Being generous and broad of heart, Rachelle has given access to our account to members of her family so that they can piggyback on our subscription and not have to pay to use the service.
What follows are the texts I received from my wife when I brought up the subject last week:
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Rachelle: Oh, if it says the account is already in use when you try to watch, it means that someone in my family is probably watching.
Rachelle: We gave them access to our Netflix, remember?
Rachelle: Look, they do a MILLION things for us, you can just wait half an hour before you watch Arrow, okay?
Rachelle: I know you relate to the lead in Arrow. I know.
Rachelle: Yes, you got an arrow in your foot when you were a boy and ever since things have “changed.”
Rachelle: Of course, of course, it was certainly life-defining when you encountered a practice arrow that bounced harmlessly off your foot!
Rachelle: Must have been like meeting Bigfoot or seeing an angel!
Rachelle: Look, I’m not diminishing the arrow-harmlessly-bouncing-off-your-foot experience.
Rachelle: I know it doesn’t have to draw blood to hurt, or to alter the course of a young boy’s life.
Rachelle: I’m not mocking you.
Rachelle: Okay, yes, of course I’m mocking you!
Rachelle: Lordy, you can really be difficult, you know?
Rachelle: I know you REALLY love the show.
Rachelle: But honey, you’re unemployed and can watch it anytime you like.
Rachelle: Okay, I guess you can’t watch it when somebody else is using our account.
Rachelle: Yes, sure, game, set and match to Michael “Destiny’s Arrow” Murray.
Rachelle: And yes, I know that your fantasy baseball team is named “Destiny’s Arrow” to honour this pivotal moment in your life.
Rachelle: Leeches???
Rachelle: Are you really calling my family, the family that does so many kind and thoughtful things for us, leeches?
Rachelle: Un-fucking-believable.
Rachelle: Remember when my dad drove all the way down to Toronto from Alliston because you couldn’t open the patio table parasol?
Rachelle: Or when my mother typed out 150 pages of your Fantasy novel—Destiny’s Arrow–because you thought you might have a variation of carpal tunnel syndrome?
Rachelle: No, I don’t think autocorrect changed Peaches to leeches.
Rachelle: I simply do not believe you.
Rachelle: I think that you’re lying to me.
Rachelle: Yes, I think you lie all of the time.
Rachelle: Really?
Rachelle: Well, when we met and you said you didn’t have any “emotional baggage.”
Rachelle: When you said you were 5’9, that was another lie.
Rachelle: That you were good at sports.
Rachelle: Do you want me to go on?
Rachelle: Look, if you send my parent’s a bill for $3.50 each month, “so that they can carry their own weight,” I will kill you in your loud, nauseating, snoring sleep.
Rachelle: Be back from work around 7:30, please be dressed this time.
]]>Amanda is a haunting. On every street I feel her presence, our shared past inhabiting the city like weather. I was sitting at the bar and I imagined that at any moment she might come striding in, the door swinging open and a fresh smile cutting across her face, and this expectation of the sudden, visual manifestation of my sorrow is the ghost I live with.
Beside me at this bar sat a woman with blonde hair. We were talking about whether it is a good thing or a bad thing to have a large family and there was a look in her eyes that I hope is not present in my own. She looked like she wanted to talk to someone, like she desperately needed to talk to someone. We chatted for nearly an hour, and when she got up to leave there was a pause. She was opening up a space where love might rush in, and strangers, we could have kissed forever in that field, but instead I said good-bye and turned away from, and she walked out the door, now just a little more brittle than when she had walked in.
Everything is punished when love falls away.
Colin
