Time to get reacquainted...

Some things never change:

• I can still survive on a steady diet of classic Kraft Dinner and cheap Argentinian wine
• My colouring has never been better and I still maintain that if it were an employable job skill I would, in fact, have all the jobs. All the jobs
• I am the queen of procrastination and putting things off until tomorrow
• I hate cats but I love kittens
• I'm still up to my eyeballs in crippling student loan debt

I'd like to say, after graduating from post-secondary education, some things have changed for me but the reality is, with a few minor exceptions, nothing really has. 

I still work at (insert real name here). The New Shop, on the other hand, has ceased to exist. One morning this past summer the boss called me up to the office and told me, effective immediately, the New Shop was closing down. I wasn't at all surprised but I wish a there was some more honesty about the "decision" to close. 

For defamation sake, I won't say the New Shop closed because the boss wasn't paying the bills, but when you show up to work and the locks have been changed and the property management company won't let you in to get your stuff because the boss hasn't paid the bills -- I think it's safe to say that the boss wasn't paying the bills. 

I was sad. And not because I was out of a job. I was sad because I had some great times at that place:

• after hours drinking adult beverage consumption with some good laughs
• wall papering Chef's office with gay porn 
• working hard to make the place somewhere Winnipeggers wanted to eat and be a part of
• street cheese

It really was a shock to the system. It felt, and still does feel like all my hard work was for nothing It was demoralizing. At the same time, it was a wake up call. As much as I have fun working in the restaurant industry, it's not my calling. I'm not sure what I am going to do with the rest of my life but I know it's time to get back on track because my particular pursuit of happiness is forever going to be that, a pursuit, not a reality. 

So it's back to living on tips but this time, I'm looking for a grown-up job too.

Day ninety one: street cheese

I've worked in Downtown Winnipeg for the better part of a decade and just when I think I've seen it all something amazing happens. Today it was the offer to purchase what I have now dubbed: Street Cheese.


I don't need to tell you how delicious and revered cheese is nor do I need to tell that it's not cheap. What I do need to fill you in on, unless you're already in the know, is that cheese theft is at an all time high.


Some guy walked into the New Shop this morning offering to sell us some blocks of cheese for cheap. Being the cheese connoisseur I consider myself to be I immediately recognized the packaging and had come to the conclusion that this guy had stolen some bricks of marble from Safeway. 


Over the years I've had people on the street try to sell me drugs, clothes, bus tickets, booze, etc. but never have I had anyone try to sell me stolen cheese. 


Obviously his generous offer was declined for legal reasons. I don't consider myself a lawyer, per se, but I do watch a lot of crime dramas -- Law and Order, Law and Order SVU, Law and Order Criminal Intent, Criminal Minds, NYPD Blue, 21 Jump Street, Hawaii 5-0, Matlock, Murder She Wrote, CSI, CSI Miami, 24, Cold Case, Sue Thomas F-B-Eye...  


and purchasing stolen merchandise is against the law and I'm almost positive health inspectors frown on the idea of Street Cheese. 


A friend of mine who is a loss prevention officer at Safeway says that cheese is one of the most sought after items to steal. Cheese and razor blades and I can understand why. Like I said before cheese isn't cheap and razor blades are even more expensive. This is why I don't shave my legs all the time (the cost of razor blades, not cheese). Actually, it's because I'm lazy and it's the winter. 


Street Cheese, it's a living.