All hail the Osgoode Centennial Community Centre

The problem, I have found, with doing the famous cabbage soup diet is that it requires a certain amount of planning. Over the years, I have found the spices required to make it taste palatable, but lost the will to cut the vegetables. Chunkier vegetables are better, because they give you something to chew on and remove the impression that you are sitting in a nursing home sucking your food through a straw. As I mentioned yesterday, a lot of it is in the head. A second problem relates to alcohol. While I don’t need to drink, I like to drink – and cooking is one of my prime triggers. Standing next to the stove, preparing the family dinner, seems to require a glass of wine – or a Ricard or a beer. It’s easily overcome, however, with a bit of ingenuity. So, this time, I asked Mrs. Ottawacker to make the soup. And a very good job she did of it too. Vegetables are her thing, you see. Even Ottawacker Jr. got in on the slicing and dicing.
 
A second problem relates to the need for a toilet. Absolutely the best thing about the cabbage soup diet is that it clears you out. The first day, and I can hardly believe I am sharing this, is like a heavenly communion with the toilet. Out comes months of junk food and you are left feeling, how shall I put it, “lighter”. Of course, it may not be the same for everyone. But it is for me. And herein is the problem: you need to plan to be near a toilet.
 
So, when Ottawacker Jr. reminded me of a promise I had made last week (damned promises), namely that he could catch a bus out to the very furthest reaches of Ottawa and I would pick him up at the other end and bring him home, he could sense I was not keen. Indeed, had I not spent the first 12 years of his life emphasising, reinforcing and demonstrating that a promise is sacrosanct, I would have backed out. I tried a couple of ways of wriggling out, however, none of which worked. It transpired that the “mythical 304 bus”, which runs once a week from the hamlet of Osgoode into Ottawa to take the good people of Osgoode into the big city for shopping purposes (8:47am start) and then bring them back home to gorge on the fruits of their purchases (2:30pm departure, 3:44pm arrival at Logan Farm), was leaving that very afternoon. And I, as the sole available parent, was on the hook to pick him up. “You promised, dad.”
 
I can’t say I wasn’t reticent, but I did it. In between visits to the toilet, I went to visit my trusty MapQuest site and found out where he was going, how I could get there, and how long it would take. I even made sure I didn’t eat for a while – as the 40-minute car ride didn’t seem to pass through inhabited country. Mrs. Ottawacker jumped in with a couple of shopping requests “while I was out” (namely for Renée’s poppy seed dressing, which is only sold in the Foodland supermarkets in more rural areas) and, all of a sudden, I was faced with an expedition. (It doesn’t take much, these days, to qualify as an expedition.)
 
The journey out to Osgoode was quite uneventful. I had found the bus stop quite easily (outside the community centre) and noted that it was, itself, located opposite a branch of Foodland. Thank God for small mercies. I arrived early, thanks to a dearth of traffic, and went to the supermarket, eventually finding the poppy seed dressing and going to the check-out line. And, it was as I approached the till, my three jars of dressing in hand, that something stirred. I had obviously not cleared out the lunchtime cabbage soup sufficiently and, unless I was very mistaken, now was the time to remedy that. Very, very quickly. Fortunately, I was next in line, so as I tapped my card, I asked where the supermarket’s washrooms were.
 
“I’m afraid we don’t have any public toilets,” said the cashier.
“This is an emergency,” I said.
“No public toilets, sir,” she said. “I’m sorry.” (She didn’t look sorry in the slightest.)
“So where do the staff go?” I asked, my voice probably a little higher louder than it should have been. “I NEED to go immediately.”
“We have to go to the community centre over the road,” she said. “The staff bathroom is blocked up and won’t be fixed until tomorrow.”
“You don’t understand,” I said, trying my best to smile, “I must go. I am very sick. I have gastroenteritis and food poisoning and, and, and…”
“You’ll have to go over the road, sir,” she said. Smiling, I thought, a little too broadly.
 
So, I had to go over the road. I grabbed my receipt from the frankly smug cashier and waddled, penguin-like, to my car. A couple of old biddies were pushing a shopping card and made some sort of smart-arsed comment that they both found hilarious (“say, Jeanette, he’s not from round here, is he? – they must walk different where he’s from”).
 
I had to ignore them; I was in real trouble. I am not used to having to hold in explosive poos, so lack experience, but it seems to me that walking with your buttock cheeks clenched together is the only way to do it (unless my new age masseuse can recommend staring at a waxing moon for two hours as a way to help). Somehow, I made it to my car. Opened the door, threw in the poppy seed dressing, and was confronted with the next problem. How can you get into a car without unclenching your buttocks?
 
Well, let me tell you, it isn’t easy. Especially when the rain starts to fall heavily and some wanker has parked very closely to the driver’s door. I had to go in head first. I unashamedly banged my door into the neighbouring car, and managed to get my head over to the passenger seat. Then I very carefully managed to pull my legs in, twisting as went. This led to the problem of facing the wrong way in the car – but at least I was in. I put my head through the space between the seats, and wriggled round until I was finally sat in the driver’s seat. I had had the foresight to put my keys in the coffee holder as I was getting in (otherwise I would have been completely screwed) so I turned the ignition, backed out as quickly as I could (thank God for automatics, I could never have worked the clutch) and sped out of the car park towards the main road.
 
Did I mention there had been a dearth of traffic? Well, there was a reason for that. It was all here. Car after car after car after truck after truck was zooming down regional road 114 and all I could do was sit and squeal in pain. I envisaged how I would explain the inevitable disaster to Ottawacker Jr. and Mrs. Ottawacker. Finally, there was a break in the traffic. I squealed my tyres across the road and into the community centre car park, shamelessly parking parallel in two handicapped spots next to the door. I could deal with all that inevitable shit later. Right now, there was another, much more urgent type of inevitable shit I needed to deal with.
 
The woman at the desk looked up as I burst in through the double doors. She obviously recognised an emergency and pointed me to the left. I penguinned as fast as I could to the door, went in fully prepared to drag whoever was occupying any toilet seat out, and found it empty. And spotless. I was saved. Oh, my goodness, it was bliss. I was almost in tears.
 
I stayed there for a good five minutes, just in case, and then flushed (twice), washed my hands, splashed some water on my face, and stared at the face that had just avoided a significant catastrophe. I walked out to the desk, using my adductors and abductors liberally, thanked the lady for her help, and went to sit in the car for Ottawacker Jr.’s bus to arrive. I had no fine for using the handicapped spots: I had avoided being towed. Indeed, the whole car park now seemed deserted. The maelstrom of traffic had even passed.
 
When Ottawacker Jr. and the bus eventually arrived, he wandered over, climbed into the car, saw the poppy seed dressing, and said “nice”. We chatted a bit about the bus journey – there were 8 people at the start, but only three when it arrived. “It was so much fun,” he said. “I might go to Kars tomorrow.”
 
“How was your journey out?” he then asked.
“Uneventful,” I said. And we drove home.
 
In the evening, he had goalkeeping practice. Mrs. Ottawacker drove him there and picked him up.