Our afternoon delight was not the stuff of which solid relationships are made.

When I was a child, the earlier a mother could get her little one into school and out of her hair, the better. That made me all of seventeen years old during my first year in the College of Education at the University of Saskatchewan. I was a pretty good kid, sure I partied sometimes, but not anymore than the next person, or so I thought. Maybe I just needed to pick my timing better.

It was a Wednesday night and I was studying for my English mid-term the next day. I read and re-read my notes, The Stone Angel by Margaret Laurence, “King Lear” by the bard, and Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town by Stephen Leacock. I knew the material as cold as I was going to know it.

Thursday morning, I heaved a sigh of relief as I left the classroom after the exam. I took it for granted that my day was all planned out. First, I would catch the 11:15am bus home. There, I would make myself a grilled cheese sandwich and some Campbell’s mushroom soup served with a glass of 2% milk. After lunch, my favorite soap opera would come on, “Another World”, total bliss. Mid-afternoon would bring a well-deserved nap followed by an early supper (probably Cheemo perogies eaten alone as my family would eat later) and I’d catch the bus to work at about 5:30pm.

That evening, I had a three hour shift scheduled at Eaton’s department store in the jewelry and watch department where it would be busy as there was less than a week’s worth of shopping until Christmas. I liked working in the jewelry area because Eaton’s sold all kinds of funky things (I spent a good chunk of my pay check there) and ringing in sales was pretty straight-forward.

I disliked working in the watch department though and avoided it as much as I could. For one thing, if you were selling a watch that cost over two hundred dollars, you had to remember to get signing authority from Glenda, the department manager. It happened seldom enough that I never remembered to do it and I got scolded occasionally. I also detested replacing watch batteries. It’s an awful feeling to peel off the back of someone’s watch only to hear some microscopic metal part go pinging across the floor, never to be found again.

So I’d stick the back on again and tell them I didn’t know what was wrong with their watch, and that they’d have to contact the manufacturer. I was out of my element in watches.

Glenda sat around the watch department like a queen bee; and I mean she sat around the watch department. Her black pumps reminded me of Minnie Mouse shoes. She’d take her shoes off, her copious behind enveloping her swivel chair as she changed watch batteries. Sometimes she faked working on watches so she could take a formidable load off.

“My dogs are barking” she liked to say. It was an expression with which I was not familiar and I thought for years it meant that your feet stunk. Her shoes looked defeated under the counter, as if one day the heels would completely give out and leave her standing on a pancake of man-made imitation leather. She liked to tell me that she was one hundred pounds when she got married, which scared the beejeezus out of me.

Most of the ladies I worked with were old; some were part-time, some of them widowed. I don’t know if I reminded them of their granddaughters, or if it was my talent for making small-talk that endeared me to them. They spoiled me, often letting me go a little early while they cashed out.

Anyway, Thursday at noon, I waited at the bus stop near the entrance to the main campus building, balling my fingers up in my gloves to keep them warm.

“Hey, what’s up, Shelly?” Hearing the voice close to me, I turned, feeling self-conscious. I don’t look good in a toque; I’ll never be a hat model smiling out from the pages of the Eaton’s flyer.

Standing beside me was a young man I recognized from my Education 101 class, Glen. He was with a friend, who he introduced as Matt. Matt grinned shyly, shivering in his red plaid lumberjack shirt. I didn’t know either of them well, but Glen often caught my eye in class. I would find myself sitting behind him, staring at his muscular body, admiring his dark skin and large brown eyes. Once, standing in line to buy a muffin and coffee, Glen and I had made small talk.

“I’m just heading home,” I said, digging at the snow with my boot, which at the moment seemed hopelessly unfashionable.

“Do you want to come to Louie’s?” George asked, gesturing at the campus pub.

I thought about how little money I had brought with me, basically just bus fare. I cursed myself inwardly for my short-sightedness.

“I’ve got no money,” I answered, seeing the bus approaching.

Touching my arm lightly, Glen said, “That’s okay. We’ll buy.”

The bus pulled in front of me; this was no time to be indecisive.

“Okay.” I agreed. I followed them out of the bus shelter, where our breath billowed in large white plumes. We entered the dark and labyrinthine pub where I hoped the bouncer wouldn’t sense my desperation and ask for I.D., which I had not, being underage.

If I got rejected from Louie’s the next bus home wouldn’t come for another hour, a situation that would find me prostate at the bus stop from a fatal combination of boredom, embarrassment, and starvation.

My stomach growled, but since Glen and Matt were paying, I didn’t order food. I followed the protocol of these two guys who seemed to think that pitchers of beer were as good as lunch.

Undeniably, it is fun to be the only girl at a table with two guys. You get all the attention. It was like Vegas in there, too; no clocks, no phones; I lost all track of time.

Eventually, we left the bar and Glen and I ended up kissing in the stairwells of the arts building, occasionally interrupted by profs coming to and from their offices. I don’t know where Matt went. Like a good sidekick, he knew when to get lost.

I finally noticed the fading daylight through the skinny windows in the stairwell. Deep in the recesses of my drink-addled brain, I clued in to the vague memory of my shift at Eaton’s. I looked at my watch, five thirty. Holy shit! I ran to catch the last bus of the evening.

It wasn’t exactly Cinderella leaving a shoe on the stairs, more me unceremoniously abandoning Glen to a probable boner while calculating how late I’d be for work. The bus driver looked at me with resigned disgust as I fumbled for the paltry change for my ride. I tripped and landed gracelessly in the nearest seat, the one reserved for the elderly, pregnant, or in my case, very inebriated. “Shelly!”

I turned to see my good friend Janet sitting next to me on the long seat right up front near the driver.

“Are you okay?” she lowered her voice. Now Janet was no angel, but she was having the day I thought I’d be having. You know, a regular Thursday, go to school, go to work, watch “Cheers” when you get back home, go to bed. She was stone-cold sober, which made me look all the worse.

Fifteen minutes later, I ran into my house, where my mom was making supper and my dad was watching television. My Oktoberfest odor told on me.

“Don’t go to work.” My dad said dourly. “Call in sick.” He turned back to his newspaper.

“I can’t.” I said illogically. As if Eaton’s could not carry on without me. As if going to work drunk was the smart thing to do. I ran up to my room to get dressed. Tossing a skirt and blouse on the bed, I fumbled in my drawer for a pair of pantyhose. My mom entered my bedroom and helped me put them on.

Why she helped me, I don’t know. I’ve often wondered if my late grandpa or someone in her family was alcoholic as she seemed hard-wired to cover for me. To this day I’m not sure if my going to work hammered was an example of work ethic gone wrong or just plain stupidity, but I know now that one should never drink and sell retail.

Mom drove me to Eaton’s because I’d be late if I waited for the bus. I flew out of her car and managed to make it behind the counter on time.

At one point in the evening, one of the older ladies I worked with slipped me a tic-tac.

“You smell like a brewery,” she said. It was the most any of my co-workers said on the matter.

I did, however, scare off one customer who gaped at me in sheer horror. I guess I must have blasted her with stale malt breath. For once, Glenda did not try to force me to change watch batteries.

I was so obvious; I still don’t know how I didn’t get canned. I guess the manager wasn’t in that night and none of the little old ladies ratted on me, which makes me wonder if they all came from alcoholic families, all that enabling. At least it was my first and last time coming in to work three sheets to the wind.

The Education 101 class that I had shared with Glen was only a half-term class and so, had finished. I didn’t have any other classes with him although I would still see him occasionally around campus and we would awkwardly ignore each other. Clearly, our afternoon together was a one-day stand. Our afternoon delight was not the stuff of which solid relationships are made.

The “Showing up to Work Hammered” incident was one of my more public gaffes. My friend Janet still razzes me about it to this day, and when my mom brings it up in mixed company, it still makes me blush. As mature as I thought I was then, seventeen is a tad young to navigate the essentially adult environment of the university.

I have children of my own now, and I enrolled them in kindergarten a bit late so that they will come of age by the time they hit campus. And when they come home drunk after an exam, I’m not driving them to work.


THE END