Reminiscent

My friend and former Guelph roomate, one Slick, has scanned and emailed me a bunch of photos from those crazy years, many of which I’ll be sharing here on the site. Now, you probably remember when Robert Downey Jr. was arrested for the first time back in 1996. Due to the frenzied media coverage, the inhabitants of 113 Janefield Ave couldn’t help but notice Slick’s startling resemblance to the fallen star. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Robert Downey Slick Jr.

Luckily, the bags under Slick’s eyes stem from many all night study sessions and not the freebasing of crack cocaine in stranger’s homes. Well, at least that’s what he told us.

“Hello… It’s Inka!“

I have been trying to finish this story for over two weeks now. It hasn’t been easy. Listening to this woman’s voice after nearly 10 years still makes my skin crawl. The quotes I have bolded (see above) link to actual snippets from answering machine messages that were left for my friends and I at our house in Guelph in 1995 after we “picked up a stray” one fateful winter night.

Nick, one of my roommates at the time, found this tape in his parent’s garage recently and converted it to a series of MP3 files. The messages are very creepy, downright ridiculous and you may want to listen to them more than once so please – right click and download them to your hard drive so as not to annihilate my bandwidth limit. And with no further ado, on to our story.

My years at The University of Guelph (1992-1997) are filled with the very fondest of memories. I socialized profusely, worked constantly in seedy student bars, traveled the world on my Dad’s company’s dime, drank for England and even had time to occasionally pick up a book. But just like there is an exception to every rule, there’s an exception to this particular mirthful era of my life. And her name was Inka.

JV, Nick and I were living in a house in North Guelph and the year was 1995. I was working as a student manager at the Boo Sports Bar on campus with JV, and Nick was busy squandering an unexpected inheritance on Molson products. We’d all attend just enough classes to get by. We’d drive eachother crazy with our music: I was way into Jeff Buckley, Nick was partial to The New Fast Automatic Daffodils and JJV had an inexplicable devotion to Frank Zappa which to this day has not yet run its course. But we all coexisted fairly well with a pirahna named ‘Pico’ rounding out the household.

Another friend of ours, Art, was having some of his photography displayed at a gallery a couple towns over. I left Nick and J at home, got into my pizzimpin’ Dodge Caravan and drove to Art’s where some other friends were having a few pre-pretentious gallery opening cocktails. Art likes art, I like Art, so I agreed to pack everyone into the party van and play designated driver. I had previously removed the benches from the back in order to haul furniture, so about 6 people – Peter, Art, Joanna, Jessica and others – were rolling around on the floor as I took tight corners, and they tried not to spill a mickey of scotch that was being passed around.

We got to the gallery – came, saw, pontificated. Feigned class, poise, interest – then filed back into the van and headed off in search of more debauchery. It was decided that we’d hit The Brass Taps on the University of Guelph campus. It was a Sunday night, so we didn’t really know what to expect in terms of revelry, but we were willing to try. We arrived and were pleased to discover that it was in fact the first in a series of short lived Taps Karaoke nights. There were about 30 people in the bar which we figured was reasonable for a Sunday, and we all sat around a table center stage. After a few horrendous renditions of some popular favorites, our attention was drawn to a small, cute and seemingly shy red-haired woman as she took the stage.

The music started, and she began to sing “Sweet Little Sixteen” in a thick Icelandic accent. “Zey’re really rockin’ in Boshton… In Peettsburgh, P. A… Deep in ze heart of Texshas… And ’round za Frishco Bay… All over Shaint Louis… Vay down in New Orleeans… All ze Catsh vanna dance vit Schweet Little Shixteen.”

“If you don’t – you’re finished. Don’t play gamesh with me..“

By the time the song ended, we were all on our feet applauding and cheering this seemingly brave woman who’d up until that point been sitting at a table by herself off in the back corner of the bar. In retrospect, that should have been a big red flag right there. But all seven of us were in love with this strange creature, and when Art suggested we ask her to join us everyone agreed and he got up to go talk to her. Five minutes later she was sitting at our table and we were introducing ourselves, laughing and asking her all sorts of questions. Where was she from? Iceland. Where did she live? On-campus family housing. Who did she live with? A boyfriend and their two kids. She seemed harmless enough. We got the complete rundown and when closing time rolled around an hour later, we invited her back to my house – as we had no intentions of wrapping the evening up just yet.

Nick and JV were sitting at home behaving themselves for a change (it was Sunday night, afterall) and had absolutely no idea what they were in for. The eight of us rolled into my living room covered in snow, put on some music and started into a case of Sleeman Cream Ale. Inka suddenly produced a full mickey of cheap, rotgut, white tequila that she’d apparently been carrying or – as I now like to call it – red flag #2. Inka made the rounds, barging into JV’s bedroom and then trying to chat with Nick who was having absolutely none of it. There was some hash oil getting fired up and she took a few big lungfulls – all the while working away at her tequila like a little Nordic trooper. A boozy Beowulf. Things started to get weird very quickly.

“Don’t be afraid. There’ll be no one come vishit you…“

A short while later, Art and I were sitting on the couch chatting and Inka walked up and began shouting loudly at us in Icelandic. Then, just as quickly as she’d raised her voice, she leaned in closer and started singing what sounded like a lullaby. JV and Nick went to bed, and one by one my seriously weirded-out friends started to leave. It dawned on me that I was probably going to get stuck with Inka if I wasn’t careful.

“Inka, Jess is headed back towards campus – you should get a ride with her.” I suggested. To which she replied with a string of screamed and unintelligible Icelandic obscenities. Art got up to catch a ride with Jess and I looked at him with a sort of pleading in my eyes. “Sorry dude, I have to work in the morning.” As he reminded me when I visited him in Vancouver a couple of months back, the last thing he saw as he left the house, was Inka standing over me, jumping up and down screaming “F*ck me! F*ck me! F*ck me!” I was now alone in my house with the craziest person I had ever met. And she wanted a piece.

I picked up the phone and called good old Red Top Taxi. Inka looked at me incredulously and I covered the receiver with my hand and mouthed the words “You’re going home now, Inka.” She screamed gibberish at me again, grabbed her tequila off the table then stormed down the hall and into the bathroom. After 20 minutes I walked over and listened at the door. Silence. I tried the knob. Locked. I had to pee like a racehorse and began furiously knocking in an attempt to get her out of there. When I realized I was going to have to improvise, I ran back into the kitchen, found an empty bottle of Sleeman and, quite frankly, did what I had to do. I hid the bottle in the dining room off of the kitchen and turned out the light, planning to come back for it when I’d managed to get rid of this Scandanavian schitzophrenic.

I heard the bathroom door open and ran back into the hallway. Inka rushed past me towards the kitchen and I walked into the bathroom, terrified of what I might find. There wasn’t a hole in the floor or a bathtub full of blood, but the bottle of tequila was sitting on top of the toilet tank. And it was empty. And I had had enough.

“Talk to me – If not you’re going to loosshe your life…“

Suddenly I heard a loud scream from the direction of the kitchen: “VHAT VAS IN ZAT BOTTLE?!” she hollered and it dawned on me that she’d just taken a pull off of my makeshift beer-bottle-o-potty. It smashed on the floor and she began drinking water out of the tap, flailing around wildly. She’d have to want to leave now, right? Wrong. I heard a honk outside and realized the taxi had arrived. “C’mon Inka, let’s go!” I grabbed her by the arm, picked up her coat in my other hand and started moving towards the door. She twisted away from me and locked herself back in the bathroom. The cab driver stopped honking, gave up and drove away. “Nooooooo!”

Inka emerged a few minutes later and I laid into her. “Listen, I don’t know what your issue is, and I’m sorry if you’ve got troubles back at home – but I want you to leave. I am calling the cab again, and you are f*cking going to get in it“. She nodded sheepishly, and I called the cab company back to explain what had happened – and to beg them to send out another hack. Cab #2 arrived and I held the door open and stood on the front porch so the driver could see me. Inka retreated into the kitchen and refused to come out. I went and grabbed her, determined to throw her into the snow but she started wailing and I backed off. The cab honked angrily and drove away again. I picked up the phone and called the dispatcher. “Listen, I’m sorry but I’ve got a crazy woman here who won’t leave! Please get your guy to turn around and come back.” The dispatcher replied “What you need pal is a cop. I’m not sending another car to that house.” Inka sang another lullaby to herself and stared at me.

I was exhausted, unnerved and furious. I walked into my bedroom (which did not have a lock on the door) and got into bed. I didn’t know what else to do. Sure enough, Inka came and got into bed with me and I pretended to be asleep. That’s when she started to moan. To this day, Nick and JV are convinced that Inka and I did the horizontal mambo that morning as they were getting up to go to school. And I’m sure they’ll comment to that effect for all to see. She moaned like it was her job for about half an hour as I lay on my side facing away from her. We stayed that way for about two hours until finally she sat up and announced she was ready to leave. Luckily Guelph had two cab companies, and I soon had her out of the house.

My relief was short lived though as I returned to my room and saw her address book on the nightstand. The phonecalls dispersed throughout this story were Inka’s fanatical attempts to get this book back. From Monday to Thursday, we wouldn’t answer the phone and we ended up with a tape full of the evil ranting you’ve been listening to. Finally, we couldn’t take it anymore and called her back and arranged to drop it off at her apartment. We decided it would be better if I waited in the car as most of her aggression seemed aimed at me. Curiosity got the better of me, and I stood watching them in the shadows as they crossed a large courtyard and approached her door.

“I’m not from Canadia if you think ssho…“

Her creepy Icelandic boyfriend answered the door. “Hello messhenger boys!” he said as he bent over to put on his boots. He thought Nick and JV were there to fight with him. Nick tossed the small book past him into the apartment, and after a few more words were exchanged, they turned around and walked back to the van.

She never called our house again, but I did see her about two years later at the University Medical Center. I had a sore throat from hell and was standing in a packed waiting room – waiting to be seen. I noticed her before she saw me and I made sure to stare straight ahead. I watched her glare at me for about a minute out of the corner of my eye, but thankfully she left without saying anything. I was braced for another scene, but perhaps one warm mouthful of my piddle had proven plenty.

This is the first in a series of thirty of my best stories – one for every year I have been alive. Every word of this series will be true. Every detail accurate to the best of my memory. Truth is always stranger than fiction.



Holy Christmas. It was December 25th, 1995. I knew my day was destined to be weird when I awoke in a hotel room in Kota Kinabalu Malaysia, turned on the TV and learned that Dean Martin had died.

German tourists are the bane of my father’s existence. If you run into one couple in your hotel lobby, rest assured there’s at least another hundred nearby – as they always travel in large packs. They have this infuriating strategy of getting up before dawn, going down to the pool area of whatever resort they’re occupying to “claim” every available chaise lounge for Germany – by laying their towels over them. Then they go back to their rooms to continue to sleep off all of the schnitzel and Rumplemintz from the night before. Usually until 11 am. A Beach Blanket Blitzkrieg.

+ =

On vacation the year before, close friends of my parents – who shall remain nameless – snuck out right after all the Germans had returned to their beds to rearrange the towels into an enormous swastika. My father’s tactics are just slightly more subtle, and after he threw the towels of four still slumbering krauts into a pile on the patio, we sat down and set about discussing what we would do that day.

Resort pamphlets had advertised a tour where a guide takes your party by outboard motorboat around the South China Sea to a series of nearby islands. We located the dock where a group of fellow tourists was gathering and signed up for the next sortie. Soon two native Malaysians appeared with life jackets, fishing line and a cooler then instructed us to climb aboard.

The guide’s name was Raphael, or “Raffi” as we began to refer to him. I am not sure if he appreciated the nickname, but we’d never met someone with the same name as our beloved Canadian children’s singer. Raffi took us around to an island where we swam and were assured “No sharks, 100%!”. I pulled on some fins and a mask and started chasing a squid to see if I would get inked. Then we fished with spools of line and pulled out some of the freakiest looking aquatic specimens this side of Atlantis. But nothing could prepare me for my lunch on “Monkey Island”.

Raffi and his assistant grabbed the cooler and led us to an area where they started to prepare lunch. The island was about two square miles in size, with sandy beaches and a steep hill in the middle covered in jungle. I wandered away from my family, small disposable Kodak in hand, to explore a little bit. I came across a Japanese man and his son who were staring up at a tree and laughing. He reached into a bag and pulled out a piece of watermelon before throwing it straight up into the air. I followed the path of the watermelon’s flight and noticed a monkey sitting in a high branch staring off into space. When the watermelon got up to him, he snatched it out of the air while looking in the opposite direction. The three of us had a giggle and I continued on my way. That’s when I noticed that the island was literally crawling with spider monkeys.

Used to stupid tourists with “food source” stamped on their foreheads, a large pack of monkeys with absolutely no fear of humans stood in the tree line of the jungle – dashing out occasionally to steal apples, bags of chips, whatever was left unattended. I remembered the small Japanese child I had just met and wondered if he might end up a series of large monkey turds.

The little buggers seemed small enough, and I decided to follow a path into the jungle not particularly concerned by potential primate problems. Erosion and tree roots had created a natural staircase up the side of the hill and it cut through the dense surrounding jungle. I reached the top and followed another path until I got within sight of the beach where everyone had started eating. I had just decided to head back when I heard a loud “EEEEP!” coming from my left.

I turned around and came face to face with a nest of ten spider monkeys. They were quite upset at my intrusion, and were walking back and forth and staring at me. A large male appeared from behind them and began sizing me up. He looked pretty funny with his little moustache, beard and bushy eyebrows, but I knew right away he was this particular monkey pack’s “goon” and I should probably think about high tailing it. But I had to get a picture.

Anyone who has ever used a plastic disposable camera knows that when you wind the film it makes a loud clicking sound. This was news to the monkey posse, and when I started cranking the spool forward, the screaming increased and the enforcer moved forward. He bared his signifigant toothage at me and charged. Here are the two photos I managed to take before the monkey business began.

There was a forgettable film released in 1995 called Congo. I had just seen it, and one scene in particular jumped into my mind. Scientists hiking through the jungle stumble across a huge gorilla who subsequently charges them. The guide tells them to “Stay still and don’t move a muscle” in the face of this enormous creature. They manage to do so, and the Gorilla stops in front of them and then scampers.

My new little monkey buddy was a far cry from a gorilla, but all I could picture were those teeth sinking into my calf as I attempted to run away. So I made a grumpy face, stared into it’s eyes and stood my ground. The monkey closed the distance between us in about 2 seconds flat and then stopped at my feet – staring up into my face. When it became apparent he was all “EEEEP” and no bite, I stomped my foot and screamed back at him, sending the whole crew packing into the jungle like the starters pistol of the Boston Marathon.

Dear readers, I hope that I’ve imparted some monkey wrangling wisdom you can take with you on your next trip to New Guinea, the Amazon, a Dave Matthews concert – anywhere there might be large groups of shirtless apes waiting to start trouble.