2004-07-17

Where’s a philosopher when you need one? I need someone to give me answers to the serious questions in life, like why, OH WHY, can women’s shoes NEVER be comfortable right off the bat? Is the women’s shoe industry run by a shadowy, fetishistic Chinese foot-binding cartel? Why must I suffer so?

Yesterday I wore a new pair of shoes to work an eight-hour shift on my feet, because I am a big fat stupid. I’m not completely irretrievably retarded, however: I did arm myself with a trousseau of moleskin and Band-aids, which I applied periodically to my feet throughout my shift, until I looked, from the ankles down, like I’d wandered off the set of The Mummy Returns (With Our Pints!). Today I feel like I’ve been wading in a paddling pool filled with piranhas.

Also, why is it so fantastically, ridiculously, ‘answer-me-these-questions-three’, impossibly hard to get a bank account in this country? After displaying my stack of legitimate identification and uncashed cheques from the Canadian government, I have been looked upon by bank personnel as though I’d just asked them if they could spare a kidney, rather than asking them, as I did, to TAKE MY MONEY and then charge me to access it. Please, evil banks, may I give you my money? I’m begging now! Just take it! But no. The quest continues, and I have no way to cash my paycheques, which is putting a serious crimp in my continental travel plans, and my life in general.

However, on a less ‘hating the world’ note, I have managed to procure a coach ticket to London, return, for eight pounds. That is brilliant in no small measure. Although I half suspect that at that price, I’ll perhaps arrive at the coach station to find an actual coach, drawn by a single cataleptic donkey. But as long as it gets me to London and doesn’t give me fleas, I will not complain.