Leggo my Ego

Whenever something truly horrible happens – like your Internet goes down for a few evening hours disrupting what had been a carefully planned binging barrage of terribly trashy television – it’s critical to make the situation predominantly about you. That’s even if you’re on the edge of the outage, where your connection is no more than a bit spotty.

I once overheard people talking about this tragic train derailment in Upper Canada. No one was hurt but all the pancake mix on board was lost, completely covering the trackside boreal forest in tasty specks of snow white dust. Yet all I could think about was how I’d ridden trains before. I’d played them with them, too. “Lionel” was the name of an imaginary acquaintance (we weren’t friends since there was a significant age difference). He, a grumpy conductor making one last transcontinental run before retiring to a big cabin overlooking Great Bear Lake, and me, a child of 6 or 7 who liked to play with trains. I kept thinking about all my coffee table books with glossy black and white photographs of locomotives. And then there were all the Sunday mornings I ate pancakes, despite living in an era that shamelessly touted the weekend waffle.

There was this other time I read about a cruise ship sinking off the coast of Sri Lanka, which at the time it was still known as Ceylon. No one was hurt, but every jar of imported maple syrup stowed away somehow went overboard creating the disturbing image of glass amber buoys, bobbing up and down, as the boat slowly made its way to the ocean floor. I couldn’t stop thinking about all the times I walked past the syrup aisle nearly grabbing a jar before glancing at the remarkably high sugar content. I regretted this though. Syrup lasts, so there’s no need to slurp it in one sitting. I’d never been on a cruise ship, but I peppered my speech with the word “cruise” and other nautical phrases. Where other people said boss, I said, “thanks, captain” regardless of rank. The news affected me greatly, especially considering my kayaking background. I’d gently capsized my boat several times in the calm waters of a serene New England harbor town.

And how can I forget the time I saw a story about a plane that skidded off the runway at a quaint, quiet airport in Pierre, South Dakota. No one was hurt, but the sum total of the coffee beans stowed below the cabin blanketed the tarmac. The smell was something else, according to the first responders at the scene. It was winter, so the natural process of icing coffee was done by locals traipsing onto the premises after all the investigators had gone home. I drink coffee. While I hadn’t been to either Dakota, I did watch Deadwood. That should count for something. It was tough to watch, the developing situation not the HBO series, knowing my appreciation of coffee and snow. 

If all these tragedies had occurred on the same day, in the same place, you'd be totally set for breakfast. Some might've called it a miracle. Whenever something happens, whatever it is, there’s always a personal angle of mine to mine. You should try it sometime.