Plus? I’m Fabulous

It's true -- I do look good in heels.

Recently I received another award, this one from Skye who writes a Weekly Injection of Chuckles. Thanks, Skye.

But, like the others, it has conditions.

1. I must write about my five obsessions.
2. I must pass the award along to five other bloggers.

The problem is, I don’t really obsess over anything.

It’s like I was telling Mr. Wallace.

Mr. Wallace is a man I met on the subway the other day and we got to talking. During our conversation he ranted about the eHealth scandal making news lately. A recent audit revealed that the government agency in charge of establishing a comprehensive, electronic health database in Ontario has squandered a billion dollars or so.

“They flaunted the rules,” he said indignantly.

“You mean ‘flouted,’” I corrected.

“‘Flaunted,’ ‘flouted,’ who cares? I don’t obsess about things like that,” he replied, insinuating that I do obsess about things like that.

I wanted to tell him that while I think it’s important to use the right words, I certainly don’t obsess about it.

Unfortunately, I realized we were at my stop and the doors were about to close, so I jumped off the train without having a chance to respond.

The next day I took the same train at the same time, but didn’t run across Mr. Wallace. I asked several of the passengers if they remembered a rather tall man wearing a suit who misused the English language. Apparently none did, even when I attempted to stimulate their memories by shaking them and shouting, “Think, for crying out loud! Think!”

That night I approached the task logically. We’d been on the southbound train. He’d mentioned that he was getting off at St. George. No, wait. He’d mentioned that he was changing trains at St. George. That meant he was staying on the subway line, but going either east or west. Judging by his suit — something few regular businessmen wear these days — I figured the odds were good that he would go east to Bay Street: the financial and government district.

The next morning I left early, went to the Bay Street station, and waited outside. Since the buses don’t go into the station, he would have to come out to the street no matter what. I didn’t run across him, but then I remembered it was Saturday and he wouldn’t likely be going to work again until Monday.

To be safe, however, I repeated the exercise on Sunday.

On Monday, after waiting around for close to an hour, I saw Mr. Wallace come out of the station doors and walk south on Bay. Before I could catch up to him, however, he’d crossed Bloor Street and the light had turned red. By the time it turned green again, he’d gained a full block on me. I made my way through the crowd as quickly as possible while keeping track of him among the throng of pedestrians, but while I was still half a block away, he turned a corner. When I caught up, he’d disappeared into one of the government buildings on Wellesley Street.

For a moment I almost gave up.

Instead, I started canvassing each building, checking with security guards, office receptionists, tuck shop proprietors, and people I met in the hallways until finally, four hours later, I walked into Mr. Wallace’s office.

“Just so you know,” I told him, “I do not obsess about using the right words.”

Talk about obsessive — I still don’t think there was any call for having me escorted out of the building.

Anyway, the point is that I’m simply not the kind of person to obsess, so I’m going to have to forgo that part of the requirement.

What!? Avril Lavigne? That's not an obsession. That's just evidence of sanity.

Passing on the fabulousness

1. To MikeWJ at Too Many Mornings — because I want to find out what he obsesses about.
2. To Chelle B at The Offended Blogger — for being the HBDC member who appears most in a Google image search for: “‘Humor Bloggers Dot Com’ ‘Obsess.’”
3. Nonamedufus at Nonamedufus – for his obsession with satirizing Canadian politics.
4. Tiggy at Tiggyblogger – for her obsession with cheap Cialis.
5. Leunna at My Mind Wandered — for knowing the dangers posed by dangling participles, misplaced modifiers and flying sentence fragments.