Hidey-ho, Neighbourino.

--- Karen Rhodes  wrote:

> >And first thing tomorrow morning I'm going to start bitching about
> >whoever won of course.
> 
> Damn right you will -- you've got your gripe ticket punched, Bubba!
> You can complain all you want.

Gaw-demndest thing.  I got a prime oppurtunitee to get off to an
early start.  

I'm sitting here along about mid-afternoon trying to figure out the
best way to waste time and defray boredom, and Sheila gets a phone
call from the scrutineer she worked with.  We were invited to a
reception for the people who worked the polls and at which the
Premier-elect hisself was gonna be.  Well, Hell, Sheila gets all
excited over those sorts of things and she didn't have a clue about
where this civic center was (t'aint her home town), so of course I
was bounden as a dutiful husband to schlepp her over there and then
of course to stand by her side.

So, off we's go and we get inside nice and early and I crack open my
book.  (Yes, you read that right.  I'm starting to bring a book to
parties now; I didn't know anybody there anyway.)  Well, a couple of
glasses of wine and a few canapes into this shinding I see a tray
this with a bunch of finger sandwiches and I think to myself, "damn,
they cut off the nails; what's a finger sandwich without the crunchy
part?"  But, lo and behold, a nice little benefit to life.  Smoked
Salmon was amongst the lot. 

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.  Smoked saaaaaaaaalmooooooooon.  

And then the next thing you know, after I found a nice little corner
and had scanned a couple of pages, there's this big burst of noise
and cheering from over by the door.  Well, figuring correctly that
Mr. Charest was now in the premises I maneuvered over to where I
could get a good shot of the stage with the camera.  No, it really
was a camera.  Sheila wanted some photographs.  In fact she had
brought along a recent family photograph to get his autograph on.

After due time I checked my watch and I see it's taken him fifteen
minutes to travel the ten meters or so from the door to the edge of
the stage, and then I notice him turn away from the stage.  "Now
what?" says I to myself.  "Don't tell me he's working the room." 
Watch group of well wishers; see him turn back towards the stage. 
"Oh good; there he goes."

"Oh crap!" I think, as he starts moving along the front of the stage.
 "He is working the room!  Jesus!  Quick!  HIDE!

"What?  Hide?  Like hell!  If anybody has to watch what he's doing
it's him, not me!

"Oh, yeah?  So what are you gonna do when he gets to you, buddy?"

Well, that last one was a real stumper and I stood there trying to
figure out exactly what I was going to do because I had made up my
mind that I sure as hell wasn't going out of my way to avoid anybody.
 And while I'm trying to figure it out he keeps getting closer and
closer and I keep telling myself "don't bloody move, laddie!", and
then there's one last chance of a repreive as it looks as if he's
going to turn the other way but then he turns back toward me and
sticks out his hand.

Grasp hand.  "I'm going to be watching you, Mr. Charest."

Threw the poor guy right off his stride.

Now I don't blame him.  You go to a party where everybody is cheering
and congratulating you and lionizing you and then all of a sudden you
run into me.  Hell, that would send shivers up my spine.  And of
course my response was so out character for the zeitgeist that he
didn't know how to handle it.  He must of thought to himself, "What? 
What's that he's saying?  That's not a happy sound!  Aigh!  My brain
can't process this input!"  So he says, "Uh, . . . thank you."  And
on to the next guy.

And finally he finishes working the room and gets up on stage and I
get the shots I was waiting for.  Then I found a nice spot well
beyond the periphery of the crowd, but there was too much cheering
and noise for his speech for me to get any reading done.  So, say's I
to myself, what would Homer Simpson do in this situation?  So I just
let my mind wander freely while I snarfed down a bunch more finger
sandwiches.  And as an added bonus by this time Smoked Salmon was all
that was left.

Oh, yeah.  Sheila had fun.

=====
Did you ever hear anyone say, "That work had better be 
banned because I might read it and it might be very 
damaging to me"? --Joseph Henry Jackson

>From the Lair of Fang-Face DreamWeaver
and The Encyclopedia Michael Nellis
http://www.angelfire.com/scifi/dreamweaver/index.html

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