The Great Slushee Treck

Living in the little western suburbs of Montreal, there are some parts of summer that are traditional to the point of being nearly sacrosanct. Most of these are frozen treats. What can I say? The West-Island has a long standing love-affair with the icy stuff.

Chief among these: The Slushee. Not the actual name, but hey, they're not paying my ass. Why should I give them free publicity? Suck my dick, unnamed French-Canadian convenience store chain. Anyway, The Slushee is like all those other flavoured-slush drinks, but better: You know how when you just suck it all down, you lose the actual flavour about half-way through and then you're just stuck with crushed ice with a hint of flavour? Well this shit is different. You can suck the entire thing back and never lose the flavour.

It's perfection.

Which means that obviously, I needed to have one. This didn't bode too well with the fact that, thanks to my surgery, I don't walk anymore so much as I shuffle about. And the nearest store is about 15 minutes away during a regular walk. But when you're shuffling about with a mid-section that feels like an Alien chestbuster is about to burst out of it...Well, that puts a kink in things.

But there's one thing you should know about me: When I want something, I get it. If that means having to shuffle for upwards of half an hour in pain, so be it. I was getting me a slushee. And so began The Great Slushee Treck.

This involved walking all the way down the street next to my Dad's house, Elm street. Yup, we grew up right next to Elm Street. As if this isn't enough nightmare fodder, right next to our house? Giant ass cemetary. The fact that I was never stabbed by machete-wielding goalies or pedophiles in Christmas sweaters is, in and of itself, a fucking miracle.

And because this walk hadn't touched on enough suppressed childhood phobias, I was met at the door of the store by, what else, a big fucking spider. Admittedly, I think all spiders can be classified as "Big fucking", so chances are this was probably yet another one of those itsy bitsy spiders that climb up water spouts and don't try to eat your family, but obviously when it comes to spiders, my view is a bit askew. While most people see spiders and think of something like this:
Instead, I see this:
So yeah, I'm not gonna lie: I shuffled my ass right out of there. I was in no mood to be shanked by something that essentially shits its own home.

But all was okay, because as it turns out that angry little spider was the only thing standing between me and the store. Sure enough, there was the magical little machine churning about the slushee, coming in such flavours as Cherry, Blue Raspberry and...Pink? To be honest, I'm not sure it's supposed to be bubblegum or cotton candy or watermelon or that pink fluffy stuff they use to insulate the walls. Therefore: Pink.

After mixing them all together into a high-fructose corn syrup orgy, I commenced walking home in the sweltering heat, taking care once again to avoid the spider (whom appeared to be busy happily devouring a mini-van.) In it's place, I was attacked by a bee, who was quite intent on either stealing my slushee or, failing that, burrowing itself into my ear.

Because bees are evil.