The time on my hands

What do you do with three weeks off?

That’s my conundrum today as I begin the longest summer vacation I have ever taken.

In this period of global pandemic, there’s no place to go.

When I made the decision to take these three weeks off, our plan was to travel as our new group of five – Jackie and her daughter Mackenzie, myself and my two daughters Alannah and Ashley-Rae. Her family in St. John’s Newfoundland had reached out to invite us all and we all agreed to jump at the chance of such an adventure.

An adventure for sure for me and the Brill Girls, but for Jac and Mackenzie it would be a great visit back home.

Jac was telling us all of the great sites we would see – like icebergs floating down past the oceans edge of town – and the beautiful rolling landscapes – and all the great people she loves that we would meet. And we all got excited. The pictures all look so beautiful.

“We’ll drive” explained Jac, “It’s a long drive but it’s all so beautiful. And we will ride the ferry overnight to the island province”.

“How long does the ferry take?” asked Alannah.

“About nine hours, and I hate boats”, laughed Jackie. “But we will be there for St. John’s three weeks of summer”

So I booked my three weeks and two days off from work or the long trip.

And then the pandemic got worse instead of better.

Now we have rules like wearing masks in public places and social distancing of six feet and social bubbles of no more than ten people and washing and sanitizing everything you touch.

Some of the provinces in our path out east instituted rules like if you enter that province you have to self-isolate for ten days before you can carry on with your trip. How would they be able to enforce that? I don’t know. Do I want to find out? No – not with the kids with us anyway.

It would have been adventure though - like the old Smokey and the Bandit movie. Only we would be the illegal cargo instead of Coors beer.

Imagine us driving down the Trans-Canada highway – reaching a roadblock at the Quebec – Nova Scotia border – a Gleeson-like provincial police officer complete with polaroid sunglasses standing in the middle of the highway with a bullhorn for us to pull over, and Jackie swerving to the right to heading for a flatbed trailer parked on the shoulder with its rear end down on the ground – like the perfect jump ramp – and Jackie shouting to us all to “hang on – this is going to be fun”.

“Yeee-Hawww” I would shout as the SUV flew through the air.

After the airborne Dodge Durango landed with a couple of bounces, she would have to lose the RCMP chasing us on horseback she would ride down into the valley of the median and up the other side of the highway that people heading west would use – swerving between the oncoming traffic – and the moose and elk that just naturally wander out on the highway.

That would be an adventure.

“Now that’s just stupid” Jackie will say when she reads this.

“I don’t know”, I’ll reply “you’re a pretty crazy driver”

“But now we will never know” I would say before she had a chance to get mad.

Besides, the police would have caught us at the ferry anyway.

So now I’m trying hard to think of what to do for fun on this three weeks of vacation.

“Work on your house Fred” everyone will say.

Everyone will say that.

And everyone would be right. I have a list so long of all the things I need to do – both inside and out. De-tangling it from the past to open it up to the future. Rooms to clear out and carpets to clean or pull out and replace with other flooring. The garage is a horrible collection of things sat down quickly to get them out of the car or another room in the house. A couple of trees to cut down or pull out on the north side of the house. An old car to clean up and sell. A spare room downstairs to clean out to use as my work-from-home office in three weeks’ time. Painting and multiple trips to the dump.

The list is daunting. Overwhelming in fact.

Well, the problem of what to do is solved.

I wonder if three weeks is enough?

You don’t mess with the Brill Girls

Last year, my youngest daughter Ashley-Rae was determined to update her old iPhone to a newer one.

She saved her money for a couple of months and kept her eyes peeled online for a deal. Finally, by the fall she had saved up enough to buy an almost new model and she found a guy online who had what she was looking for. Ash negotiated the sale with the guy online and then came running out to the living room where I was watching television.

“Dad you have to take me over to Jake's Roadhouse for 6:00 pm” she said excitedly.

“Why?” I replied in my typical Dad fashion.

Ashley explained her desire for a new iPhone, how it was the most important issue on the planet, how hard she worked to save her money, and showed me a couple of pictures of the one she found. She was talking so fast she kept running out of breath and would take a deep breath and continue on speaking way to quickly understand some of the important parts.

So I asked her to tell me again – slowly – so that I could understand her and so she wouldn’t pass out in mid-sentence.

She rolled her eyes as if I’m the dumbest Dad in the world and began again – only this time more slowly.

We held the regular discussion about how expensive it was and was she sure she wanted to throw all her money she worked so hard for at this. And of course, being the most important thing in the world – she assured me it was. She then explained – slowly – the arrangement to meet in the parking lot of Jake's Roadhouse.

Skeptically – I agreed. And we hopped in the car to drive to the other side of town to Jake's Roadhouse.

Halfway there – on route – Ashley received a text on her perfectly good old iPhone from this seller guy.

“Dad – he says to meet him at the Smoke and Spice instead”.

“huh” I replied. It’s just down the street but my skepticism was growing.

We arrived at the Smoke and Spice rib joint and she texted the seller guy that we were here. A couple of minutes later – a well-groomed bearded fellow in a silk patterned shirt appeared in the lot – walked past our car noticing us on the way by. He opened his back door and pulled out an iPhone box. Ash and I got out of the car together as he approached. He held out the phone – till wrapped in plastic – and handed it to Ashley-Rae. She in return handed him her savings.

I reached out my hand to shake his and said softly but firmly to the seller guy “she’s worked very hard and saved a long time for that money – if this isn’t legit then I will find you”.

“It’s legit” he said with a smile and handed me a business card for a mobile phone shop in town. “You can always reach me here”.

When we got home – Ashley-Rae took the phone out of the box and started the instructions for setting it up. When it got to the point of putting in the SIM card, her SIM card was not being accepted in the new phone. So we hopped back in the car and took it to the store where Ashly-Rae bought her phone plan. An older fellow my age was working. He fumbled with it for about a half hour and then confessed “I don’t really know how to do this, can you bring it in tomorrow when the manager is here? He will fix it in no time”.

I had to work the next morning but my eldest daughter Alannah promised to bring her.

That morning, while I was at work, I received a phone call from Alannah.

“Dad, the guy here at the store says the phone is stolen”.

“How does he know that?” I asked.

“The serial number on the box is on a list of stolen phones”, replied Alannah.

I reached in my wallet and pulled out the business card the fellow had given me.

“I’ll take a drive over to this guy’s store later and find out what’s going on!” I replied.

“No Dad, I got this. Send me a picture of the card” said Alannah firmly. I did so and sent it to her phone.

“Don’t you be confronting this guy alone. Go to the police” I said.

“We’re on our way there now Dad”.

”I’m walking into a meeting now – but keep me posted okay?” I said.

I was hosting this meeting so I set up the room’s video conference to call the rest of our team in Toronto. Our team had been working together for a couple of years together so while we waited for all the participants to gather in each meeting room, I told them the story of the stolen phone. All agreed it was horrible and showed interest in the dilemma. I told them Alannah was taking Ashley-Rae to police department –and all agree that it was likely useless. And then we dove into the agenda of the meeting.

About fifteen minutes later I received a text message.

’The LaSalle police weren’t interested. Heading to the Windsor police station now’ read the message.

I told the attendees of the meeting the status update and we continued through our work session.

Another fifteen minutes later another text message arrived.

‘A lady officer at the Windsor Police was interested but couldn’t leave right now. So we are heading to the mobile phone store.’

Again I conveyed the message to the group and after a few minutes of discussion – all agreed this was more interesting than our working session. But we continued on with our work. And again fifteen minutes later – I received another message:

‘The guy who was working at the store said this guy doesn’t work there, but he told us he works at the Volkswagen dealership down the street.’

Twenty minutes later my iPhone rang. “It’s Alannah” I announced to the group.

“Put it on speaker phone – please” they all chanted.

“Hey Alannah what happened?” I asked into the phone.

She told me it was done and I asked her ”Can I put you on the speaker? I have a room full of people all dying to know how this turned out!”

“Sure!” said Alannah proudly. So I hit the speaker button and put it next to the video conference microphone.

And Alannah told the story:

“Ashley texted the fellow and told him the phone was stolen and we were outside with the stolen phone. Ashley told him either he comes out in the lot now or we are coming in and we will make a big noise about it.”

“Hold on”, said the guy.

Shortly the same bearded seller guy appeared from the mechanic’s bay of the dealership. Ashley-Rae and Alannah got out of the car and yelled ‘OVER HERE!’. The seller guy ran to his car. He grabbed a couple of boxes and came over to Ashley-Rae.

“I’m so sorry about this” he said. And he gave Ash two boxes – one was for the newest larger size iPhone in red and the other was a wireless charger. And he asked for the old phone box back.

Ash opened up the old phone box – took out her SIM card and said ‘Make the new one work first!’

The fellow unwrapped and opened the new iPhone box, started it up, answered the few questions on the screen and then put the SIM card in.

“It worked Dad!”

The whole meeting team in Windsor and Toronto erupted in a cheer.

“What was that Dad?”

“That was both Windsor and Toronto rooting for you guys” I replied proudly. “Well done”.

And the rest of two sides of the meeting chimed in with “Way to go!”, “That’s so great!”, and ”Great Job Honey!”

“Thanks!” said Alannah, “You don’t mess with the Brill Girls”.