:: Unanswerable questions ::

Earlier today, I was in the second-floor washroom in my office building. I was at the sink, washing my hands, when a tall, older man with an English accent entered. I had never seen this man before in my life.

I am not one for bathroom conversation – I hate inane small talk, and when you're peeing it's just that much more awkward – but unfortunately, we made eye contact. So I have him the polite head nod, eye-brow lift that essentially says, "I acknowledge your presence, but do not wish to engage in any real conversation."

Of course, this guy ignores bathroom etiquette completely by actually saying "Hi." So I was forced to respond in kind, as I dried my hands. I thought that would be the end of it – I mean, what more can be said between two strangers in an office bathroom?

Well, I didn't need to wonder long. As I'm about to leave, he blurts out "So, ya loading, or unloading?"

Uhhh...what?

Thinking that I'd heard him wrong – on account of his accent – I asked, "What?" and he repeated himself. Nope, that's really what he said.

Now, I have no idea what in the hell that question meant – absolutely no idea. In fact, I'm still confused hours later. Was this some Olde English greeting? Some kind of joke? A legitimate question about who-knows-what? I mean, I am in a bathroom so, taken literally, I suppose if I had to chose between the two options, I'd say I was unloading, but that's an awful personal question from a guy I don't know (and a weird and unnecessary one if we did know each other).

"Ya loading or unloading?"

I mean.. what the crap is that?

So, confused as all hell and regretting heavily the three coffees I drank earlier which got me into this mess in the first place, I did the only thing I could think of.

I Lloyd-Christmas'ed my way the fuck out of there.

"Well... see ya later," I said.

And then I left without saying another word and without further eye contact, while the English gent stood there as confused as I had been 10 seconds earlier.

:: That time I was a jerk at Subway ::

Waitress: Have you decided?

Mr. Grotti: I'll have the linguini, red sauce on the side. If the sauce does not come on the side, I will send it back. I want garlic bread. Toasted. Not burnt. If it comes burnt, I will send it back.

Michael Scott: I will have the spaghetti. With a side salad.

Waitress: OK.

Michael Scott: If the salad is on top, I send it back.

- The Office, season 5 "Mafia" episode

It's often hard to tell because I'm such a sarcastic asshole most of the time, but the truth is that I really don't like confrontation – especially in restaurants, or places of that ilk.

I hate returning things to the mall, for one example, and this dislike for confrontation is also one of the main reasons I won't go out for a meal with a certain friend of mine – because he (his whole family, really) ends up having problems with everything, making a big scene, and eventually demanding free food etc... Through the years, we've stormed out of more than a few restaurants – him in a huff, me just trailing behind.

If I get a subpar meal at a restaurant, I'm more apt to just suck it up, shrug my shoulders and tell myself, "Well, they can't all be good." Because it's true – throughout your lifetime, it's next to impossible that every single meal you ever eat is going to be perfect. This doesn't mean I won't complain about said meal for days after – because trust me, you'll hear about it until you wished I'd choked and died trying to eat whatever it is I'm whining about – but I just don't waste time demanding that my meal be re-cooked/free/served to me with complimentary bread/dessert/appetizer/sports car.

It's just not worth it.

But earlier this week, I hit my breaking point.

After work the other day, I went to Subway to pick up some dinner. I ordered a foot-long roasted chicken sub, on white bread. For starters, the woman behind the counter grabbed a loaf of the parmesan oregano bread – apparently she just didn't listen at all, because the two types of bread do not sound remotely alike – and I had to correct her. No big deal, I guess, but I should have known it was foreshadowing what was to come.

Next, she cut open the correct bread with the skill and precision of a six-year-old, essentially tearing the bread in half, rather than cutting it. And again, I let it slide.

But then it began. She put tomatoes on it when I never asked for any – so she had to remove them. Then she put peppers on it, which I also didn't ask for – so she had to remove them. Then came time for "a little bit of mustard and a bit of ranch, please." (Notice, I was still polite at this point).

She then proceeded to empty nearly the entire damn mustard container on the sandwich, followed by so much ranch dressing that it looked like somebody jacked off an elephant onto my dinner (Nice visual? You're welcome). This was the last straw.

"Oh c'mom, I asked for a little of each. That's waaaay too much. You wanna scrape some of that off, or something?" I asked.

I got a baffled look, followed by a lame attempt to scrape the sauces off with a paring knife, which ended up a) tearing the bread some more and b) smearing a lovely mustard and ranch combination all over the outside of the bread.

"You know what? You've ruined the whole damn thing. Just start over, I want a new one."

This did not sit well with the person behind the counter, and she seemed bewildered at such a request. Her co-worker, who came over, was also reluctant.

"It's fine," the co-worker said. "What's wrong with it? We can't make a new one, unless you want to order two."

It was at this point that I informed said employee that since I hadn't yet paid for the first one, they'd better restart the process – and not fuck it up – or else I'd just walk out altogether, paying for nothing.

"Either way, you're gonna be out the cost of at least one sandwich," I said.

I should also mention that, by now, there were a few people behind me in line, no doubt wondering what the hell my problem was. Normally, I would have resorted to my usual "Aw, shucks" mentality (see above), but this is not the first time this Subway has fucked up my sandwich. In fact, more often than not, the employees at this particular location have ruined, in some way, my meal.

Now, you may wonder why I continue to return if they suck so bad, and my answer is two-fold. First, it's close to my house and convenient. And second, I always go back with the assumption that "It can't be that bad again, right?"

I would have likely also given this woman a break if she had a trainee sticker on, like many there often do. Hey, she's new, she's learning. That's cool – I get it. But I've seen this woman there before many times. And for somebody dubbed a "Sandwich Artist" you'd think you wouldn't suck so hard at it.

I mean, seriously, your only job is to make sandwiches. If you can't do that, maybe look into a new line of work. I mean, if I am a bad writer, I probably don't get to keep the job I have. If Bucholtz was a dangerously incompetent subpar electrician, he wouldn't be one. If Jeremy couldn't plumb, he wouldn't be a plumber, and if Kelsey didn't do... whatever the hell it is that she does, well she'd probably run away to Fort McMurray try something else.

In the end, you'll be happy to know that I got what I wanted – a remade footlong, roasted chicken sub, on white bread.

And the best part was, they couldn't even spit it in – such is the benefit of having them make it right in front of you. I'm sure they wanted to, though.

I can almost guarantee it.

:: "Did you try the linguini? Oh, by the way, I'm doing your wife" ::

Last night, Christene and I decided to go out for dinner with Kristyl, Jason and Molly. Originally the plan was to go for Greek food, but in the end we switched it up and went to Pasta Polo - a really small little place in Langley, near the old movie theatre. I'd never been, but had heard it was delicious.

Christene and I got there first, and were immediately ushered into a booth near the back of the restaurant - the only section further back was a larger, open space for bigger groups. I should also mention that we were right in the sightlines from the main aisle through the restuarant.

We sat there for a few minutes, enjoying some drinks and eating the complimentary bread, when Christene got a frantic call from our dinner companions, who had just pulled into the parking lot.

Turns out, as they pulled into the lot, they saw Christene's ex-husband - who is, by all accounts, a pretty big douche - enter the restaurant with his new girlfriend. We resisted the urge to bolt (barely) and watched from behind our menus as they walked right past line of sight - down that damn aisle - and into the back area.

The same back area meant for large groups. This is when Christene realized it was her ex-mother-in-law's birthday. Sure enough, the back table was soon filled with the whole ex-family, which couldn't have been more awkward if it tried to be - or so I thought. We managed to ignore them for the most part, although both tables saw each other - I happened to accidently glance over there at one point and saw more than a eyes quickly dart away.

To some of you, this may not seem like that bad a situation - people break up all the time. It happens. But there are numerous reasons it was more awkward than usual, and I won't bother getting into them here. But rest assured, it sucked. It was pretty hard to relax, even after a couple drinks, and I've never wanted to leave a restaurant so bad in my life.

Finally, as we finished our dinner, we saw Ex and his lady friend go outside. They didn't return for quite some time. Phewww, we thought. They left. So Jason and I went up to the front to pay the bill, while Kristyl and Christene collected the boxes of leftovers and gathered up the baby and baby accessories. And as I waited my turn at the Interac machine, I glanced out the window.

Guess who I saw? Yep, the Ex, his girlfriend and the ex-mother-in-law, out for a post-dinner smoke.

Finally, we all got ready to leave, and Kristyl and Jason avoided contact by slipping through the parked cars on the way to their own vehicle, and they were home free.

We were not so lucky.

Christene went out the door first, and took a hard right - directly into the eye of the storm. That's when it got even worse. As much as I wanted to just bolt through some parked cars and run away, I didn't want to look like I was running away, so I followed Christene, who decided it was necessary to say Happy Birthday to her ex-mother-in-law.

I would've just booked it if I was her, but fair enough - she always liked her, and wanted to say hi. But that left five of us standing there awkwardly, and two of us - guess which two? - eyeing each other up.

And then we actually had to make the world's-most-awkward-introductions, which basically went something like this:

"Hi, I'm Nick. I'm the guy banging your wife. Nice to meet you."

It was terrible. So terrible in fact that I - a man of many words - cannot even properly explain it in print.

The only amusing part was, after the initial "Hello" - when it was suddenly clear that this trainwreck was progressing to a full-blown conversation - both the Ex and me looked at each other with the same sense of "are-you-fucking-kidding-me?"

"So, this is actually going to happen."

(It instantly reminded me of that scene in Forgetting Sarah Marshall when Jason Segel's character invites his ex and Russell Brand to dinner, she accepts, and Brand says, "So, we're actually going to let this happen.")

The moment couldn't have lasted more than 45 seconds, but it felt like 20 years. And after it was done, all I could think about was how easy it would have been to avoid the whole situation. If it had been me leading the way out of the restaurant door, it never would have happened.

To properly illustrate my point, I created this handy diagram in photoshop. My proposed escape route is in green; Christene's chosen route is in pink.

This end-of-the-evening situation was essentially the equivalent of driving down the road in your car - minding your own business - and then seeing a car crash on the side of the road. However, instead of just zipping by the car crash, which is already bad enough, you decide to yank the wheel hard to the right and smash your perfectly good car into the other two already-damaged vehicles, thus making a regular car crash into a horrific multi-car affair.

To her credit, Christene felt really bad afterwards - and I know I made her feel worse by constantly bugging her about it, which wasn't necessarily my intent. But I just couldn't help it, even if popular opinion is that it was the polite, adult thing to do (Which, to be fair, is probably true. More mature than my plan of running away quickly, anyway).

But that said, I still don't think it ever had to happen. I'm sure such a meeting could have likely been avoided forever, since we don't exactly run in the same social circles (I for example, like slo-pitch, barbecues, and writing far-too-lengthly blogs, and I imagine the Ex is more of a monster truck rally, hang-out-in-dank-basements kind of guy).

But what's done is done, and one thing is for sure: I'm never going back to Pasta Polo again.

Can't take that chance.

:: The lunchroom is not sound proof ::

A few minutes ago, I was sitting at the spare computer in my office, which is right outside the lunchroom door – definitely within earshot of the clinking of glasses and rustling of newspaper pages as people eat their mid-day meals, but outside of the line of sight for those sitting at the table.

At the time of my arrival at the spare desk, there was only one person in the lunchroom – a lady in her mid-50s. After a few minutes of microwaving, finding proper utensils and gathering up a newspaper to read, I heard her sit down to eat.

Then 15 seconds later, I heard one big fart.

Now, to be fair, she did not know that I was sitting right outside the door, but still – you'd think you'd be more aware of your surroundings before you decide to let one rip (in an office, or otherwise).

The best part was when she walked out of the room a few minutes later, apparently to get the Diet Coke she had left on her desk, and shot me one of those "Oh my God how long have you been sitting there for?" looks.

And also, the fact that it was a woman and not, say, me or one of the other goofballs guys here, makes it even better.

What a day.

:: Awkward moments and Coke-fueled explosions ::

Couple things from today at work...

From experience in high school up until, oh, probably this morning, I have become something of an expert in awkwardness. Awkward clothes. Awkward conversations. Awkward baseball slides into third base. Awkward situations with the opposite sex.

You name an awkward situation and not only have I probably experienced it, but I've also probably made it more awkward (awkwarder?).

Today, in light of these wonderful economic times, I have something new to add to the list: The run-in with a former colleague who, after being laid off by your company, is serving you coffee in order to pay the bills.

The conversation goes something like this:

Person with job: Oh...hi! Nice to see you.

Person serving coffee: You too!

Person with job: So....what's new? Working here eh?

Person serving coffee: ...yep....sort of a career change.

Person with job (over enthusiastic): Well that's just great!

Person serving coffee: Yeah...take your fucking change.

On another note, I learned this week – by virtue of my boss telling us about his son's Grade 4 science experiment – that when you take mint-flavoured Mentos and drop them into Diet Coke, it creates a geyser of cola that often ends up shooting up and hitting a fellow student square in the face, knocking his glasses off and soaking him from the waist up.

Apparently it has to be the mint-flavoured Mentos and not the fruit ones, and it has to be Mentos, not some other kind of mints. Also, regular Coke does not work – must be the Aspertame or something (which is reassuring for those of us who drink the stuff).

Armed with this knowledge, I (obviously) went out this afternoon and purchased a package of peppermint Mentos and would have bought Diet Coke too, had the store not been out of stock. Tomorrow, however, I will come to work prepared, and we plan on running our own experiment in the back parking lot.

Yeah, we're model employees.