VACATION TIME

This story is for those families dreaming of summer vacations on lakeshore properties.  It comes from my collection “Honey Signed The Waiver”.  A slightly different version was first published in 2014 by Summit Studios in their anthology “Never Light a Match in the Outhouse”.

 

THE BLOB AT GREEN LAKE

            Back in the 1990s, Honey and I made many trips to our cabin at Green Lake in the Cariboo country of British Columbia.  Green Lake is just east of 70 Mile House, which is on Highway 97, heading north to Prince George.  It’s a five hour drive from our home in Metro Vancouver.

Scattered with fir and pine trees, it is a beautiful piece of lakefront property and when the weather cooperates it’s an awesome place for having fun in the water.  We had a floating dock that was rolled out into the lake each summer and was used by swimmers diving into the water, or sunbathers trying to tan, or for mooring the canoe or the rowboat.

Since we both like to recycle as many things as possible, often unused items from home ended up being transported to our accommodating acreage at the cabin.  Add to that our combined four children, who at that time ranged in age from their mid teens to early twenties, and any new or unusual way for them to have fun would always be on the agenda.  Those were the reasons for The Blob.

            Shortly after Honey and I set up house in 1994, friends who were downsizing gave us a king-size waterbed.  We already had a king-size bed in our king-size bedroom, so Honey set up the waterbed in the spare room.

Unfortunately, it filled the whole room leaving no space for any other furnishings.  When the project was completed, my fifteen year old daughter, Sarah, asked if she could come live with us instead of staying with her father.  After we agreed, her next question was, “Can you get rid of the waterbed?  There’s no room for any of my stuff with that thing in there.  I’ll bring my own futon from Dad’s to sleep on.”

            So Sarah drained the waterbed.  Honey salvaged all the wood from the frame for future use.  “Do you think they’ll take the mattress envelope at the dump?” he wanted to know two years later, trying to reclaim storage space in his garage.

            “Why don’t we take it up to the cabin?” I asked.  “We could fill it partially with water, and the rest with air, and put it on the lake for the kids to jump on.  You know, like on that video we watched from that summer camp where the kids swung out over the water on a rope and let go so they could fall on a bouncy mattress?”

            Honey raised his eyebrows at me like I was nuts, but he dutifully hung onto it until our next trip to Green Lake.  On a Saturday morning in July it was neatly folded and stored in the back of Honey’s big F250 pickup, along with a dirt bike, coolers, boxes of food, and large plastic containers with clean sheets and towels, suitcases, Honey’s ever present duct tape and Dremel tool, and red cans of gasoline.  All set for adventure, Honey got behind the wheel with me beside him and Sarah and two cats on the crowded rear bench seat.  Honey’s two sons, James and Patrick, were coming up in another vehicle.

            By mid-afternoon we had all completed the five hour journey from Langley to Green Lake and were unpacked and ready to enjoy ourselves.  After helping Honey launch the dock, the boys took off on two dirt bikes.  Sarah, now a languid seventeen year old, had slung a hammock and was catching some rays.  I was sipping iced tea while I sat on the porch swing, looking out at the lake.  Honey was busy with his new project.  He had set the pump up in the lake, attached a garden hose to it, and was filling The Blob, as we now called the old waterbed mattress, with the required amount of water.  The more water it ingested, the harder it was for him to hang onto it.  So he attached some rope and tied it to a tree.

            It was getting warm out, and by the time the boys returned from terrorizing the cattle on the open range, all three young people were ready to take a dip in the lake.  After a beer or two and some reconfiguring of rope, dock and Blob, they decided it was time to try out this new adventure.  Since there was no tree by the lake with overhanging branches to swing from, the only solution was to run down the incline toward the lake and jump from the two-meter beach cliff, aiming to land on The Blob.

            Patrick went first.  A short, slim sixteen year old, he hurtled down the incline with great speed and leapt into the air.  He hit the mattress like a splattered bug on the windshield and, unable to hold on, slid down into the water as The Blob shifted its considerable weight and flipped over on top of him.  Undaunted, he tried several more times with the same result.

            Eager to out-perform his younger brother, twenty-two year old James volunteered next.  James weighed in at two hundred pounds, so this was a big gamble on his part.  He took a swig of beer, ran down the hill, and jumped off the edge.  But instead of cushioning his fall like a pillow, The Blob repelled him like a trampoline far out into the lake.  He swam back and shook water from his dazed-looking eyes.  “What happened?” he asked.

            “You must have hit it at the wrong angle.” Honey said.  “Try again.  I’ll hold it for you so it doesn’t move.”

            With both of them fortified by more beer, James ricocheted into the lake several more times, before Honey rethought the original design.  “I think it has too much water in it.  I’ll let some out.  And maybe we should pump some air into it, too.”

            With that much water in the mattress, there was no way to siphon it out while it bobbed in the lake.  The only solution was to drag The Blob up the beach, high enough so gravity would allow them to drain some of the water.  Energized again by more beer, Honey and the boys laboured industriously to move the mattress with a ton of water in it up the incline.  It was hard work.

            By the time they finished their task, it was close to supper time.  Clouds had darkened the sky and nobody wanted to swim anymore.  We all went into the cabin.  After our meal, we could hear the wind lashing the treetops.  Coming back from the outhouse, Honey confirmed that it was also raining.  With a nice fire in the stove, we were mostly content to stay indoors and play cards and board games.  Except for Honey, that is.  He disappeared without telling anybody where he was going.

            I thought he had gone to chop firewood.  His boys thought he was visiting a neighbour.  By ten o’clock, I was ready for bed and starting to worry about him.  We phoned the neighbour’s cabin.  They hadn’t seen him.  Armed with flashlights, the boys checked outside our cabin and came back to tell me both the rowboat and The Blob were missing.  The Blob had been tied to the tree, and the rowboat had been tied to the dock.  It was impossible to see anything out on the lake in the dark, or to hear anything with the wind gusting and the waves breaking so loudly. 

            “Don’t worry,” Patrick said.  “He can swim.”  He and James laughed nervously.

            After another hour, we heard steps on the deck.  Honey burst inside a few moments later, soaking wet and shivering.

            “You’ll never guess what happened!  That stupid Blob came loose and started drifting down the lake in the wind.  I couldn’t just let it go.  So I got in the rowboat and went after it.  When I caught up to it, I tied it to the boat and started rowing back, but do you know how much it weighs?  Maybe a ton!  Do you have any idea how hard I had to row against the wind, pulling that damned thing back up the lake?”

            “Why didn’t you just let it go?” I asked, more concerned at losing Honey than losing The Blob.

            “What?  After you made me bring it up here so people could jump on it?  No way!  I’d have had to row twice as far in the morning to go looking for it, and besides, we have to try it out now with less water in it,” he explained, as he popped the top off a beer and smiled disarmingly.

            The next day Honey couldn’t persuade anyone to jump onto The Blob.  But word must have circulated, because vacationers from up and down the long lake came by on the water in canoes, motor boats, Sea-Doos, pedal boats and rowboats to look at The Blob and ask about it.

By afternoon, Sarah had found a new use for it.  She took a book and sprawled on top of The Blob in a skimpy bikini, sunbathing and waving at any young males who were passing by.  It was definitely the biggest air mattress on the lake that year, and it was the first and last time The Blob ever appeared at Green Lake.  It now rests in peace at the 70 Mile House garbage dump.

_______________________

By Lisa A. Hatton

CRIME WRITING MONTH

Apparently, May is National Crime Writing Month.  The following story is one of my contributions to that genre of fiction.

BACK-UP

            Brandy took her time ending her day’s work in the office so she could be the last to leave.  She didn’t want anyone to know what she was going to do, especially if she was making a big mistake.

Through the window, she saw the construction crews arrive and knew they were parking their company trucks in the back yard.  The men walked through the back shop and came to the front office.  Twenty three men all said good night to her as they handed in their time sheets and left.  Their day ended half an hour before the office closed.

Jim, the owner, was already gone.  She just had to wait for Marianne to leave.  Marianne was reception.  Brandy was accounting.  They were the only two in the office who worked nine to five.  Everyone else worked seven till three, so they could communicate more easily with contractors and suppliers back east in different time zones.

            Brandy shuffled some invoices on her desk and scrolled through reports on her computer to make it seem like she was still working in her own office.  She could hear Marianne rinse out the coffee pot and put away the coffee mugs, and then shut down her own computer and printer, getting ready to leave.

Finally alone in the office, Brandy took out a brand new USB flash drive and inserted it into her computer.  Earlier she had made her usual daily back-up of company accounting records and put it in her office drawer.  It was her insurance in case the computer died.  Now though, she made her own extra back-up of all the accounting data that was on the hard drive.  In addition, she went into the email account and copied all the emails sent and received in the past six months, and then copied all the bids made for jobs.  She would take it all with her when she left.  As the extra back-up completed and she removed the flash drive, she heard footsteps out in the shop.  They were the sound of hard work boots on cement.  And it sounded like more than one pair.  She quickly put the flash drive in her pocket, just as someone opened the door into the main office.

            Mark Sutton stopped suddenly when he saw Brandy.  The younger Ryan Phelps did too.  They were both project supervisors for Dynamic Construction.  Mark jangled a large ring of keys in his hand.  “How come you’re still here?” he demanded, as if she had no right to be in the office.  The construction industry was still a man’s world.  Women were not wanted, accepted or respected.  They were usually treated like servants.

            She looked straight at him and noticed his eyes shift away.  “I was just finishing up some paperwork and waiting for everyone to leave so I could lock up and set the alarm,” she told him, turning off her computer and standing up.  The two men were clad in jeans and sports jackets, with safety vests over top, and wearing hard hats as well.  “You two just back from the job site?  Did the latest order of materials arrive?  Is it secured?” she asked.  “I didn’t think you’d be coming back to the office, especially on a long weekend.”

            Ryan shuffled his feet and moved back a step, refusing to look at her.  Mark raised his head and looked at her defiantly.  “No, the material didn’t show up.  Maybe first thing Tuesday.  We have some paperwork of our own to take care of,” he said, turning around and heading for his own office with Ryan close behind him.  “If all the time sheets are in, you can leave, Brandy.  I’ll do the locking up.”  He ordered her around as if payroll was her only duty and she was an underling!

            Her irritation with the man simmered just under the surface.  She took a deep breath to keep her voice neutral, “Fine.  Do you want to set the alarm on the warehouse, too, or would you like me to do that before I leave?  With the high tariffs on steel and aluminum from out of country suppliers these days, we don’t want any of our materials to go missing now, do we?” she countered.

            “I’ll lock the warehouse.  No problem.  You can leave to start your weekend,” Mark barked, as he entered his own office with Ryan on his heels.  He shut the door before Brandy could reply.

            She picked up her purse and slung it over her left shoulder, as she surveyed her office to make sure all was in order before she turned out the light and headed for the door, with her left hand fingering the flash drive in her pocket.

            Sitting in her car with the motor running and the air conditioner on full tilt to cool things down, Brandy pulled out her cell phone and called her boss.  He didn’t answer, so she left a message.  “Jim, this is Brandy, five-thirty p.m. Friday.  Mark says the materials never made it to the job site today.  Thought you should know.”

            Brandy sensed there was something nefarious going on, but she didn’t know what, exactly.  She was going to spend the weekend doing an audit of accounting, and checking emails to see if she could figure it out.  The company was going into a lot of serious debt, and even though bidding on jobs had escalated to take care of increased tariffs on materials, they were still going under financially.  She had worked for Dynamic for ten years and did the accounting, so she had better damn well figure it out or she’d be out of a job, too!  Divorced and living on her own, and supporting a son at university, she couldn’t afford to be out of work for even one week.

            Feeling in need of a cold drink and food for nourishment, she put her car in gear and started to leave for home.  She pulled onto the roadway that led out of the industrial park where the office was located.  Most industrial sites had shut down at three-thirty, so there was hardly any traffic, except for one large semi pulling a trailer.  As she slowly moved further down the road, she watched in the rear view mirror as the semi pulled into Dynamic’s yard and up to the warehouse.  Brandy pulled a U-turn and went into the parking lot of the appliance distribution center across the street.  They would stay open till nine for pick-ups, so there were still some vehicles sitting in their lot.  She parked in between two SUVs that faced the road, and Dynamic Construction across the street.

            Brandy pulled out her cell phone again and turned the camera on, ready to record whatever was going to happen.  None of the accumulated material in the warehouse was slated for delivery anywhere until the latter part of next week, when the general contractor would give them the go-ahead to proceed with their specific work on site, in the carefully co-ordinated timeline of any large construction project.  They were to install steel beams and a steel roof on a massive warehouse for the budding marijuana market that would become legal in a few months’ time.  The material in their own warehouse had been purchased and stored long before the tariffs came into effect.   The newer, more expensive steel, direct from the supplier, was to have been delivered to the job site that day.  No matter where or when it was purchased, it was all precious cargo these days.  The job site had their own security staff watching everything, but Dynamic didn’t have security on their own premises.

            As Mark and Ryan came out of the office’s side door and walked to the warehouse, Brandy started recording.  The massive roll-up door was lifted while the semi backed the trailer up to the loading dock.  She could hear one of their own noisy forklifts being started and kept her phone recording as bundle after bundle of steel panels were loaded onto the trailer.  In horror, she watched as they also loaded the forklift onto the trailer.  When the semi left with its load, she snapped pictures of the tractor and its licence plate.  Then for good measure she took a picture of the driver as he went by her. 

She knew the job site was shut down for the weekend.  With severe labour shortages in the trades these days, there was no way overtime was going to be paid to keep working through a long weekend.  So where was the material going?  Had she just watched it being stolen?  The trucking name on the tractor wasn’t one they had ever worked with before.

She ducked down as Mark and Ryan left in quick succession, each driving a company pick-up.  Leaving the parking lot, she just hoped she could gain some insight from the data she was going to look at when she got home.  Before reaching the main highway, she pulled into the drive-thru at the lone fast food outlet in the industrial park.  She ordered a chicken dinner and a root beer to take home as she didn’t think she would have time to cook that night.

Later at home, she wiped her greasy fingers from eating the chicken as she waited for her own computer to boot up.  When it was ready, she inserted the flash drive and went into inventory to check the amounts of materials ordered against materials received.  She also checked materials ordered and delivered directly to the job site.  There were major discrepancies in both areas.  Then she went into company emails and checked the figures for materials ordered against amounts listed in bids for jobs.  Those figures didn’t match up either.  She also checked the emailed purchase orders sent by job supervisors to suppliers, which gave job numbers and addresses for deliveries.  Then she checked the job numbers with actual job site addresses.

After several hours of back and forth between email and accounting data, she had the gist of what was going on.  Materials had been ordered for their jobs, but not delivered to the job sites.  Then the same materials were re-ordered and sent to the job.  There were no credits from suppliers, so the original orders had not been returned.  The company was paying for double the material needed for the last five jobs they had done since the price of steel had skyrocketed.  The stolen material could be sold cheaper to a competitor who could then under-bid them.  Unfortunately, Jim thought the company didn’t need extra staff to do job-costing, where job expenses were compared to original estimates.  He had just assumed all his employees were honest, since he paid well and gave yearly bonuses.

Brandy went back into the purchase orders and checked the destinations for materials that had not arrived at job sites.  She jotted down the address given and saw it was the same location each time, and the purchase orders had been authorized by Mark.  On a notepad, she wrote down the delivery address used for all the material the company never received.  Checking maps on her computer, she saw it was located in another industrial park on the other side of town.  She printed the map and saved a copy on the flash drive.  Then she transferred the video and pictures she had taken from her phone to her computer and then to the flash drive.  She also did another back-up of everything from the flash drive to her own computer.

Feeling overwhelmed, she sat back and thought about how to handle this.  Should she call the police?  Was that her decision to make?  All the evidence on paper pointed to Mark, but Ryan was also involved, and he was the owner’s son.  Should she just tell Jim and let him handle it?  Or would he want to shoot the messenger if she implicated his son?  Brandy didn’t want to lose her job, but she sure as hell didn’t want to aid and abet either, now that she knew what was happening.  As a boss, Jim had been good to her over the years.  She had a higher than average salary, pension, medical and benefits, and six weeks of vacation every year.  Did she really want to rock the boat and perhaps lose her job?  But she was a bookkeeper.  She always made the accounts balance to the penny.  She couldn’t let this slide and watch the company go under.  It was clear to her that her own honour and integrity as accountant were at stake here.

As she teetered back and forth between honesty and duplicity, her cell phone crowed like a rooster and she jumped.  She didn’t recognize the number.  “Hello, this is Brandy,” she answered.

“Yes, this is dispatch with Trident Trucking.  Call answering at Dynamic Construction gave me your number in case of emergency.  Our driver was supposed to pick up a load of steel roofing at your warehouse tonight but when he got there, the whole place was in flames.  He called 911, but you might want to check it out yourself.”

Brandy was stunned.  She shook her head.  Then she tried calling Jim again.  She only got voice mail.  “Jim, this is Brandy and it’s 9:00 p.m. Friday.  Trident Trucking just called to say they saw and reported fire at our office and warehouse.  I’m on my way over there.”

She grabbed a jacket and a bottle of water, as well as the flash drive and her cell phone as she rushed out the door.  Approaching the industrial park, she could see flames lighting up the darkening August sky.  Her heart raced as she got closer.  Access to the office and warehouse was denied.  Police cars blocked the entrance.  She pulled into the parking lot she had hid in earlier.  Getting out of her car, she heard the wail of an ambulance as it raced down the road and stopped by the police cars.  She heard onlookers talking.  They said someone had perished inside the office.  Brandy felt faint and leaned against her car.  She took deep breaths, trying to understand what had happened.

A fancy SUV she recognized as Jim’s screeched to a halt on the roadway, beside the police cars.  Brandy watched as he jumped out and tried running toward the office.  “Ryan!  Ryan!  Where are you?” he screamed, as two police officers gave chase and stopped him.  “My son’s in there!” he screamed in anguish, collapsing as they held him back.

Brandy moved onto the roadway to get a better look at the crazy scene backlit by flames.  There were three fire trucks.  Firemen were moving around with their hoses, trying to battle the blaze.  But close to the office, she could see a company pick-up, the red one that Ryan drove.  Firemen were trying to keep the flames away from it, so it wouldn’t explode.

She walked over to the two police cars by the entrance.  The policemen were bringing Jim back to the roadway.  As he spotted her he tried standing on his own.  “My God, Brandy.  What’s happened?  Ryan said he had to meet Mark here to go over some contract extras for the job.  That was an hour ago.  If Ryan’s inside, where the hell is Mark?” he bawled, resorting to anger instead of sobbing.  But he still looked at her with haunted eyes.

Brandy glanced from Jim to the officer, who was steadying him.  She couldn’t waver now.  Turning slightly from Jim to the officer, she pulled the flash drive out of her pocket and said, “I think I have some information you want.”

She was suddenly very grateful it had been her habit to make a back-up copy of company records.  At that moment, the extra copy she had made now felt like the most important thing she had ever done in her whole life.

_______________________

By Lisa A. Hatton

PLAY IT SAFE

Since today is April 20^th, I thought I would post the following story from my collection “Honey Signed The Waiver”.  The events occurred and the story was written long before cannabis was legalized in Canada.  Twice now, I've read this story at public readings and it was well received both times. I hope it makes you laugh, and I especially dedicate it to anyone like me who is NOT celebrating 4-20 today!

 

DON’T ROCK THE BOAT

     When Honey’s sister, Diane, and her husband, Phil, came for a visit one recent weekend, they laughingly reminded me of how Honey sometimes drags me along on unexpected adventures.  Specifically, they remembered one Canada Day weekend when Honey had taken me to visit them in the Kelowna and Lake Country region of British Columbia.  They lived in Lake Country, but worked in Kelowna.

     Phil and Diane owned a business that rented out small scooters and big Harley motorcycles to tourists in Kelowna from May till October each year.  So when we went to visit them in the summer we were generally on our own each day, until early evening, when their business closed for the day.  That weekend, there was a push on to view all the expected fireworks over Lake Okanagan in the evening on Canada Day.  So Honey and I met up with Phil and Diane just before their closing time.

     “Okay, here’s the plan,” Diane said, being the consummate business owner and planner.  “Andrew owns a houseboat, moored by the bridge on the west side of the lake.  Jeremy and his girlfriend Cherise will meet up with us and then all six of us will go meet Andrew at his houseboat and we’ll push out on the water to watch the fireworks.  Won’t that be neat?”

     I knew Jeremy was Honey’s nephew, Phil and Diane’s son.  I’d also met Cherise.  “Who’s Andrew?” I asked.

     “Oh, he’s Jeremy’s friend.  They went to school together,” Diane said.

     I knew Jeremy suffered from the lack of good paying full time employment, which was scarce in the Okanagan, so I asked what Andrew, also in his early twenties, worked at to afford  a houseboat and also the motorhome they told me he had.

     “Um, he runs a greenhouse with his relatives, I think,” she said rather evasively, refusing to look at me.

     “Okay.  So what do we do for supper then?  Since I’m diabetic, I have to eat something, somehow.”

     “Oh, no problem.  Andrew said we’d barbecue on the houseboat.  We’ll do hamburgers and a salad, and I’m picking up the booze,” Phil said.  “Party time!”  He laughed.

     I looked at Honey who just raised his eyebrows and shrugged, as if it was out of his hands.  I did know that if beer was included he’d be a willing participant.  I also knew that as the only non-drinker, I would be the obvious designated driver.  Unfortunately, I did not know how to drive a houseboat.

     Jeremy and Cherise arrived at closing time, booze and groceries were purchased and the six of us headed for the west side of Okanagan Lake, in two vehicles.  Jeremy and Cherise were in his old pickup, newly painted with black matte barbecue paint, and the rest of us were in Honey’s Dodge Caravan, which he was still capable of driving at that point.

     It was a gorgeous evening after a hot day, with the sun lowering over the mountains in the west, and the waters of the lake a placid mirror of the blue sky.  The fireworks would be stunning, in more ways than one.

     We parked our vehicles and the other five carried supplies out on a dock toward a small houseboat.  It was floating, but looked a little worn on the outside.  I followed with my cane and carrying a jacket, in case it was cool when the sun went down.  Honey solicitously helped me board the houseboat, which rocked precariously with seven adult bodies on board.

     “Just so you know,” Andrew boomed, “you can’t all stand on the same side of the houseboat, or we’ll tip over.  Part of a pontoon is missing.  And anytime somebody walks down the middle inside, the boat rocks back and forth, but that shouldn’t cause it to tip.”

     Good to know, I thought, as the vessel started moving away from the dock and into open water.  Being cautious by nature, I decided to park myself on the rear deck by the barbecue, and stay out of the way.  There were already six people preparing drinks and food in a small kitchen area barely big enough for one.  After much laughter and clinking of ice cubes in glasses and popping of beer bottle caps, Honey came out to light the barbecue.

     He opened a valve on the forty pound propane tank, turned the dial on the burner, and used his Zippo to ignite the flame.  Then he put the lid down to let it warm up and went back inside.

     Left alone, I sat serenely beside the lit barbecue, enjoying the scenery and sipping my allotted can of diet pop Honey had brought me, as the boat rocked in synch with his footsteps.

     Then my peaceful meditation was interrupted by a scent that wasn’t food related.  At first I wasn’t sure if it was Honey’s cigarette smoke or the medicinal marijuana the inflicted were smoking for self-healing.  I sighed, resigning myself to a long evening and probably a late supper.

     The reflection of the setting sun off the water made my eyes tear, so I pulled my sunglasses from my purse.  When I put them on and my eyes adjusted, that’s when I saw it.  The open flame under the barbecue.  As Phil looked out from the doorway, I pointed it out to him.

     “I think the barbecue is on fire,” I said, trying to stay calm and not panic.

     “Oh, stupid thing,” he said as he turned the valve off and seemed to tighten something and then re-lit the barbecue and went back inside, rocking the boat.

     My eyes never left the barbecue.  I was sitting beside it feeling very nervous as the boat rocked back and forth every time somebody moved inside.  When the flame erupted again, this time I screamed.

     “Fire!  Fire!  Fire!”

     I debated whether I should hope for sanity from those in the depths of the houseboat, or if I should just jump into the water and try to save myself.  We were a very long way from shore and not wearing life-jackets.

     That’s when Honey surprised me.  He heard my scream and came running from inside with a fire extinguisher which he pointed at the flame, as I crouched in my corner as far as I could get from the barbecue.  He aimed the extinguisher precisely and swamped the flame.  Smoke billowed out and up, while the boat pitched back and forth and tipped precariously, as all the others tried to see what was happening.

     “Spread out!  Don’t tip the boat!” Andrew yelled.

     “Are you okay?  Are you burnt?” Honey yelled at me.

     “What happened?” Phil bellowed.

     Voices were incessant, but hardly recognizable, because the siren from the police boat overpowered them all as it approached us.  But I did hear one command from Andrew.

     “Flush all the pot down the toilet!”

     The boat rocked again as everybody rushed back inside toward the toilet.  I was left sitting alone on the rear deck as the police boat pulled alongside us.

     “Is there a problem?” the uniformed officer asked, pointing to the trails of smoke still wafting from the barbecue.  “We saw the smoke and the houseboat rocking dangerously.”

     “Um.  No.  The barbecue caught fire, but my husband put it out with a fire extinguisher,” I explained, hoping he didn’t also smell the marijuana smoke.

     “Whose vessel is this?” he asked.

     “It’s Andrew’s.  I don’t know his last name.  He just invited us out to view the fireworks tonight.”

     “Where is he?”

     I raised my voice.  “Andrew!” I yelled like a mother about to kill her errant child.

     He poked his head out the rear door and had a short discussion with the officer.  It was decided firmly by said officer that the only course of action would be for Andrew to immediately take his houseboat and passengers back to shore.  We were to view the regulated fireworks from there, instead of trying to produce our own.

     That was just fine by me, since the sooner I could put my feet on solid ground and put some distance between myself and my stoned and intoxicated companions, the better.  Apparently my face reflected those sentiments because Phil and Diane vividly remembered how I looked, like a trapped rabbit among a pack of wolves.  They howl with laughter every time it’s mentioned.

     Later that night, as I climbed into the driver’s seat of the Caravan, I instructed Honey that he had to buy me some supper at a decent restaurant, or there would be more unexpected fireworks for him to watch and he’d darn well better not rock my boat anymore that night!

_____________________

By Lisa A. Hatton

THE BEST THING

With all the serious consequences and worries over the current Covid-19 pandemic, I thought maybe I should post some light reading just for the sake of enjoyment.  So I am going to start posting the individual chapters from my book, “Honey Signed The Waiver”.  It is a compilation of true stories, mostly humorous, about my life with my husband, Bryon.  I hope you enjoy reading them.

THE BEST THING

            I keep telling Honey he is the best thing that ever happened to me.  But it took a while for him to convince me that was true.  We met at a New Year’s Eve party where my teenage son had asked his girlfriend’s parents to introduce me to some single men.  I was divorced and had been a single parent for ten years.  My son felt it was time there was another man in my life since he’d be leaving for the military upon graduation from high school.  Honey was one of those single men invited and the first one to arrive at the party.

            I think he’d been working that day because his hair was sculpted in a bowl shape from wearing a hard hat, and he was wearing a shirt and tie with his blue jeans.  He asked me to dance and then we sat and chatted.  His name was Bryon, not Byron.  He was a mechanical engineer and he told me funny stories from work that made me laugh.  That was promising.

            Feeling out of place in a crowd of people I really didn’t know, I left soon after midnight.  My father had died Christmas Eve, my mother was alone, my daughter was going to move in with her father, and my son and I were going to move in with my mother.  Life was in turmoil and I wasn’t looking for any romantic involvement.  I had too much to do.

            A week later Honey phoned me.  He didn’t ask me for a date, though.  He said, “I understand you’re moving soon.  Would you like some help?  I have a big truck.”

            So he came and helped.  We moved furniture.  We painted the inside of the townhouse I was leaving.  After six weeks of working together evenings and weekends, he asked me for a date.  He’d been counseled by my son’s girlfriend’s parents to take me out to dinner and a movie.  By then I was living at my mother’s house in Abbotsford.  Honey had only been there once before, arriving from another direction when we moved my furniture.

            I gave him the address and told him, “Come east on the freeway from Langley.  Take the Mt. Lehman exit, then the first right on the north side of the freeway.  Then follow Old Yale Road to Townline Road.  Turn right.  Then the first left.  Mom’s house is straight ahead and you’ll see my car in the driveway.”

            He said he’d pick me up at 6:30.  I was still waiting at 6:45, and at 7:00.  Punctuality is a priority for me.  I was having flashbacks to a failed marriage where an errant husband never arrived when he said he would and I was trying very hard not to react without first hearing Honey’s explanation.  That was good, because he did have one.

            “I took the first right, like you said,” he told me.  “But it wasn’t a road, it was the entrance onto the freeway going back the way I’d come.  And I had to go all the way to 264^th Street to get off and turn around and come back again.  I left half an hour early so I wouldn’t be late but it didn’t work out.”

            Honey’s been so helpful in teaching me to be a better writer by becoming more explicit in what I’m saying.  He’s an engineer who takes instructions literally.  It’s a safety issue with Honey.

            On our next date, Honey offered to cook dinner at his place.  I knew he lived in a house, but I hadn’t seen it yet.  He gave me the address and said, “Call me when you get close.”

            “What do you mean?  You want me to get off the Fraser Highway and go find a public pay phone so I can call you?  Why?”

            I thought Honey was hiding something, maybe another woman?

            “Oh, yeah.  You don’t have a cell phone, do you?  I forgot.  That’s okay.  It was just that if I was at the store getting groceries, I could let you know I’d be home right away.”

            It was 1994 and cell phones were not common appendages at that time.  He had one that weighed about eight pounds, but he was the only man I knew who carried one on his hip, like a gun in a holster.

When I finally saw inside Honey’s house, I could see he wasn’t hiding another woman.  The house was mostly empty, three thousand square feet empty.  There was one recliner in the living room.  The dining room showcased a large, heavy wooden table and chairs and matching china cabinet.  In a huge  master bedroom there was only a king sized bed.  The other three bedrooms and the downstairs rumpus room were void of any furniture.  Besides fridge, stove and dishwasher, all Honey had in the kitchen were a single pot, a broiler pan, two plates, two mugs, brand new cutlery and several dozen Petro-Canada glasses of every shape and size.

            For a man who isn’t a cook, dinner that night was good.  Stuffed chicken breast, baked potatoes, salad, and wine.  But alas, that was the only time Honey ever willingly cooked a whole meal for me.

            After several months of getting to know each other, Honey was anxious to show me his beloved cabin at Green Lake in the Cariboo region of British Columbia, a five hour drive north of where we lived in Metro Vancouver.  It was Easter weekend and we planned a getaway.  I drove to his house where he threw my bag in the truck.  He had told me it would be cold up there, the lake would be frozen, to dress warm.  I had on a new pair of high, fleece lined winter boots and wore a heavy coat.  Honey was wearing a heavy suede jacket, a cowboy hat and cowboy boots.  We pulled out of the driveway and only got to the end of the road when Honey turned around.

            “I forgot something,” he said.

            Honey ran into the house, came back out and on the bench seat between us he carefully placed a roll of duct tape and a Bowie knife.  I didn’t know if I should be afraid or not.  I double checked my interior alarm system.  My heart wasn’t racing.  My breathing felt normal.  My solar plexus wasn’t contracting.  My fear factor gauge registered zero.

            “What are those for?” I asked Honey, just to double check.

            “Oh, I always take the tape, the knife and my Dremel Tool, in case of emergencies.  Once I broke some ribs and used the tape to hold me together until I got home.  The knife comes in handy if I want to whittle a twig to roast something on a bonfire.  And the Dremel can be used to repair all sorts of things.  I try to be prepared.”

            Honey is so smart.  It was foolish of me to worry.

            When we got to the cabin the snow was crisp and crackled as we drove down the twisty driveway from the road.  Once inside, I was flabbergasted.  The cabin was fully furnished and had everything, including dishes and pots and pans,  a toaster, a coffee maker and a microwave.

            “Why do you have everything here and nothing at home?” I asked.

            “Well, I bought the cabin all found.  All this stuff came with it.  Back home, the house is empty because my former girlfriend took everything with her when she left.”

            “Oh,” I said, not knowing if I should feel sorry for Honey or just amazed at his predilection for the comforts of urban living at the cabin and rustic privation at home.

            Remembering the emptiness at Honey’s home in Langley, and my growing need to leave my mother’s house now that she knew she had sufficient income to support herself since my father’s death, I realized I had furnishings that would fit perfectly into Honey’s house.  So one day when Honey whispered he didn’t want me to leave, I knew he’d finally convinced me he was the best thing that ever happened to me.

_____________________________

From HONEY SIGNED THE WAIVER

By Lisa A. Hatton

HE'S MY VALENTINE!

It’s always wonderful to know that somebody loves you, any time of year, not just for Valentine’s Day.

HONEY LOVES ME!

            Honey only tells me how much he loves me twice a year.  In July he gives me a birthday card and in December he gives me a Christmas card.  These cards always drip with so much sappiness I wonder if I should have a shot of insulin to counteract the sugar surge!  Actually, I’m usually astounded how sentimental he is in his choice of gift cards.  But through the rest of the year, I only hear how much he cares through the testimony of others, like that time I battled with a semi on Fraser Highway.

            It was a rainy day in May and I drove my 2007 Hyundai Sonata from Langley, where we live, to Abbotsford, where my family doctor is located.  I needed my regular diabetic check-up and to have my prescriptions renewed.  My appointment was in the morning and I had planned to visit a fabric store out there afterward.  I asked Honey if he wanted to go along for the ride and maybe browse through the Abbotsford Value Village store.

            “No,” he said.  “I’m still clearing out the back yard and taking another load to the dump.”

            So I went by myself.  After my appointment, and after wandering through the fabric store without buying anything, I realized it was eleven thirty and I needed to decide about lunch.  Should I eat in Abbotsford, or drive straight home?  I favoured eating out, but not by myself, so I called my sister-in-law, Jeannette, who lives there.

            “No,” she said.  “I’m babysitting grandkids right now.  Maybe next time you come out.”

            Thinking about lunch had made me hungry.  On my lonesome, I stopped at a Subway restaurant and had a quick sandwich before heading for home.  Rain still splattered my windshield and the roads were wet.  Traffic was light heading west on Fraser Highway, in the same direction as I was, but heavier going in the opposite direction.  Most of the highway has just one lane in each direction.

As I approached the red light at the intersection with 240^th Street, I slowed down.  But the light turned green so I then accelerated through the intersection and up the following incline, past a long line of traffic going in the opposite direction.  They had been stopped at the light.  As I topped the hill, I was still doing less than the posted speed limit of eighty kilometres per hour.  Right at the top of that hill, there was a lumber yard on my right.  That was the exact destination of a semi, which had been sitting in the opposing traffic and suddenly decided to make a left turn across a solid yellow line right in front of me.

With my heart in my throat, I slammed on my brakes.  I could feel my car skidding on a wet surface.  I fleetingly realized I had nowhere to go.  The semi was in front and to the right of me.  A line of traffic was to my left.  I knew I would hit the semi, which was pulling a flat deck.  I was terrified I was meeting my demise, that I might be beheaded, or that I would be so mangled my newly restored limbs would have been for nought.  Looming in front of me I saw the huge tires at the back of the tractor.  My whole body shook as metal in front of me crunched.  I felt my car being pulled along with the semi.  And then everything stopped and I saw nothing but a huge expanse of white.

At first I thought I had died, but that white light I saw hurt like hell.  My whole face stung.  Then the white slowly deflated and I realized it had been the air bag.  I looked out past the pushed up and crumpled hood of my car to see that the semi had proceeded further into the lumber yard and it had pulled me to the side of the road in the process.  There was either steam or smoke coming up from the motor of my car.  I tried to turn the ignition off, but the key wouldn’t turn.  I didn’t know if my car would catch fire or not.  I had urgent thoughts of needing to get names and phone numbers from witnesses.  I groped for a notebook and pen from the glove compartment.  My arms moved fine.  My legs were still there and I could feel them and they weren’t broken.  Why had nobody come to see if I was all right?  Maybe they thought I was dead.  I opened my car door to go look for witnesses.

A woman ran up to me before I could get out.  “Don’t move!  Don’t move!” she ordered.  “I’m a nurse.  Don’t move.  First responders are on their way.  I called 9-1-1.  Can you see okay?  Did you bang your head?  Do you think anything is broken?”

Very kindly, she was trying to save me from hurting myself by keeping me still.  She said she had been travelling in the opposite direction and had seen what happened.  Just then, another woman walked up to my car and said she had been behind me and had seen everything.  I asked the second woman if she would write down her name and number and collect any other names of witnesses for me.  She did.  Several men came over to my car and I asked one to get me the licence plate number on the back of the truck that hit me.  As he was doing that, the driver of that truck confronted me.

“What the fuck do you think you were doing?  Were you on your phone, or texting?  You had no business accelerating like that!”  He was yelling at me like it had all been my fault.  I just stared at him.  I didn’t have the energy to argue.  Thankfully, just then a firetruck arrived with sirens and lights, and the first responders had everyone else move aside as they tended to me and turned off the motor of my car and then sprayed it with fire retardant.

Within another minute or two, an ambulance arrived and the firemen tending to me gave way to the paramedics.  I was walked over to the ambulance and my vitals were checked.  Pulse, blood pressure, blood sugar, temperature.  I was asked if I’d been unconscious and I said no.  I was asked to state what happened.  By then I was beginning to feel some injuries from the air bag and seat belt; a fat lip, neck and breast abrasions, and a very sore and swollen left hand.  The paramedics told me they were very happy I was alive and talking as they had been expecting to recover a dead body, or bodies, when called to the collision of a car and a semi.  At least I’d be able to tell Honey I’d made somebody happy.

The policeman entered the ambulance and asked to see my driver’s licence.  I asked if he wanted my statement about what had happened.  “No need.  There were plenty of witnesses and they all said the same thing,” he told me.

I was then transported to the Langley Memorial Hospital and left in the emergency waiting room for my turn to see a doctor.  It was from there that I kept trying to call Honey.  I thought he should know I would need a ride home, probably at some late hour.  I called Honey on the land line.  There was no answer.  I called him on his cell phone.  No answer.  I called both phones again and left a message.  “I’m not seriously hurt, but have been in a car accident and I’m at the ER in Langley. Call me on my cell phone as this is an emergency and I will answer it.” You see, I don’t usually answer calls on my cell phone.  I just have it for emergencies.

By then, I was really feeling the need for support, or at least someone to share my misery.  I called my cousin, Penny, and asked her to keep trying to call Honey at both the house, and on his cell.  When she asked me where this had happened I had trouble remembering the cross street, but a woman sitting in the chair across from me said, “It was just west of 240^th  Street.  I saw it happen.”  It’s a good thing it’s such a small world.

That’s when I thought I would buy myself a bottle of water and take some acetaminophen for the painful throbbing in my left hand.  I looked over toward the vending machine by the door, and who do I see entering with a worried look on his face, but Honey!  He turned his head and spotted me sitting there and broke into a very wide grin, like he was actually happy to see me.  I stood up as he approached and then he grabbed me in a very close hug.  I almost cried as I was so relieved that he was so relieved to find me in one piece!

“Did Penny reach you on your cell phone?” I asked.  “Where were you that you got here so fast?  I only called her two minutes ago.”

He sat down beside me and explained.  “I don’t have my cell phone.  It’s at home.  As I was coming back from the dump there was a traffic line-up on Fraser Highway and I saw a tow truck loading what looked like your car onto a flat deck.  I did a quick U-turn but the tow truck had just pulled away.  Fortunately, there was still a cop there directing traffic.  I asked him where the driver of that car was, how badly hurt you were.  I said you were my wife.  All he would say was that the driver had been transported to Langley Memorial.  I came right here!”

“Oh,” I said, thankful that he was beside me.  He asked about my injuries and then about how I managed to total my car.  Since he asked me those things in the right order, I explained everything.  After about an hour of Honey playing dutiful husband, I could see him getting restless.  He looked like a farmer who’d been working in the rain and mud.  Knowing I could be waiting for hours yet to see a doctor, I told Honey to go home and I would use my cell phone to call him when I needed a ride.  He was very reluctant but eventually agreed.

“I guess I could run home and have a quick bath.  You sure you don’t want me to stay?”

I assured him I wasn’t going to die that day, but did tell him I wasn’t going to be cooking him any supper.  He’d have to fend for himself.  It wasn’t until eight o’clock that night that I was ready to go home with my newly purchased, medically approved wrist support.  In the meantime, Honey had returned and brought me a sandwich because he knows I’m diabetic and needed to eat something.

He told me while he was home, he’d had a phone call from Shirley, a friend of ours, to tell him two of our friends had died, and there was a celebration of life for one on Sunday, if we wanted to attend.  We went on Sunday, and as I entered the Elks Club lounge sporting my fat lip and wearing my wrist support, a number of people wanted to know how I was and what had caused the accident, and wasn’t it wonderful that I wasn’t the third death?

Talking about Honey, our friend Shirley said to me, “You know that he really, really loves you?  He was so upset when I talked to him on the phone.  He had trouble explaining what happened and he wasn’t thinking straight, he was just so worried about you.  He said he had to go, that he needed to get back to the hospital and see if you were okay.  He really, really cares, you know?”

So there you have it, testimony from someone else that Honey loves me, even if it isn’t my birthday or Christmas!  How much luckier could I be in this small world of mine?

____________________________

By Lisa A. Hatton