People have, in general, told me that they find Canadians friendly. That’s always nice to hear, because I know that even though I make lots of jokes about tourists, I normally don’t mind them and I don’t need to go out of my way to be rude to anyone. It’s not worth it.

But this guy who’s staying at the campground just. . . wow. I don’t know if he was kind of crazy or just overly friendly.

So, he comes into the store with his four kids in tow and they’re all pulling golf clubs out of the bucket. That’s fine. Then they wander around the store, with the golf clubs in tow, just looking around. Also, not a problem.

He picks up some items that he wants to buy; some swim goggles, marshmallows… his kids are all carrying around marshmallow sticks. He puts the goggles and bag of marshmallows on the counter, so I begin to ring them up.

Now my boss, when he’s here at night he likes to snack. So sitting on my side of the counter (we have a little wall thing, between us and the customer… like a tall ledge) are a bag of sunflower seeds. The guy reaches over and takes a handful, stuffing them into his mouth.

I was kind of unsure if that’s what I saw, well, it was more like disbelief. So I told myself he just had grabbed a pen or something he dropped.

He then goes over to the keychains, and picks up one that says “I [heart] NF”, and says out loud, “I LOVE NEWFOUNDLAND!”. I looked at him and corrected him, “It’s I love Niagara Falls“. But he insisted it was Newfoundland, and kept saying IT’S THE ROCK!

O_O Okay. I mean really, it could be Newfoundland. It doesn’t make any sense seeing as you’re in Niagara Falls, but hey, if you want it to be Newfoundland that’s fine by me.

He asks me where it was made. I told him I wasn’t sure and say it was probably made in China. Hhe wondered why I didn’t inspect the merchandise (jokingly). I told him that I just put it into the computer. So far, he’s paid for all his items except the keychain, I’m holiding his change. He goes over to the garbage can and starts scraping the price tag off the keychain — I haven’t rung it up yet.

He looks up at me and goes, “Doesn’t say where it was made” and then proceeds to ask me why so many things are made in China. I replied that one of the big reasons was that it was cheap labour. He seemed surprised.

He gets another one of the keychains (he bought two) and then comes to collect his change. He reaches over the counter again and grabs another fistful of sunflower seeds. I think my expression was honestly and completely, “WTF”. Then he says, “Oh I can’t get enough of these things! HAHA”.

O_O

I mean, who does that? Seriously, who does that? It’s not like they were open in front the counter for all the customers to take, they were obviously just sitting there, left over. He had no idea who they belonged to, although I’m sure he assumed they were mine. I was shocked, so I didn’t say anything about it.

They extended another night as well. He told me he was from BC, but his reservation said Alberta. That confused me, because I had no idea then why he was all NEWFOUNDLANDDDDD over the keychains.

He talked about a few other tihngs, but I don’t remember what they were. I had a hard tme understanding him too. He laughed a lot, at what I’m assuming were his own jokes.

He was a nice enough man, just totally random. I mean, to the point where I had no idea how to react.

Today started off pretty well. I mean, I worked at eight which is not exactly my favourite way to be spending the morning (because I defnitely prefer the night shift) but I got a decent amount of sleep so I wasn’t ridiculously tired. I made it to work early and managed to stop at Timmies along the way.

Work itself was slow (and I have a few stories to post later about people who can’t do math) and eventually three o’clock rolled around which meant I was off from the campground to the conservatory.

Just as always, I headed off down the highway, but then my car started doing this weird jerking thing. Like it took a while for it to actually pick up speed, which was pretty scary when I was getting onto the highway. I figured it was just getting warmed up (or something) because it started to run normally after that little burst.

I’m driving along and suddenly my car just… stops working. The engine oil light comes on (as well as a shitload of other ones I’ve never seen lit up before) and I couldn’t steer. I pretty much freaked out and some how managed to pull over to the side of the road. Luckily, I ended up on the off ramp to one of the exits — out of the way of most of the traffic.

After I somewhat calmed down, I got out my cell phone to phone my mum.

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.

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Yeah, it’s dead. Completely dead. Figures, right?

So I decide that the only thing I can really do (besides sit there and cry) is to hop the fence to the nearby mini-putt course. So I do that, and I’m shaking like crazy because I’m so stressed out. I cut my hands up and getting down I landed really weirdly so my leg hurts so badly right now. My shoes kept either falling off or getting stuck in the fence holes so it was quite the adventure just getting OVER the fence. Pretty sure the people who were using the mini-putt were like WTF IS THIS GIRL DOING. Especially because I still had my staff shirt on and my car was more or less hidden by a bunch of bushes. So you wouldn’t have seen it if you weren’t looking (it’s green, too).

I somehow made it to the ‘front desk’ sort of part and asked the guy working if I could use the phone. I told him my car had broken down on the highway and my cell phone had died. He was really nice, and told me to go ahead. So I got a hold of my mum, who called Bev (because I was going to be late for work) and CAA.

I cleaned up a bit in the washroom there (my hands were POUNDING because they hurt so bad and I couldn’t make them stop bleeding… they’re not really deep cuts, but you know how sometimes you can skin your hand kind of, and it won’t stop bleeding and it stings like mad?). My mum told me she’d come pick me up at the mini-putt, so stay there.

So I was walking back and forth, making sure the car was okay and waiting for her. The CAA guy came, so I had to hop over the fence again. I tried to get his attention from the other side, but it was too noisy. He had no idea where I came from and laughed at me when I said I had hopped over the fence. O_O

I got what I needed from the car, showed him my CAA card and he said he’d two it to whatever mechanic my mum told him to take it to. He was a little … not rude, but like, “Omg this stupid girl” kind of attitude until I showed him my member card. Then he was nicer. I apologized to him for being so frazzled.

So to wait for my mum, I had to make another journey over the damn fence. Where I caught my shirt, lost my shoe twice (so I was half way over and had to climb back down) and cut my wrist a bit. ~_~ Somewhere during the fence hopping I also managed to bruise my knee. The fence was really … rusty, so now I’m paranoid I’m going to get lockjaw or something. I cleaned my cuts out but my parents make me paranoid. My dad was totally joking around, but he’s the one who told me my appendix would burst and I’d die, when I didn’t even have an appendix so you can see why his words aren’t always exactly… reassuring.

I had an extra shirt (beacuse I wasn’t going to wear my campground shirt to the conservatory) so at least I could change and calm down a bit. My parents both came to pick me up, and I ended up making it to work for about 4:15 (I was supposed to start at four). Bev was able to get a hold of my 4:00 student and ask them to come at 5:00, so I didn’t miss anyone.

My mum called the mechanic and they said it would cost about $2000 to repair the car.

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Pretty sure the car isn’t even worth that much. So we’re not going to, and I’m going to take my mum’s old car (she got a new one recently) so I’ll have that until I go.

But wow, what a horrible hour. The worst part was when the steering wheel stopped working. I had a panic attack beacuse here I am going like 110km/hr (which lucky for me was not the speed I normally go at) and I can’t actually drive the car. I can’t speed up but of course, I could slow down. I was so worried I wouldn’t get out of the way and that some transport truck would crush me or something. O_O

So I’m reasonably safe and sound, the car is pretty much gone (I have to get some stuff out of it, but other than that, I’ll never see it again.

I get this phone call today at work…
It was around 9:30pm, completely dark outside and still pouring…

Me: Hello [campground name]
Him: Hi! How are you?
Me: I’m good thanks, you?
Him: I’m good. You look well!
Me: ha ha… thanks…

… that’s creepy, right?

And to all the people who commented on the awesome bunny ears I borrowed from Melinda or the butterfly wings that I borrowed from Melinda (we switched half way through the night) you’re awesome. Especially the little girl who told her mum I was a pretty bunny. Haha.