Anecdote

Lauren Kinghorn

Word Count: 965

Have you ever had a moment where you think “Oh God what did I get myself into?”

I was having one of those moments as I curled my hair. I stood in my bathroom having just got home from work and was preparing to be picked up in under an hour. It was a first date. It was my first date ever. In my head I went through all the things wrong with this scenario. I’m twenty-four, I am happy being single, and I have no recollection of what he looks like. This is what happens when you say yes to a date while fully intoxicated on a Thursday night at the local bar.

“How was work?” My dad calls from his workshop.

“Fine,” I answer, still fiddling with my hair trying to get it just right.

“That’s good. What are you doing?”

My dad is now in the doorway of his shop looking down the hall at me. My going out on a Thursday night was not a surprise to him. However, doing my hair and applying makeup before going out was something he rarely saw.

“I’m going out,” I answer, trying to end the conversation there.

“Are Ryan and Joe coming to get you?”

“No, I’m not hanging out with them tonight.”

“Thal doesn’t drink, you aren’t going anywhere with her,” he mused. He had moved back into the shop but was yelling down the hall.

“No….I have….a date...” I trail off on the words. Saying them out loud makes them seem even more foreign.

“A date? With who?” My dad doesn’t even try to mask the surprise in his voice.

“I don’t wanna say,” I call back, focussing intensely on getting my makeup to look sexy, not slutty.

“Do I know him?”

“Yes…Stuart Yemen.”

“Stuart…isn’t he a little old for you?”

I pull my eyeliner away from my eye and sigh.

“He’s thirty-one, the same age as Craig.” Craig is my older brother.

“Oh, well where are you going?”

“I’m not sure, he’s picking me up at six.”

I finish putting on my lip gloss, give my hair one final spritz of hairspray and check the time.

Ten minutes to six.

I turn to my dad and smile.

“Well…have fun on your…uhhh…date.”

Date, it sounds even stranger coming out of my dad’s mouth.

I head upstairs to wait.

Six o’clock on the dot, a shiny red Ford F150 rolls up my snow-covered driveway.

To avoid my parents and this guy (that I have yet to get a clear visual of) meeting, I dart out the door before the truck has even made it fully in the driveway.

The truck parks and a stocky, tall, freckled blonde hops out of the cab.

“Hey, you didn’t even give me a chance to come get you at the door,” he says, smiling at me. His Ottawa Valley accent automatically makes me smile.

“Oh, was I supposed to?” The first of many first date faux-pas I would perform throughout the night.

We drove for twenty minutes to a town called Petawawa. It was the nearest semi-nice restaurant, Kelsey’s. I teased him about being a Leafs fan and we chatted the whole way there.

We got there and ran into a group of guys he knew from work, a few that I recognized from the bar. We ordered appetizers, which I then proceeded to spill into my lap, but I had given him fair warning that I would inevitably spill something. He kindly pretended not to see the spill and subtly handed me a napkin. I swore and swore again upon realizing I had just dropped an f-bomb mid first-date conversation. I shook my head and giggled at my own stupidity.

I talked and talked and talked, seemingly unable to stop the words from leaving my lips. All while playing with my necklace, sliding the pendant from one side of my neck to the other and back. I didn’t realize how much I was doing it until I blurted out something about how nervous I was and his reply was “no, really?” He smiled at me and mimicked playing with his own chain.

We enjoyed dinner, argued over the cheque (I gave in and let him pay) and headed back to Deep River.

Neither of us felt like going home, so we headed to the bar where we had first met to play some pool. He was a far better player than me, but I mocked him and used my feminine wiles to make him miss a few shots. I snuck up to the bar and paid our tab before he got a chance.

Stuart drove me back to my house around midnight and after teasing him mercilessly about what kind of man has a truck without four-wheel drive, I hopped out and so did he. He met me around the back of the truck and walked me up the steps to my front door.

I stood nervously; having never actually been on a first date, but having seen the walk to the door a million times in the movies, my head was spinning. What was going to happen?  

“I had a really good time, thank you.” I said smiling up at him.

“I had a good time too,” he said, his green eyes meeting mine.

He leaned down and kissed me. Now this may have been my first date, but it was not my first kiss. However I was not expecting the kiss he gave me. It was a closed-mouth peck and the most gentlemanly kiss I had ever had.

Reflecting back on this date with my now boyfriend, almost a year to the day, it still brings a smile to my face. It was my first, first date...and I think it was also my last.

Personal Essay

Lauren Kinghorn

Word Count: 901

“What?!...What did you just say?”

My cheeks were burning red, as I took a big drawn out swig of my sweet over-priced cocktail, nearly finishing the drink in one gulp. I was trying to process in my own head the words that had just left my mouth. I would never say that; that wasn’t in my life plan, and yet I had just casually said it in conversation.

“Lauren, seriously? Even a year ago, those would be the last words I imagined you ever saying.” Wilson stares at me across the tiny bar table, beer still midway to her mouth, stuck where it had been when I said that sentence. Much like she was stuck on the words herself.

It was one of those moments where you pause and think, "how the hell did I get here?"

I had another one of those moments yesterday. I was working on a project for my Marketing class. 

A group project.

My group consists of two first year students, one of which has never done group work before and another who barely speaks English, let alone can write in it. 

Awesome.

I spent my entire day rewriting the project. At 10:30pm I poured myself a glass of wine, plunked back down in front of my computer and stared at all the things I still had left to do. 

What the hell am I doing in University?

In my teens I knew I didn't have it all figured out, but I thought at the very least I had an idea of where my life was going. I think we all do; we all plan and think we know where we will end up. Or at the very least we think that by the time we reach twenty-five we'll have it figured out and be on track.

But then all of a sudden you hear words coming out of your mouth that you never imagined would, or realize you are doing something you never thought you would and all you can think is “wait a sec….when did that change? When did I change?”

For me, I knew I wasn’t ready for University right after high school. So I went travelling.

And so it begins.

Life plan number 1: Travel through New Zealand and Australia for nine months after graduating high school, and come home in time to apply to University in the fall. I’d only be a year behind my friends but hopefully would have a better idea of what I wanted to take in school.

What really happened: Got to New Zealand, made friends, found a job, and stayed for two and a half years. Never did make it to Australia.

Life plan number 2: Work in New Zealand, stay for at least another year (at this point I had already been there for two and a half years). My work visa got denied, and so I moved home, found two jobs and planned to save up to go back to New Zealand.

What really happened: …I applied to University.

Life plan number 3: Take Public Relations in University, but get a job as a personal assistant, and travel again.

What really happened: I realized not only did I enjoy Public Relations work, but I was fairly good at it, and decided not to be a personal assistant.

Having started University at the age that most other people my age are graduating, I continually feel segregated and like I just don’t fit. I always get flashes of the movie Mean Girls, and how everyone finds their clique, yet I keep looking around thinking that I don’t fit in anywhere. This has led to many “what the hell am I doing here?” moments over the past four years and in this time many things I have said and planned have completely changed.

Me- “I’ll never work in government”

Reality- All three of my school placements have been in government.

Me- “I don’t understand those people who stop drinking and going out, I’ll never stop.”

Reality –I occasionally drink, but am much happier to stay at home.

Me- “I can’t imagine buying a house; I’ll be too busy travelling to settle down.”

Reality- I have looked at housing options and have plans to buy one, once I find a job.

Me- “I think I’ll be single forever and am really happy about that idea.”

Reality- I met my boyfriend a week after saying this.

Me- “I’m not the marrying type and I don’t want my own kids, I just want to be the fun Aunt.”

Reality- I want to be a mom, but want to be married before becoming one.

I am never sure when these changes happened or how I ended up exactly where I am now. I know my life plans looked nothing like this when I started making them. I know I will continue to question why I am twenty-five and doing group work with eighteen year-olds. But I think that life makes its own plans to help us get to where we need to be. As difficult as life can be I believe where I've been and what I've done so far has led me to exactly where I need to be and I am exactly where I need to be, sitting in the bar with a good friend, drink in hand, confident in what my life plan is now…or so I think.

Descriptive Essay

Lauren Kinghorn

Word Count: 1090

Friday Night Fans

Walking into the Sackville Hockey arena, a sense of relief fills me as I leave the brisk outside air and a winter that seems to be going from one extreme to the other. Today, the weather has decided to be on the extreme side of cold. The only upside to the icy air is the picture perfect sky. It is too cold for clouds to form so it is a vast open blackness, with stars spattered across it and an almost-full moon shining down. The moonlight reflects on the snow, lighting up the night and highlighting the biting cold. Just like a breath the sense of relief leaves my body just as quickly as it had entered as I step through the creaky double doors from the lobby out to the stands. I realize it is just as cold in here as it was outside. I pull my zipper up to my chin and walk by the ‘Home’ team stands.

The bare grey cement carved into long blocks looks more like seats in a jail cell than the ones you see at NHL  games. My aunt and uncle walk slowly, stopping to greet parents of kids on the home team.  Little jokes flit back and forth about who will win the game. The light-hearted banter puts me at ease as I pass the fans of the opposing team.

The space near the scratched up plexi-glass boards is filling up quickly with thin, legging-clad ‘puck bunnies’(as they are so kindly referred to by the parents around the rink). The girls are between the ages of 14 – 18 and huddle together. Their hair is strategically styled to seem nonchalant but in reality took an hour or more to get just so.  The girls wave to the boys on the ice. Giggling, whispering and hoping to get noticed. In turn the boys on the ice pretend to not see the girls while shooting the puck directly at the boards where the girls are standing. The bang of the hard rubber against the beaten-up boards echoes throughout the entire tinny building, causing the girls to scream in giddy delight.  I smile to myself remembering my own such adventures as a teen.

I find my place on the fleecy blanket that my ‘prepared hockey parent’ uncle has brought in as a guard between the unwelcoming barren cement of the stands and our behinds. I am sitting on the grown-ups side of the ‘visiting’ team stands. The separation between parents and teenagers is noticeable. My uncle leans over to me, a knowing smile on his face.

“It’s so funny to see how the students pack themselves in like sardines,” he laughs, nodding toward the students’ side of the stands. “They really are all jammed together.”

“I feel like it’s partly for warmth,” I muse back, “but also with so many of them and no one wanting to sit on the parents’ side, it also seems necessary.”

We both laugh. The parents all banter about the kid who lost three teeth in the last game. Other than the actual temperature the atmosphere is warm, everyone is chattering and laughing excited to watch the boys play their rivals. The music blaring over the loudspeaker is a mix of old ‘pump-up’ songs that date back to before my birth and 90’s songs that were hits at my school dances. I laugh to myself how these songs never change, the only difference is they are now mashed together with recent dance tunes.

The music goes quiet as everyone stands for the national anthem. I am always overwhelmed by the pride even teens take in this song, all removing their hats and standing at attention.   A blonde girl stands on the ice between the five starting linemen of each team and starts to sing. Her voice is shaking and barely audible, but the students in the crowd help her out by singing along. As she fights to not let her nerves get the better of her she tries her best Mariah Carey (or possibly Beyonce) impression to make the ‘O’ in ‘O Canada’ last far longer than it should. The sticks start banging on the ice, as is tradition with the final phrase of the anthem at hockey games. Cheers start coming first from the students, then from the parents as the girl leaves the ice and the first puck is dropped.

The game is fast, back and forth from end to end in a matter of seconds. The only sounds are the scraping of the skate blades on the fresh ice and the hammering sound of body to body to boards. It is the most physical game I have seen in the realm of high school hockey. The testosterone-filled boys are more interested in ramming another body into the boards than getting the puck in the net.

The atmosphere has changed, it almost feels like the lights have been dimmed (even though they are bright as ever with the shiny aluminum reflecting the light everywhere) because the ferocity on the ice is translating into the parents surrounding me. At first there is some cheering for the team, but the cheering quickly deteriorates into boos at the other team. From there it becomes comments between parents about how dirty the other team is playing and then quickly escalates into yells and frustrations being taken out on the referees and lines man as they try to keep up with the fast paced sprints down the ice.

“Ref are you blind?” yells the irate father almost jumping off the seat in front of me, “Get your head out of your ass and watch the game!”

The tension builds throughout the arena with the referees becoming bouncers, getting between players before the shoving turns into more. The parents continue to berate the refs, but when that doesn’t work turn their angry comments onto the players on the other team.

“Get a haircut!” yells the same man at a boy from the other team as he is escorted to the penalty box. Childish giggles among the parents in front of me, make me wonder who are the adults and who are the children here.

I sit almost frozen, shocked at the animosity in the parents and the behaviour I never hope to emulate. I shrivel in on myself, wishing I could sink down out of this negative space, feeling suffocated by the hatred. After all, aren’t we all just fans? Enduring the cold to cheer on 15, 16 and 17 year-olds in a fun game?