lolamatopoeia

My parents took me out for breakfast on the morning of Christmas Eve. We went to the usual place, the one my family lovingly calls 'The Old Cunt', and where my parents don't need menus. I ate french toast and ham while my parents spoke loudly to all the passing-by local restauranters they know about how much they want me to produce grandchildren for them soon.
"I'm 23!"
"So what? I was 20 when I started!"
"Yeah, I was 21 when I started popping them out. You need to get a move on, we want lots of grandkids and I mean LOTS!"
"Oh gee, thanks guys. Well, you're definitely going to have to wait a while on that one - I've got years of school left, I mean, that's if I get in ..."
"Hey, and if you don't get in then you can always be a hairdresser down the street and maybe Tudor can get a job as a bike courier around town and you can live down on Hincks* street with your seven kids!"
"Very funny".
The worst part is that I think they were only partly joking. I just shook my head, smiled at the loyal customers and buried my mouth in my coffee cup.

Later in the evening, my parents fulfilled their Christmas Eve destiny by eating candied nuts, fancy cheese and crackers, and getting buzzed on cheap wine at the Mayor's house. For Christmas, they like to watch a rotating silver and blue tinsel tree, drink at a mini bar and listen to the old couple down the street complain about each other over a roaring television screen fireplace. I usually stay at home alone on Christmas Eve and wrap presents. For some reason, this time it all feels different. It just feels kind of bleh. Usually, on Christmas, television offers me at least a little entertainment - with specials, marathons, etc. - to keep me sane. This time, the only thing close was 'A Christmas Story' marathon. I don't like 'A Christmas Story'. After slouching on a pull-out bed filling out applications all day, I was not in the mood to sit around watching something I dislike and going slowly crazy alone indoors. Plus, my dinner hadn't been digesting properly. I needed air. I grabbed the leash, the dog, a plastic bag and my outer gear and we went for a late night walk in the rain.

My dog and I trudged through the slush and puddles down empty streets where coloured lights dangled on windows of sleeping houses. We walked in the middle of the road, past the site of one of my first instances of teenage employment, and past the home of the boy I dated in highschool who will soon be husband to a lovely girl and owner of a lovely house in a city I'll soon be leaving. Their driveway was full and I wanted to knock on the door as I passed by to wish his family a Merry Christmas. It wasn't that kind of nostalgia, it was just that I missed the warmth of that family on Christmas and we usually see each other yearly - they're always pretty great around the Holidays - but it was late at night, and it might have been weird.

I kept walking and travelled down the street which shares my family name. In the winter, you can always tell which areas of town house a lot of kids since every other house has either a snow man or an ice fort/igloo on the front lawn. We walked in zig zags down the quiet street and I was remembering the nights when I would shut my eyes so tightly in efforts to make myself fall asleep because my parents had told me that Santa won't come until I'm asleep. I've always taken a long time to fall asleep; those night were torture.

We turned back when the rain from my hair started dripping down my face and my dog's paws were in a constant loud splash. We passed the house in which I lived until the age of 6 or so, where I remember running bare-bellied and bare-footed after puppies and astro pops, and then passed a group of 14 yr olds with Labatt's Blue on their breath and peach fuzz on their chins who wished me 'Merry Christmas' as they stumbled by. I walked by the first house again on my way back and noticed their lights were on, and I imagined music playing.

My parents had come home before I did, me with my wet face and hair and a dirty wet elderly dog. I've come back home to wrap up a package of Dentabones for my dog.

It's been an odd Christmas so far.

*Hincks Street, in my small town, refers to a street in a bad area of town - sort of like Cheapside or east of Richmond in London, or Jane & Finch in Toronto. On Hincks street, however, the biggest dangers would be getting breathed on by a mulletted, Nascar hatted, high-topped, acid-washed Export-chugging porch monkey, getting smoked up by a 35-year old live-at-home with a bad dye job, or getting knocked-up. Our family used to live near Hincks street, when I was very young.