Turning 20: An Adventure

Well, it's official, I have probably lived a quarter of my life now. Of course, living to be 80 could be wishful thinking but I'd like to think I'm going to make it that far. I do find it amusing how in the first quarter of your life, nearly 4 years of it is forgotten during your infancy. Any thoughts or events not recalled by your parents or an older sibling is completely lost. Funny ain't it?

Anyways, I must inform you on how ridiculous these last few days have been. I'll start with Saturday the 23rd. Since my birthday fell on a Monday, I decided that I was going to celebrate my birthday early. On Saturday I decided that I'd party it up with just the people I live with. The highlight was that they were going to get me high for the first time. The method of choice: "special" brownies. That is when many bad decisions were made.

Bad decision number one: "Aren't we supposed to eat the whole batch of brownies?" - provided by yours truly. The bad answer was "yes" and thats what we did. We figured out later that each of us probably consumed about 3 grams worth of weed each. We made a potent batch.

Bad decision number two: "Let's go to Korean Grill House!" - provided by my roommate Cal, who is the official stoner of our house. The main problem with this choice was that the place is in downtown Toronto, which means we have an hour bus and subway trip to get there.

Bad decision number three: Smoking a cigar after eating the brownies in a room where pot was being smoked. I'm sure the tobacco-weed combo proved to be a factor later on in the night.

Bad decision number four: Actually trying to get downtown. Once we started walking was when the brownies started to kick in. And what the stoners say is true, brownies definitely give you a body high. I'd say it was somewhat similar to being drunk, only your head feels quite messed up as well. It felt like half the stuff I did that night was a dream. Also the disorienting feeling the drugs had on me where definitely making me queasy.

It turned out that Cal was the first one to crumble when he got sick on the subway. I somehow managed to hold my stomach until the subway stopped at Bloor station before puking. Hopefully I didn't hit the lady standing in front of the subway doors as I hurled right into the opening.

It was then that we decided we weren't going to go downtown so we turned around and Cal ended up getting sick again on the subway and then the group had to split up as Cal was going to get sick on the bus, leaving Kevin and I on the bus. We were both still sorta out of it so we missed our stop, so we had a longer walk home. The rest of the night was spent sleeping fitfully as there seemed to be several instances throughout the night where I felt I was going to be sick again.

I am definitely not doing that again.

Sunday the big plan was the Clutch concert and unfortunately the turnout wasn't as large as I hoped it would be. Many of the people I invited backed out once they noticed that they couldn't afford it but fortunately a buddy from my college and my good friend and his girlfriend who lived like 5 minutes away from the venue turned up.

First thing I have to say is that the opening band sucked. They had a sound that was just made to damage the ears with their excessive use of feedback. Maylene and the Sons of Disaster were quite good and entertaining. Murder By Death were a highlight as they had an electric cello player, and it definitely gave the band a unique sound. I'd say if Johnny Cash played rock music, he'd sound like this band. The final song they played was fantastic! It definitely had that post-rock feel to it as they had an extended instrumental section with a bitchin' climax.

Clutch were just flat old solid. Lots of additional jams to their tunes from what I could tell. And it seems that what I've heard about the band is true. They change their setlist every night and just play what they want to play. Hearing some of their older stuff was also quite cool too. Neil Fallon is also a riot on the stage. He kinda reminded me of a drunk preacher only he was dressed very plainly.

And now that brings us to Monday. My actual birthday. To celebrate I decided to skip class that day and sleep in. I didn't get out of bed until 4pm. I then went to work. You may wonder why I would do such a thing as work on my birthday but the thing is that I work at a restaurant. I was expecting free food (and I got a free sundae). What was really nice was that we weren't terribly busy at all. Of course I got the custom whipped cream in the face, but I knew they were going to catch me with that. I actually managed to go on my break an hour earlier than usual as well.

Then, during closing, I was just about wrapping things up. Sweeping the floors is one of the last things I do and while doing this I noticed a steak knife lying on the floor. So I decided to pick it up, and as I stood up I smacked my head on the fire extinguisher that was above me. I had forgotten it was there. Odd, since it is huge, round, and red, but that's what I did. It also has a nasty rim around the bottom of it.

So I was standing there rubbing my head in pain and my manager comes into the dish pit and asks me what beer do I want since he was going to buy me one for my birthday. He then noticed me rubbing my head and laughs because he's done the same. While I'm struggling to make a decision on what I drink I continue to rub my head and then I look at my hands and find them covered in blood. I show this to my manager and we both have an "oh shit!" moment. I then found a sink where I didn't have any cleaned stuff in and started rising the blood out of my hair so that our kitchen manager could look at the cut. From what I heard, it was a long cut but they weren't sure if I needed stitches. But, to be on the safe side, we decided to go anyways.

So, one of my co-workers took me right away as my manager had to finish the rest of my work as well as his. He'd meet us at the ER.

We then get to the ER and see that we have to sit in the front row of triage in order to be seen. So far it appears there's a decent sized crowd waiting when it's 12am. Of course it doesn't help that as soon as we get there, two ambulances come in with patients that the triage nurse deals with first. Then many of the waiting people keep running up to the triage nurse to complain. So the waiting continues. After about an hour I get fed up and stand by the door that everyone else has been doing.

The nurse finally shows up (she tended to disappear often) and is surprised to see me standing there. She thought that I was all ready looked after! I thought the point of sitting in the front row was to see the triage nurse, I wasn't sitting there for no reason! So I do the triage, and my registration without a hitch.

About 5 minutes after that a nurse calls me to bring me to my room. Great! Finally things seem to be going my way. It then turns out that I'm being put basically in another waiting room for those who need minor treatment. It is here that I spent most of my waiting and here's why.

After 1 am, there's only one doctor, ONE doctor who looks after the entire ER of the hospital until the morning. And since I'm in minor treatment, I'm at the bottom of the priority list. Of course, perhaps an hour of my 7 hour waiting trip could've been cut off if there wasn't a Code Blue called. A Code Blue means that someone, somewhere is about to die and pretty much any doctor in the building is supposed to get there and help. That means that single ER doctor disappears for a wile.

So, once 6am rolls around, I'm finally looked at and it turns out that I do need stitches. So I end up getting nine of them. So yea, it was a large cut indeed. Of course, when I'm finished I hear news that the second ER doctor has arrived. Just my luck...

And that was basically my weekend. My head is still wrapped up in bandages (though I could take em off if I wanted to). I figure tomorrow's shower is going to suck, but we'll see.