Last days of Van - Part 3, Maple Ridge
I don't want to give the impression that my last days in Vancouver were all spent working hard. I made sure I took some time to relax and enjoy myself. One weekend, my mates from the Gold Coast, Scooter & Dick, invited me to go with them to their friend's place for a night out. Colin lived in Maple Ridge, which is located to the east of Vancouver. It's a mere sixty minutes there by car but takes a hell of a lot longer on public transport. That Saturday evening we had to spend an hour on the Skytrain then we had to wait twenty minutes for a bus that took fifteen minutes to get us to our next bus, which took another hour to get us to our destination.
I started to get a feel for Maple Ridge when I looked around the second bus to see a number of Eminem look-a-likes populating the bench seats. One guy was wearing a white tracksuit with white shoes and a white cap, augmented with a little 'bling' of course.
Anyway, we managed to miss our stop and had to wait for the bus to do a loop and head back to where we were supposed to get off. We headed to the nightclub that Scooter & Dick had told me so much about. They had gone there the week before and, apparently, drinks were a mere $1.50 and the place was far enough away from the city for our accents to have real novelty value. We walked in at about 8:30 and were laughed at by the bouncer for turning up so early. The club was empty so we headed straight for the bar and ordered nine rum & cokes before occupying the best booth in the joint. An hour later it was still just us in the place - unless you count the 18 empty glasses in front of us as patrons. The music was terrible - RNB & bad hip hop - so we switched to doubles in an effort to lessen its impact.
Slowly the crowd arrived. More guys in white tracksuits and girls dressed like Gwen Stefani (although unfortunately not blessed with her physique). I was the oldest person by roughly 6 years (and that would have been worse if not for Scooter's presence). We watched one likely young lad take to the dance floor with great gusto. He tilted his hat to the side then proceeded to do a dance that could only be described as 'white guy trying to dance like a black guy'. He put his hands in the air, sort-of ran on the spot and twisted his hips every now and then. If a girl came within range he worked his way behind her, put a hand on one of her hips and waved the other hand around. This guy was great. His dance didn't change all night. One song would stop and another would start with a different beat but he just kept dancing at the same pace.
Anyway, the night grew long and the music worse. We now had to queue for our life-giving doubles and I was getting a little stropy about having been brought here by my so-called friends (I would return the favour a couple of weeks later when I convinced them to go to what I thought would be a great Wednesday night indie club that turned out to be lamer than President Truman). It took us ages to extract Colin from his friends and get him to take us back to his place. When we eventually did pry him away he simply dropped us off before taking a lady friend home.
'Just go in the back door,' he said.
'Is it unlocked?' I replied.
'You know it!'
And with that he headed off.
The door was locked of course and we didn't want to wake his dad (Colin still lived with his folks) since he is a very serious man - the foreman at the site where Scooter & Dick used to work. We figured we wouldn't see our host till morning so I pulled my blanket out of my bag and we settled in under the balcony for the night. Three blokes under one blanket lying on concrete on a cold evening. After promising each other we wouldn't tell anyone about these sleeping arrangements (whoops) we tried to get a little shut eye. Thankfully Colin unexpectedly returned and we didn't have to suffer the embarrassment of being discovered huddled up next to the fish pond in the morning by Mr Colin.
While that Saturday night was a total write-off the dawn brought about one of those incredible days that can't be planned - it just happens. We awoke in the pool room, having slept on a Lay-Z-Boy each, when Colin and his bro Corey came in for a smoke. After a hearty breakfast cooked by the lads' dad (apparently an unprecedented event), we decided that the best way to spend the day was to play poker and smoke cigars. This prompted Corey to tell us how much he liked Prime Times - a cigar/cigarette hybrid complete with filter. The young man said that since these mini cigars resembled regular smokes he called them, 'CIGARettes'. He was quite proud of this play on words so I decided to act like I didn't get it. 'Cigarettes?' 'No, listen to how I'm saying it, CIGARettes. See CIGARRRettes.' 'CIGarettes?'. Anyway, Colin's mate turned up (I think his name was Chris) and we went out in search of poker chips.
Maple Ridge can best be described as 'malls and mountains'. Massive stores compete for the title of most prominent local feature with impressive BC peaks. We scoured several hanger size shops before finding a poker set. After stocking up on beer & Prime Times we headed back to Colin's pool room for some quality gambling. The windows of the basement space were left shut because someone (it may have been me) had the bright idea that a lack of ventilation paired with an abundance of cigar smoke would create a pretty cool poker haunt effect. Corey came in and saw what we were smoking. 'Ahh, CIGARettes! He exclaimed. 'ciGARettes?' I replied.
Colin and Chris had spent quite a lot of our driving time talking themselves up as the world's greatest undiscovered Texas Hold 'em poker geniuses. Once play began, however, it became increasingly apparent that the two would-be card sharks were the world's greatest rogue betters - throwing disproportionate amounts of money at semi-decent hands and never failing to attempt a bluff when they didn't have as much as a pair of twos. Predictably, the Canucks were soon out of the game and it was just me v the Queenslanders. The contest went for hours, as the beer cans piled up and visibility approached zero. Eventually the money was all in the hands of one person. I don't like to sound my own praises so I won't tell you who won although I will say that Scooter & Dick put up a good fight.
With the beer stocks seriously depleted, and no one in a fit state to drive, I came up with what I thought was my Million Dollar Idea™. 'How good would it be if you could just ring someone up and have beer delivered?' I asked semi-rhetorically. Before I could estimate my future profits Colin was on the phone to Bullet Delivery Service ordering a case of Canadian. Thus my brief entrepreneurial career came to a halt and the drinking games began.
We played roadrunner of course. Widely regarded as the best drinking game of all time. Now it's hard to explain the rules in text but all you need to know for the purpose of this tale is that there are two kinds of hand signals a player can use and three kinds of sounds he can make - 'rowwwwwrrrrr' (the noise roadrunner makes when screaming down a desert road), 'meep' and 'meep-meep'.
Scooter was admirably bad at this game but Chris was the worst player I have ever seen. He would go out of turn, not realise it was his go or direct play in the wrong direction - each of these actions earned him a skol of beer. At one point, sensing that he should do something quickly to avoid punishment once more, he emitted a piercingly loud 'TOOT TOOT!' The rest of us laughed so hard we fell off our seats and curled up on the floor clutching our stomachs. We played for quite a while, as Chris moved ever closer to being dislodged from his chair for reasons other than laughter.
Mrs Colin was nice enough to cook up a spag bol worthy of an Aus mother (not quite as good as my mum's though). After hoovering up the food we Aussies decided we wanted to see a raccoon.
And so it was that three brave & beery young men ventured forth into the cool Maple Ridge night air - one carrying a hockey stick (we heard raccoons could be vicious), one a soccer ball (something to do while walking around) and another a torch. We didn't see a raccoon but we did encounter a concerned neighbour who came out to see why three drunks were playing basketball with a flat soccer ball out the front of his house late on a Sunday evening. We explained we were searching for a raccoon and he suggested that we may have been looking in the wrong place. With that we abandoned the search and headed back to base. Scooter managing to walk through the fish pond we almost slept next to the night before.
We woke up ridiculously early in the morning, as we were getting a lift back to Van with Colin and his dad who both began work at 7am. Our stomachs were hurting from laughing so hard at Chris and possibly from excess consumption of Molson Canadian. I'm also pretty sure that if any of us had sneezed the cabin of Mr Colin's pick up truck would have filled with cigar smoke emanating from our nostrils. All in all it was a good weekend - the Sunday more than making up for the Saturday night.
I started to get a feel for Maple Ridge when I looked around the second bus to see a number of Eminem look-a-likes populating the bench seats. One guy was wearing a white tracksuit with white shoes and a white cap, augmented with a little 'bling' of course.
Anyway, we managed to miss our stop and had to wait for the bus to do a loop and head back to where we were supposed to get off. We headed to the nightclub that Scooter & Dick had told me so much about. They had gone there the week before and, apparently, drinks were a mere $1.50 and the place was far enough away from the city for our accents to have real novelty value. We walked in at about 8:30 and were laughed at by the bouncer for turning up so early. The club was empty so we headed straight for the bar and ordered nine rum & cokes before occupying the best booth in the joint. An hour later it was still just us in the place - unless you count the 18 empty glasses in front of us as patrons. The music was terrible - RNB & bad hip hop - so we switched to doubles in an effort to lessen its impact.
Slowly the crowd arrived. More guys in white tracksuits and girls dressed like Gwen Stefani (although unfortunately not blessed with her physique). I was the oldest person by roughly 6 years (and that would have been worse if not for Scooter's presence). We watched one likely young lad take to the dance floor with great gusto. He tilted his hat to the side then proceeded to do a dance that could only be described as 'white guy trying to dance like a black guy'. He put his hands in the air, sort-of ran on the spot and twisted his hips every now and then. If a girl came within range he worked his way behind her, put a hand on one of her hips and waved the other hand around. This guy was great. His dance didn't change all night. One song would stop and another would start with a different beat but he just kept dancing at the same pace.
Anyway, the night grew long and the music worse. We now had to queue for our life-giving doubles and I was getting a little stropy about having been brought here by my so-called friends (I would return the favour a couple of weeks later when I convinced them to go to what I thought would be a great Wednesday night indie club that turned out to be lamer than President Truman). It took us ages to extract Colin from his friends and get him to take us back to his place. When we eventually did pry him away he simply dropped us off before taking a lady friend home.
'Just go in the back door,' he said.
'Is it unlocked?' I replied.
'You know it!'
And with that he headed off.
The door was locked of course and we didn't want to wake his dad (Colin still lived with his folks) since he is a very serious man - the foreman at the site where Scooter & Dick used to work. We figured we wouldn't see our host till morning so I pulled my blanket out of my bag and we settled in under the balcony for the night. Three blokes under one blanket lying on concrete on a cold evening. After promising each other we wouldn't tell anyone about these sleeping arrangements (whoops) we tried to get a little shut eye. Thankfully Colin unexpectedly returned and we didn't have to suffer the embarrassment of being discovered huddled up next to the fish pond in the morning by Mr Colin.
While that Saturday night was a total write-off the dawn brought about one of those incredible days that can't be planned - it just happens. We awoke in the pool room, having slept on a Lay-Z-Boy each, when Colin and his bro Corey came in for a smoke. After a hearty breakfast cooked by the lads' dad (apparently an unprecedented event), we decided that the best way to spend the day was to play poker and smoke cigars. This prompted Corey to tell us how much he liked Prime Times - a cigar/cigarette hybrid complete with filter. The young man said that since these mini cigars resembled regular smokes he called them, 'CIGARettes'. He was quite proud of this play on words so I decided to act like I didn't get it. 'Cigarettes?' 'No, listen to how I'm saying it, CIGARettes. See CIGARRRettes.' 'CIGarettes?'. Anyway, Colin's mate turned up (I think his name was Chris) and we went out in search of poker chips.
Maple Ridge can best be described as 'malls and mountains'. Massive stores compete for the title of most prominent local feature with impressive BC peaks. We scoured several hanger size shops before finding a poker set. After stocking up on beer & Prime Times we headed back to Colin's pool room for some quality gambling. The windows of the basement space were left shut because someone (it may have been me) had the bright idea that a lack of ventilation paired with an abundance of cigar smoke would create a pretty cool poker haunt effect. Corey came in and saw what we were smoking. 'Ahh, CIGARettes! He exclaimed. 'ciGARettes?' I replied.
Colin and Chris had spent quite a lot of our driving time talking themselves up as the world's greatest undiscovered Texas Hold 'em poker geniuses. Once play began, however, it became increasingly apparent that the two would-be card sharks were the world's greatest rogue betters - throwing disproportionate amounts of money at semi-decent hands and never failing to attempt a bluff when they didn't have as much as a pair of twos. Predictably, the Canucks were soon out of the game and it was just me v the Queenslanders. The contest went for hours, as the beer cans piled up and visibility approached zero. Eventually the money was all in the hands of one person. I don't like to sound my own praises so I won't tell you who won although I will say that Scooter & Dick put up a good fight.
With the beer stocks seriously depleted, and no one in a fit state to drive, I came up with what I thought was my Million Dollar Idea™. 'How good would it be if you could just ring someone up and have beer delivered?' I asked semi-rhetorically. Before I could estimate my future profits Colin was on the phone to Bullet Delivery Service ordering a case of Canadian. Thus my brief entrepreneurial career came to a halt and the drinking games began.
We played roadrunner of course. Widely regarded as the best drinking game of all time. Now it's hard to explain the rules in text but all you need to know for the purpose of this tale is that there are two kinds of hand signals a player can use and three kinds of sounds he can make - 'rowwwwwrrrrr' (the noise roadrunner makes when screaming down a desert road), 'meep' and 'meep-meep'.
Scooter was admirably bad at this game but Chris was the worst player I have ever seen. He would go out of turn, not realise it was his go or direct play in the wrong direction - each of these actions earned him a skol of beer. At one point, sensing that he should do something quickly to avoid punishment once more, he emitted a piercingly loud 'TOOT TOOT!' The rest of us laughed so hard we fell off our seats and curled up on the floor clutching our stomachs. We played for quite a while, as Chris moved ever closer to being dislodged from his chair for reasons other than laughter.
Mrs Colin was nice enough to cook up a spag bol worthy of an Aus mother (not quite as good as my mum's though). After hoovering up the food we Aussies decided we wanted to see a raccoon.
And so it was that three brave & beery young men ventured forth into the cool Maple Ridge night air - one carrying a hockey stick (we heard raccoons could be vicious), one a soccer ball (something to do while walking around) and another a torch. We didn't see a raccoon but we did encounter a concerned neighbour who came out to see why three drunks were playing basketball with a flat soccer ball out the front of his house late on a Sunday evening. We explained we were searching for a raccoon and he suggested that we may have been looking in the wrong place. With that we abandoned the search and headed back to base. Scooter managing to walk through the fish pond we almost slept next to the night before.
We woke up ridiculously early in the morning, as we were getting a lift back to Van with Colin and his dad who both began work at 7am. Our stomachs were hurting from laughing so hard at Chris and possibly from excess consumption of Molson Canadian. I'm also pretty sure that if any of us had sneezed the cabin of Mr Colin's pick up truck would have filled with cigar smoke emanating from our nostrils. All in all it was a good weekend - the Sunday more than making up for the Saturday night.
posted by woden pete @ 12:30 AM
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