2004-04-20

As I was heading to the post office last night to pick up my visa, I felt a certain curiosity as to what such a thing would actually look like. Being a total rube, I knew what the word �visa� meant, but I hadn�t a clue what an actual, physical �visa� was. I imagined a sort of slightly-more-officious field trip permission slip: �Miss Robin Smith is granted the right to muck about within our borders for two years, provided she promises not to touch anything that looks fragile, like the Queen.� Or, making the inevitable word association, perhaps it would be a slick plastic card with my name on it in raised type, containing two years of vacation credit coded in a black magnetic strip. I was relieved to discover that it�s just a small card laminated into the �visa� section � hitherto unnoticed � in my passport (all together now: DUH), because it means I have only one small, easily misplace-able document to avoid losing on pain of serious fucking consequences instead of two.

As I was departing the post office last night with my visa in hand, my sense of curiosity was replaced by a distinct sense of damp, rapidly followed by a sense of complete soaking wet. Ah, spring in Ottawa! Where the term �April showers� is euphemistically applied to violent flash floods. After two minutes under this gentle monsoon, I looked like someone had turned the hose on me, and when I got home, my shoes making squelching noises as I tramped up the stairs, I actually had to change my underwear along with the rest of my clothes. Do you know, we have not had one single nice day this year? Not one fucking day fit to go outside without a jacket? Do you know what that does to a person? I used to be sane and normal, before the bastard weather beat my brain to distraction; now I�m telling strangers on the internet about my wet panties and not even making a profit for my trouble! Someone rescue me. (Not you, pervey Google searchers.)