Bad Knees And A Beer Gut

14 December - Freezing morning today but still the rains are staying away so i'm staying pretty happy. Woke up early in order to meet one of my co-workers for a coffee and was just about to leave the house when I realised that the curse has moved from my rear tyre to the front one. It turned out that it wasn't punctured, just flat, so I just pumped it up and headed in but was a bit late anyway. A few muckups from the client's side made the early morning a bit frusrating (one place I ent to for a return - ie, drop something off, get it processed and then take it back to the original place was for the Canadian Revenue Agency, first I had to take a ticket and then wait for my number to get called then when I gave the guy the package to process he said he wasn't allowed to open it, well, neither was I, it could have been a stalemate .but because I live my life on the edge I took the awesome responsibility - maybe he thought the accountant who sent it had laced the envelope with anthrax or something) it wasn't long before I headed over to the side - really exhausting day on the other side, pretty brutal hills and some very heavy packages but it's a lot more relaxing on the other side, much less traffic and more riding. Had a bit of a chat with Che, one of the side bikers from another company who agreed that it's much better gettingaway from downtown, once you got used to the distances. When I told him that I enjoyed gettingthe exercise from the job and that that was part of the reason I wanted to be a courier he was incredulous. 'In two years man all you've have is bad knees and a beer gut'. I guess you can get bitter after a while in this job.
After I got back from the side Chris, the dispatcher, left to go to the dentist and we were left with BJ, our manager, doingthe dispatching. It's very interesting havinga different dispatcher - BJ is so ... Nice. He's not constantly bitching and complaining like Chris always does and it was quite a novelty to have someone so agreeable on the other end. But, I have to say, that I think I prefer Chris - whilst he may be a bit hot headed he certainly kept things moving much faster and whilst BJ certainly knows how to dispatch, I think that my usual guy is a much better guy for bikers. I ended up loading up with overnight jobs around 3 o'clock, which meant I had to haul them around for almost two hours which was very uncmfortable. Near the end of the day I was sent to take off a "letter" from a driver and head out east to drop it off. The letter turned out to be a box which I had to balance on the handlebars for about a k. When I got to the other end Kim O'Leary (or Leary Ol Kim which might be a more appropriate name) signed for it - he told me that he would probably be using Novex more often now because of a friend's recommendation and he asked if I would be the one who would be the regular delivery guy. I told him no, I normallywork the side, and he seemed very disapponted. He then asked if it would normally be a biker and I told him that he was a bit far from the core so it would probaly be a car. This disappointed him even more. Complete fruit, nice enough, but i'm not sure I want to be heading out there again anytime soon.
Had some bad luck with bread and bread related products today as well. Went to the local Cobs Bakery (Bakers Delight brand over here) as I've done just about every second day for the past six weeks and asked for a Country Grain Flour Loaf (my constant order). The guy asked me if I wanted it sliced thick or thin and I responded, as I do every time, thick. He nodded and then sliced it and handed it over. When I got home I found out that it had been sliced thin!!! Totally inappropriate for toast. When it's sliced thin it gets too dried out, it needs to be thick so that the inners remain soft and fluffy while the outer is crispy unt light brown. When it's thick the toast can retain the heat for long enough for the butter to melt - if it's thin, you always get solid lumps of butter that don't get adequately absorbed into the bread to soften it before a thin and even application of jam (rorsbry or strawsbry, it doesn't matter). So, I was very upset about that. Partly because my bread intake over the next two days will not be as satisfying as t usually is but also because I just can't comprehend why the guy could get it wrong. I've ordered the same thing from the same guy about 25 times and he just doesn’t seem to car enough to commit to memory what I always ask for. It's one thing to ensure that he doesn't second guess me but if i'd all of a sudden changed my mind about how I like my bread sliced you'd think he would have commented, 'Oh, you're having it sliced THIN today? That's different' and I would have repplied, 'No, I want it sliced THICK you nincompoop, like I have it every f**kin' day!'. I'm going to make a complaint next time i'm down there. My other bread relattd incident was when I bought some pitas for my luncheon - I got herb flavoured ones from the local SuperValue and when I went to prepar them tonight they just crumbled into pieces. If a pita bread cannot handle the strain of the preperation proces then there's no way that it's going to survive the rigours of being in a courier bag for four fours. I have a feeling that tomorr'ws lunch is going to be an interesting experience.