Are you forkin' serious?

We ate at the Olive Garden two out of the three nights we were in Edmonton. And of course you fill up on their fabulous bread sticks and salad, but that's okay, it just means there will be lots left of your meal to take back to the hotel room for midnight snacking. The room with a mini kitchen including a fridge and microwave. The room with no dishes or cutlery.

The first night we ate at OG we went directly to Greg and April's house for a visit afterward. While we were chatting I said to her, "Do you remember five years ago on my 40th birthday when we were heading to Edmonton to go out for dinner, and you were moving to Edmonton at that time and we travelled together. And remember getting part way and you stopping and "borrowing" my Dire Straits cd with no intention of ever giving it back?"

"Oh my goodness! I'm so embarassed. Let me run get it for you," she says as she jumps up.

"No, no. It's okay I don't want it. I just wanna "borrow" 2 forks. I have no intention of returning them."

We laughed and she found me a couple of mismatched forks.

Two days later I was just going to leave them in the hotel room when we left. But then I remembered a day back when Jed was in high school...

April used to work at the school (I don't recall if this was volunteer or a paid position) Jed loved her being there and often ate his lunch with her - he almost always took food to nuke, not a sandwich. One day I opened his lunch container to wash it and his fork was folded in half to fit inside. I started to rant at him but he interupted me saying, "Aunty April told me to do that so I don't lose the fork." It's kinda been a joke around here ever since.

I brought the forks home and folded them in half and placed them in a bubble envelope along with a Christmas card and took them to the post office last night to mail them off.

The young man tried to fit the envelope through the slot to determine if it can go as a "letter" or if it must be classified as "parcel". It was a few millimeters too thick. Parcel rate was going to be $9.56, had it qualified for letter rate it would be "somewhere around a dollar thirty."

"Here, let me squish it." I said.

I tried and Jed tried but we couldn't get the forks to flatten enough inside the bubble wrap to fit. It was worth over 8 bucks in savings to make it fit. And 9 dollars and 50 cents was too much to spend on a joke. So we ripped the envelope open and removed the forks to try to squish them individually.

OMG, I wish I had a camera to capture the look on the guy's face as I removed the deadly looking bent forks from the package. And Jed launched into his ranting story of Aunty April and the bent forks while I tried to flatten them on the Canada Post counter.

I couldn't get them flat enough so I told the guy I'd take them home and use a hammer or something and come back tomorrow. I see by the look in his eye, he just wanted us to leave before he felt the need to call security.

And off we headed for an hour or so of wandering aimlessly through the mall. When we went to leave, I could not find my car keys. Well this sent me slightly into panic mode, I managed to remain calm. Jed not so much. As I mentally retraced my steps through the mall I told Jed I probably set them down on the Canada Post counter. He got all excited and immediately morphed into Fort George Highway Rescue mode. He instructed me to remain with the car while he returned to the post office.

Under normal circumstances I would not have complied. But there was no way I, the psycho woman with the bent forks, was going back to face the postal guy and admit that, yes indeed I am in fact a lunatic. I remained at the car in -30 degrees in the dark at 9pm.

I can only imagine the scene that unfolded as Rescue Jed (with his Santa hat on) retrieved my keys from the post office.

I did manage to squash the forks flatter at home. I returned to the post office first thing in the morning because, I reasoned, the guy who was working the late evening shift surely wouldn't be on for the first shift the next morning.  I was wrong.