Well, thank you Loblaw's

Today was one of those days when everything was too much hassle. I woke up late, felt like shite, worried about having Covid, decided I had allergies, felt marginally better, taught Ottawacker Jr. some French, read him some Great Northern?, then went to pick up the groceries Mrs. Ottawacker had kindly arranged for me to pick up.

Waited for half an hour for the underpaid kid to bring the order out to my car, then drove to the second store, where a similar underpaid adult took 15 minutes to bring them out. Then I drove home, carried the groceries into the house, and made a final trip for the bottles of San Pellegrino I had ordered from Loblaw's (quasi-monopolistic grocery chain) for the excruciatingly high price of $20.00 per case of 12. (I have stopped drinking, so need some excitement in my life.)

As I carried the box up the stairs in the minus 29 degrees cold, the bottom of the box fell out. Seven of the twelve bottles smashed. You can, I imagine, imagine what happened next (channeling my inner John Cleese..)

I ran in to get a brush and a plastic bag, only to find that by the time I had got there, the water had trickled down the steps and frozen, forming a perfectly placed ice fall on our front step. By perfectly placed, I mean "perfectly placed to cause anyone coming up or down the steps to slip and break their neck".

Thankfully, Mrs. Ottawacker abandoned her Skype interview of a potential donor to come to my aid. Her computer being next to the window, it managed to convey the sounds of my anguish directly into the home of an 85-year-old ex-bishop, who was inquiring about possibilities of setting up a philanthropic legacy, Claiming a Russian invasion or the student neighbours being raided for drugs, she hung up and came out to rescue the situation.

Three pounds of salt later, the stairs are navigable once more. There are still little patches of glass, which look like emeralds sparkling in the sun. Or at least they would, were the sun ever to shine.

Ottawacker Jr. question: "Why did I have to miss two birthday parties if Boris Johnson can have one?"

Answers, suitable for a nine-year-old boy, please, on a postcard.