A CLOSE ENCOUNTER OF THE ORANGE KIND

Something happened recently that requires purging and sharing, so purge and share I shall do...

Most mornings, after dropping our daughter off at school, I drive to Point Holmes, our local car park/ocean walk/boat launch area which is a quick 2 minutes from the school. I just sit and relax for 10-15 minutes, watching the seagulls fly around, and boats putter about the lovely expanse of emerald waters of The Georgia Strait. It's a great way to fill the lungs with salty fresh air and expel the groggy demons of the night...and start the day right.

Point Holmes beach is quite long, stretching on for miles, and the parking or sitting areas spread along the shoreline give ample room for private moments, with a wide open berth conducive to not getting in anyone's face or invading their bubble, so to speak.

We ocean-ooglers and salt-air suckers like our space.

This particular day, it was a tad windy outside and I decided to find a good angle to park facing the ocean, stay in my little car and just roll down the window. The beach was completely dead and there wasn't a soul around, land or sea (which was very unusual), so I chose a perfect position and cut the motor. The rising sun was gorgeous but bright, so I lay my head back, closed my eyes and took a deep breath, trying to convince myself that the sharp tang of rotting fish and seaweed that sometimes rolled off the tide was actually quite ...um...'invigorating'. Like a nasal mud bath.

It was after a few solitary moments of peace that I heard the crunch of wheels on gravel. A vehicle was pulling in close to me on the passenger side, and parking. Ah well, I thought ...no harm done...there are always a few people out jogging, seeking calm or Tim Hortoning around this place. Out of curiosity, I cracked open an eye and lazily peeked over to see who else was sharing my prime view.

Imagine my initial surprise when I noticed that the car that had parked next to me had REALLY parked next to me. It was only two hand spans away. It was a wonder it hadn't scraped my door. I closed my eye and thought about that for a second. Then I opened both eyes and took a better look.

Now imagine my next surprise when I realized that the car next to me was orange, the same color as my wee Tigger (we always name our cars...makes them family) and not a common color on the roads around our little town. It looked to be close to the same make and model as well (ours is a KiaRio5), small, compact, new-ish and 4 door. It wasn't exactly the same, but very close. Hmmm...

I turned to look back at the water again, my mind humming with a 'this is so weird' sensation; but not quite an alert. I scanned the parking area and beach again and nope...nobody around. Just two small co-joined twin orange cars. How funny this would look to a passerby, I thought with a half-smile.

 Then my smile faded as my Spidey-senses started to tingle.

I was alone, on a lonely beach with a stranger parking up my ass in a copy-cat car. They had popped my bubble! Were they just sociable and needed to be 'near' someone? Did they think they had to park in some particular order? Had someone been following my habits and plan this to freak me out...or worse? The latter seemed crazy even to me. Who would buy a orange car just to play a joke or kidnap me? Neither option was profitable. My imagination was on over-drive and I needed to take it down a notch.

After half a minute, I decided to get a good look at the driver and see if the natives were hostile. A friendly wave or a kind smile would surely put me at ease and I could lay back and continue my daydream about wild jungle sex with Sean Bean (dressed as Boromir from Lord of The Rings, of course) which is how I usually like to start my day. I bent over and took a quick gander to the right, hoping I wouldn't embarrass him/her or myself by looking snoopy or psychotic.

The driver was alone, sitting ramrod straight in her seat and staring unblinkingly straight ahead at the ocean. She looked middle-aged and had short gray hair and wore a black top. I sat back quickly and swallowed hard.

I have short gray hair and was wearing my favorite black top. And I hate to admit it, but I too am considered middle aged. And I was aging quicker by the second!

Holy shit! That was beyond weird! My Spidey-senses were on full alert now and bells were ringing in my ears! I tried not to panic and thought to myself that coincidences happened all the time (and more often that not to me, especially, come to think of it) so best not to get so carried away. Maybe I should pop out and knock on her window and share the amazing coincidence of it all. It would make a good story for us both to share with friends!

But my heart started to thump and scream like a crowd at a bullfight and my 6th sense gave me a sharp bird-kick to the forehead: HELLO? Aren't you supposed to trust me? Same car; same hair; same clothes; same ocean.  POPPED BUBBLE!!!

I decided to check her out one more time and see if she made eye contact. It was just a woman in a car for God's sake. I was being ridiculously paranoid. I had been so careful making the initial peek look nonchalant and casual, I didn't remember many details, so I made a bargain with myself: if she looked friendly, I would be mature and stay put to enjoy the rest of my respite. If there was anything else 'Denise' about her, then bye-bye.

Nervously, I re-adjusted my gold rimmed glasses and turned to take a bold Kodak look at the woman next to me and lo and behold...the straw that broke the camel's back hit me straight in the face: she was wearing glasses. Were they gold-rimmed? My eyes froze in their sockets so I don't recall.

I don't know about you, but I don't need to be hit with a baseball bat  to take a hint. Heart firmly stuck in my throat, I smoothly turned to my ignition, switched it on, backed up gently and got the Hell out of there as fast as humanly possible without laying rubber or giving Tigger a heart attack. I checked my rear view mirror all the way home and sat in my driveway completely unhinged for about 10 minutes before I could get out and go in the house. What in all that is Holy was that all about? A coincidence bordering on insanity...like getting struck by lightning twice or buying winning million dollar lottery tickets 3 times in a row? (*or nobody discovering that Tori Spelling and Dennis Rodman are actually twins separated at birth?). Was there a Mother Ship hovering somewhere watching to see if their bait was going to catch any curious and STUPID humans? Makes one wonder...

Over-reaction? Perhaps. Immature? Maybe. Twilight Zone/Freaky Friday-like. Absolutely. What would YOU have done?

Personally, I'm just happy I didn't bespoil myself and ruin a good pair of pants. However, that might have convinced the aliens that I wasn't much of a catch after all and they'd have tossed me back.... 

TRUFFLE IN PARADISE

Jamaica is a lovely island get-a-way. For anyone but me.

In 1983, when I married my second husband Mark (second in my trilogy!), we flew to Jamaica for our honeymoon. Our ‘Just Married’ matching T-shirts scored us a bump up to First Class and it was bubbly champagne, bonbons and legroom all the way to the land of Reggae and Rastafarians.

Within ten minutes of arriving, we were offered some local ganja (a.k.a: marijuana/dope/weed/wacky-tabacky):

Luggage Boy: (toothy grin at Mark) Hey mon...your bag says you be a doctor. I am a doctor too. I can make you feel real good, mon.

Denise: No thanks. We’re married now. We aren’t supposed to feel good.

Luggage Boy: (determinedly) No problem, mon! Every ting criss...I get you anyting you want! Just ask m...

*POLICEMAN ROUNDS THE CORNER

Denise: (to Mark) Where’s our luggage boy?

If you would have seen me poolside the next day, you might have thought I was a mighty poor excuse for a thief, blatantly hording my stash out in the open: mounds of cigarettes in small bundles, neat piles of matches, a stack of monogrammed hotel napkins and an impressive array of empty glasses and beer bottles. This was an all-inclusive, all-you-can-eat/drink/smoke resort and I wasn’t going to diet or cut down on a single vise for the week I were there. This small-town prairie girl was taking no chances and I stockpiled as much as I could just in case they changed their hotel policy midweek. Sure I got a few odd looks, but I felt invisible. Nobody knew my name, shoe size or was even remotely related to me. It was unlike anywhere I ever had been before...it was an emancipation!

Late in the afternoon I waved off the chance to water-ski in the warm Caribbean Sea (I adhere to the belief that playing in areas where wildlife can swallow you whole should be avoided) so I was left to my own devises and chose to read on the beach. The sun was brutal and the ocean immediately in front of the hotel was protected by a high-tech safety net, so feeling uncommonly adventurous (and admittedly a bit wimpy for not skiing) I decided to go snorkeling.

The fact that I couldn’t swim nor had I ever snorkeled, failed to register in my mind. The self-preservation portion of my brain had been fully cooked in the blistering Jamaican sun and was set aside to simmer.

The resort lent out free gear and I taught myself the basics quickly, setting off along an exceptionally long pier jutting out into the crystal clear waters close to where I had been lounging on the beach. The panorama below me was entrancing: such an alien, delightful world! But soon I noticed, directly underneath me, a hard-plastic cup from the resort embedded in the ocean floor. Usually, this object wouldn’t cause a stir (save being a piece of unfortunate litter in such pristine surroundings) but it dawned on me that these over-sized tumblers were normally quite large in my hands, and this one was very tiny. Itsy bitsy, even. Two things were immediately obvious: I was way too far out and there was a lot of water between me and that cup! To give myself credit, I did not panic, but quickly snorkeled back to the beach. I had just turned to sit in waist-high water and was taking off my mask when I heard the first scream.

People were running down the pier and yelling, pointing to a massive ripple in the water, utter horror stamped on their scorched, lotion soaked faces. The sinister ripple was in the precise spot where I had seen the tumbler just seconds before.

I didn’t know then what had caused all the excitement, but I knew that I had just missed a personal introduction to it. An ice-cold sensation doused me from the top of my head fully down to my toes. That was how tangible the shock was. I wanted to scoot further back out of the water onto the dry, safe sand, but I was frozen solid. A shark could have slid past and looked me over like a pork roast at Safeway and I couldn’t have budged an inch.

After a few minutes, I finally made it shakily to my lounger and sat down. A staff server came to me and asked if I would like a drink or a snack.

Denise: Do you know what all the screaming was about by the pier?

Server: (naively honest) I heard a Moray eel broke through the netting, mon! A big one too! But no problem, mon...they don’t usually attack humans.

Denise: Where is our luggage boy?

I am nobody’s fool. I know bloody well that this particular giant eel had not accidentally passed through a breech in the netting but had sniffed a rare delicacy, a pure 100% fresh Ukrainian/Canadian hors d’oeuvre and it had chomped clean through that net looking for the buffet table.

I was the Truffle Of The Sea. 

Now, how many people do you know can say that?

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**ADDED: a screen shot of one of many comments on this story on FB: