I WAS HIM ONCE...

MY SON HAD A BAD WEEK.

Report card. Not good. And a secretive element involved, deciding not to tell Dad until the very last moment before teacher/parent/student interviews.

This despite assurances, when he was with me (mom and dad are split) that all was well, he was making school first priority, girlfriend, singing in band and other things second.

Anger. Frustration. Reaming out. Disappointment. Mucho sadness. His pledge to do better beyond words, but to be shown in actions and results. And, finally, acceptance.

And, the day after, acceptance by me...that I was a teenaged doofus too. And that I have to now make sure he knows...

--that I skipped class in kindergarten to go tree-climbing.

--that I was the class clown in Grade 7, suspended for pulling teacher's dress down

--that I failed Grade 10 French and had to go to summer school

--that I almost failed typing because I didn't do one assignment until the last week of the school year, when my mom forced me to do it

--that I was a 50s and 60s (marks) kinda guy until Grade 11

And he needs to know that, given my own experience as a professional world-class teenaged doofus, things can be turned around if there's the intention and try to do that.

And that in the end, A's or F's won't change the beautiful person he is.

THINGS AT WORK THAT CAN KILL YOU

I've wiped out and almost gotten myself killed racing a pallet truck around in an ice cream plant I used to work in.

I've cut my hands many times cutting the fins off of northern pike, pickerel and other fish at a packing plant I worked at in northern Manitoba.


I've been hit from behind when I was a truck-driver and stepped on rusty nails while hauling stuff around. I just about puked cleaning up the washrooms when I worked as a janitor.

And I almost blew myself up filling up machines with gas at an equipment rental place where I had a job.


Now, as a journalist, the biggest workplace dangers are breaking a nail on my keyboard, losing my vision staring at a computer screen or developing sciatica due to poor sitting posture.

But I've noticed in the last couple of months that I'm terror-ridden in the office by something that almost certainly could never hurt me, really, because I've never touched it in the 10 years I've been there.

It's this. It's a paper-cutter. The old kind. Guillotine style.

Chop Chop.

The thing is old. It's green. And it's been sitting on the printer station table where we all print up copies of stuff we need for as long as I can remember.

Never bothered me before. Just another object.

Now, I can't get it out of my mind. It's not that I have dreams about it...I have waking images, when I'm in the office, of my fingers getting cut off by it.

It's gross. I can't explain it. It's almost a phobia.

What phobias do you have with whatever objects you work with?

What unrealistic fears do you have about the pencil sharpener, water cooler, dying plant in the corner or what have you?

Or how dangerous is your job, anyway? As dangerous as mine?

I'M THINKING...(THE SEQUEL)

THIS BEING A POLITICALLY CORRECT AND GENDER-NEUTRAL BLOG, I HAVE TAKEN A DECISIVE STEP IN THE INTERESTS OF SEXUAL EQUALITY.

First, if only as a token gesture, the type is in pink, showing my feminine side.

Second, I am wearing high heels and dark red lipstick as I write it, which I normally wear only for Homo Escapeons.

This post is a sequel to the one before it and both, including comments, should be read to understand the need for the sequel.

The original talked about how I was thinking, and as such focused on my male brain.

But some females -- regular visitors, but also new ones -- wondered about shoes, knitting yarn and other feminine things they could not find on my male brain diagram.

Some wondered what THEIR brains might look like, similarly dissected and analysed.

Others made huge leaps and assumptions, some even referring to how they regularly accomplish world domination of males by strategically using parts of their female brains.

All, in my view, seemed to feel excluded from the process as I simply scratched my head and thought, only with my male brain, which some would say has its limitations.

Today, I have commissioned the brain surgeons who operate my blog to design an illustration of the human female brain that could be compared on an equal basis with the male brain.

Without further comment, snickers, laughter, sneering, sexual arousal or any other show of emotion or opinion, I now reveal, in the interests of equality for both genders, the male AND female brains.

At the moment, we see no need for a prequel, but we reserve that right in the future.

I'M THINKING...

THIS COULD TAKE A WHILE...