the cottage at one point -- some things never change -- and then I was walking along the laneway that curved around the lake. I could hear the faint music coming from the cottage where the college students were vacationing together, the perpetual party in full-swing.
That pretty much set the pattern for the rest of the week. During the day when people were watching, I was his granddaughter. In the evenings we traced long, slow, shuffling circles around the kitchen for hours. At midnight I shoved furniture against my door and fell out the window. One of the guys in the cottage would pick me up on the shore on his jet-ski and at dawn I would stumble home on foot, full of rum and pot and semen. Then I would fall on the bed for a few hours until Mr W banged on my door to make breakfast and the cycle started all over again.
I was releived as hell when the week finally ended. We picked the car up from the garage, packed all our gear into it and drove back to Toronto. He groused at me the entire way. Loudly.
When I had finished dragging his things into the house for him, he handed me an envelope full of cash. I counted it.
"There's less money in there than... oh, fuggit... THERE'S LESS MONEY IN HERE THAN WHAT YOU SAID YOU WERE GOING TO PAY ME."
He sniffed. "I WOULD HAVE PAID YOU MORE IF YOU HAD BEEN NICER TO ME."
Needless to say, I never went back to do any more dusting for Mr W.
And the phrase "to give [someone] a thrill" still makes my head go squish.
Fortunately, my mother has passed down her infallable recipe for curing any manner of viral unhappiness. Hot tea with lemon, ginger, honey and big fuckoff slop of whiskey. Ain't no bug born that can mutate to resist that.
Anyway. Haven't been keeping up with a lot of you as regularily as I could -- too much other stuff going on these days. Which means I also haven't really been writing anything terribly interesting lately.
However, I am fully cognizant of the fact that I did say I was going to start writing down some of the sillier things that have happened to me. I've actually been recording this one since I finished the last one all those months ago, logging in to add a paragraph here and there, forgetting about it for weeks, then getting a long boring shift at work and adding a couple more.
It's a long bastard.
I've told you all about how I worked for SCOPE when I was a teenager. This story also has to do with my work for them.
Administration of the program was usually handled by the faculty of the high school, but during the the summer breaks the staff were all off site. So they gave some training to a student they trusted and during the summer months she was responsable for manning the phone and arranging the scheduling.
So it was this student who got a call from an elderly man I'll call Mr W and forwarded him on to me. The only reason I mention this is that I found out much later that he had also called during the school year. That time the adult who spoke to him had told him that they would not be sending somebody to his house. I don't know what red flags were raised, but they were missed by the less experienced person who sent him to me.
So anyway, I got the job of going and cleaning at Mr W's house. He was 81 years old, had adult children who wouldn't or couldn't help him with his chores and he needed somebody to do simple cleaning and dusting.
So I called him up to introduce myself. "Hi, my name is Yvonne and I'm calling from..."
"HELLO? HELLO? IS ANYBODY THERE?"
"Uh... Hi! My name is..."
"HELLO? WHO IS THIS? I'M 81, Y'KNOW."
I've since known a number of people who are hearing-impared and it doesn't phase me any more to be shouted at or to have to shout at them. But he was really deaf, and for a shy 16 year-old this was pretty disconcerting. I almost hung up, but I did eventually manage to make myself understood and we made plans for me to come over.
Once I met him he was very talkative, insisting that sit down with him at his kitchen table both before and after my work so he could tell me his life story. This was no great surprise, a lot of the folks I did work for were lonely. I did find it a little odd that an 81 year-old man would get so petulant if I failed to show enough enthusiasm for his war stories, but I chalked it up to living alone for too long.
So after a couple of weeks of this, he told me he wanted to hire me for an additional job.
He made a habit of going to a cottage every summer in the area of Ontario called Beaverton. Only this particular year his doctor had told him that he was not allowed to go without an additional driver because of his age. If I drove him up there and did some basic chores for him for the week, he offered to cover my expenses and pay me $X00.
Since this is one of my stories, y'all can tell right away that this is going to be a Really Bad Idea, right? But I was 16, and didn't know anything, and the money was a good chunk of what I was living on back then. I told him I would have to get back to him -- even though he pressured me for an answer right there, offering more and more money, I insisted that I had to go home and think it over. So I went home and consulted the girlfriend and the following week I told him I was in.
So on the afternoon of our departure I went to his house, packed his things in the car and we hit the road.
So at this point I'd only had my licence for a something like a few months, but Beaverton is only a couple of hours away from Toronto so I figured this would be an easy drive. I was also a little nervous when I saw his car -- one of those old 60's jobs that could seat more people than the apartment I had in University. I'm talking land-yacht here.
Still, once we got out of the city and away from pesky things like highway dividers notthatI'mgoingtoadmittoanything, I started to relax and enjoy myself. It was a gorgeous summer day, and I rolled down the window and opened up the throttle a little bit. Mr W wanted to stop frequently to stretch his legs, so we browsed the local shops and stopped at a grocery store to pick up supplies for the week. I did draw the line at letting him buy me clothes even though he pouted when I refused.
Country roads in Southern Ontario are scenic but they are never deserted. We were only about twenty minutes away from our destination when we passed a few of those big orange signs that let us know we were approaching construction. The road was sloping down so I could spot a road crew ahead of us with a stop sign and a line of cars waiting to pass. I tapped on the brakes to slow the car down a little.
Nothing happened.
I hit the brakes a little harder.
Nothing.
I grabbed the emergency brake.
Still nothing.
I looked over at Mr W. "PUT ON YOUR SEAT BELT." I yelled.
"WHY?"
"JUST DO IT. I'LL EXPLAIN LATER."
He fumbled with his seat belt. The road crew was getting really close now. I held my breath and threw the monster into park.
A noise came out from under the hood like a bag of running chainsaws falling down a flight of stairs. Then the car shuddered. And stopped dead.
Well, he heard that.
I started the car up again and crept slowly past the construction while Mr W scolded me for what I had just done to his car. He refused to believe my story about the brakes, so at his insistance I coasted to a stop along the side of the highway and let him take over the driver's seat. I put on my seatbelt, and we continued on our journey with him driving and bitching loudly about the irresponsibility of teenagers until we finally reached our turnoff. He turned the wheel and the car started to make the curve, then gave in to centrifigal force and gracefully launched itself off the road and into the ditch.
He stopped yelling at me then.
Rear-wheel drive and a strong back got us out of the ditch. He insisted on driving the rest of the way and there were a few more near misses but no more actual ditchings. I was still pretty farking relieved when we finally rolled up in front of the cottage where we were going to be staying.
The first night there was pretty uneventful. Our cottage was one of a row of almost identical buildings that ringed a small lake. We met the neighbours right away, since we were pretty much right on top of each other and spent some time chatting to them. Once it got dark we retreated to the cottage where we played cards around the kitchen table. Everything seemed to be going smoothly.
When I got up the next morning, Mr W was not in the cottage. He continued to be not in the cottage for the rest of the day. I wandered around the lake, discovered the cabins with the vacationing college kids, explored the woods, and spent a lot of time sitting on the dock reading. It was starting to get dark and I was actually starting to consider how best to pack my stuff if I was going to have to hitchhike home at the end of the week, when he finally showed up. He was dropped off by a tow-truck driver.
Around the kitchen table, I got the story of where he'd been. He had decided to bring his car into the shop without waking me, and on his way into town he had managed to completely drive off the road and land in the forest. And there he stayed, hidden by the trees and unable to get out of the car because the doors were held shut by brush. Hours later he was finally rescued by a passing farmer who towed him out of the woods.
I was half way between wanting to laugh and being completely horrified - it would have been hilarious if it had happened to me, but the guy was 81! I made him tea and made sympathetic noises whenever it seemed appropriate. He wanted to play cards again, so I dug out the deck and we played while he talked about what a rough day he had just had.
Then the weird front rolled in.
He asked me to kiss him.
...
What?
Um. No.
He pouted. He whined. He reminded me of how terrible his day had been. Her advised me that he was being very generous by paying me to come up there with him. He grew more insistant. He described in graphic detail exactly what he could do for (to) me that younger less experienced men could not. He promised that he knew that he could "give me a thrill."
I told him no. Told him he was being silly. Begged him to act his age. Refused over and over again.
All at the very top of our lungs, mind you.
Then he lurched to his feet and headed towards me. My brain immediately went out for lunch. I stared at him unbelieving as he approached. He was leaning towards me when my brain checked back in, looked around to see what was going on, then slammed on the adrenaline switch that jolted me out of my chair. I darted around the table. He followed. He couldn't move very fast, so I had no trouble keeping the table between us as he shuffled after me.
I walked slowly around the table over and over again, repeatedly imploring him to "SIT DOWN, MR W! YOU ARE GOING TO HURT YOURSELF. PLEASE SIT DOWN, THIS IS RIDICULOUS."
He finally ran out of breath and sat down.
He was indignant. Offended even. Didn't I know how good he was being to me? He could be even better to me if I let him.
The details of the rest of the evening is pretty much a blur to be honest, even though it seemed to go on forever at the time. I remember finally saying I'd had enough and retreating to my bedroom. The door had no lock and the first thing I did was shove the dresser against the door so that it couldn't be pushed open.
I sat on the bed, watching the doorknob turn and rattle, and I remember thinking to myself, "well, the hell with this".
It wasn't a very big window. But then I wasn't a very big teenager. I managed to fall off the cottage at one point -- some things never change -- and then I was walking along the laneway that curved around the lake. I could hear the faint music coming from the cottage where the college students were vacationing together, the perpetual party in full-swing.
That pretty much set the pattern for the rest of the week. During the day when people were watching, I was his granddaughter. In the evenings we traced long, slow, shuffling circles around the kitchen for hours. At midnight I shoved furniture against my door and fell out the window. One of the guys in the cottage would pick me up on the shore on his jet-ski and at dawn I would stumble home on foot, full of rum and pot and semen. Then I would fall on the bed for a few hours until Mr W banged on my door to make breakfast and the cycle started all over again.
I was releived as hell when the week finally ended. We picked the car up from the garage, packed all our gear into it and drove back to Toronto. He groused at me the entire way. Loudly.
When I had finished dragging his things into the house for him, he handed me an envelope full of cash. I counted it.
"There's less money in there than... oh, fuggit... THERE'S LESS MONEY IN HERE THAN WHAT YOU SAID YOU WERE GOING TO PAY ME."
He sniffed. "I WOULD HAVE PAID YOU MORE IF YOU HAD BEEN NICER TO ME."
Needless to say, I never went back to do any more dusting for Mr W.
And the phrase "to give [someone] a thrill" still makes my head go squish.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-10 03:55 pm (UTC)man, but you have had some adventures.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-10 04:55 pm (UTC)The fact that he was 81 and not in a position to be really threatening is what keeps this story from being really creepy.
And you're still having bad luck with cars after more than 20 years. ;)
(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-10 05:00 pm (UTC)The fact that he was 81 and not in a position to be really threatening is what keeps this story from being really creepy.
Yeah, I would easily see it coming now -- at the time I was still trying to figure out how Normal People (whoever they are) behave and so how I could tell when something was wrong.
The worst part was knowing that if he did manage to corner me I couldn't hit him. He was too fragile.
And you're still having bad luck with cars after more than 20 years. ;)
Like I said, some things never change.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-10 05:48 pm (UTC)Keep them coming!
oh my lord...
Date: 2004-01-10 06:55 pm (UTC)this line:
One of the guys in the cottage would pick me up on the shore on his jet-ski and at dawn I would stumble home on foot, full of rum and pot and semen.
made me just about keel over. You should put these stories together in a book. This is some deeply funny shit.
into my 3rd read. still laughin. I think it is one of the best fucking posts I have read in years. ((stumbles off to take some asthma med... laughed too hard))
(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-10 09:29 pm (UTC)fabulous story. my life should be -half- as interesting as yours.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-01-11 12:03 am (UTC)ew?
When are you writing the book?