Guy's Hoary Fungcicle

As one of the ways to explain the complexities of life and how to best live it, Aristotle said, “Everything happens for a reason.” Marilyn Monroe also said something like this, so there you go. Recently everything happened for a reason, allow me to explain.

My eldest son and daughter in-law moved back to Canada last summer and it was my job (as they navigated their return) to visit condos they found online, visit them and help broker a deal for when they arrived. This happened. A posh and swank pad down in Mission was secured, they arrived, things were moved, and bought, and put in place, a kitten was adopted, and then by the grace of Good Glenda’s Northern Cooch did winter ever roll in hard, like -50° with the wind-chill hard.

It turns out this swank and posh Mission condo had crappy heating. Actually, calling it heating isn’t right, it had intermittent hints of warming between savage bouts of cooling. During this past month or two (who can remember at this point, my prefrontal cortex left long ago for warmer climates) a cold snap rolled into town. I imagine this cold snap as a bro named ‘Guy’ who is stripped down to his frosty tighty-whitey’s — complete with a stained, hoar-frost overgrowth of funge around the bikini area, emitting a -35ºC fog — sitting down on the couch, farting icicles and deciding to stay indefinitely.

All this, and their condo had a hard time heating past 14ºC; it was unbearable. For months they asked for maintenance, and heaters, and help, but when it came down to it only a week ago they were 'allowed to temporarily borrow' a space heater, but they’d have to give it back if someone else had less heat. It was at this moment they decided enough was enough and negotiated to break their lease and move to some place where Guy couldn’t find them.

Cut to moving day. Which was today. Picture a beautiful winter day in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains; a balmy -25ºC (-45ºC with wind-chill). I picked up the UHAUL at 9AM and got to their place just before 10AM to start the move. I will spare you the details, because there aren’t any really. Everything was packed and ready to go, my youngest son was there to help lend his muscle; it was just a matter of picking stuff up, walking it into a big truck, putting it down, and repeating this until the condo was empty and the truck was full, driving it a couple of blocks to the new place and repeating the process in reverse. Moving helped keep the cold at bay.

Let me tell you about their new place. It’s like a freakin’ hotel. It has a giant library and entertaining area (complete with open kitchen and cappuccino bar) that is roughly the size of two ballrooms, a huge games rooms including an indoor golf range, a two story gym, a dance studio, a pet spa, a maker’s studio and workshop, bicycle showers, an outdoor pool complete with outdoor movie theatre, as well as the Sky Lounge which overlooks the city and the Rocky Mountain range to the west. Oh, and it comes with a complete concierge and security service.

The idea is to live like you’re living in a hotel. It is freaking glorious. Everything happens for a reason.

EPILOGUE: When we last saw him, Guy was hanging around the old condo letter boxes waiting for someone to come home so he could slip in when they weren’t paying attention.