You know those kids who always get the best summer jobs? Like jobs that help them for the rest of their careers? The kids who get a good job because their Mom knows someone, who knows someone? Those kids who get to work MONDAY to FRIDAY in like…an office?! Then they have a foot in the door and are never forced to move across the country desperate for work and probably now have some nice job with a practical wardrobe from Banana Republic and two kids in a tastefully decorated single detached house, with white sheets and pastel throw pillows. Their wealthy Dads still love them, and they eat salads with kale and pecans every day.

They were not the kids who were unemployed for months of summer spending every day laying on their parents basement floor with dirty pajamas watching 10 episodes of LOST in a row while applying for jobs and hearing NOTHING! Wondering, does this dial up internet work? Is my e-mail working? Does thinkpink1989@hotmail.com sound professional? Is ANYONE getting these resumes? Is the Dharma Initiative real? Why doesn’t LOST make more sense? AM I EVEN ALIVE RIGHT NOW?

So needless to say, job hunting always has been (and continues to be) VERY stressful for me and continually degrades the small degree of confidence I have in my professional abilities. When I say professional abilities, obviously I’m referencing my experience in making cheesies at Frito Lay,  dodging night shift dick pics at car bumper factories, or falling asleep at call centers, and other similar experiences (more on some of my many jobs to come in future posts, I’m sure).

However, nothing seems more timely (in the times of COVID and Tiger King) than my first job at African Lion Safari.  African Lion Safari, or ALS as my safari hat said, was a low budget theme park in my hometown. If you grew up in Ontario no doubt you will have just sung the jingle in your head “Go Wild! African Lion SAFARIIIIIII.” It had elephant shows, bird shows, and a really small splash pad; but the main attraction was the safari. It essentially existed on some old farmer fields and the premise was that you would drive around in your own car so that you were “caged” while the animals roamed free. To this day you can occasionally hear a lion roar as you drive by a cornfield, which just feels so wrong (which it is).  I worked at the ticket admission gates where I had to warn everyone about the risk of driving through the safari. I informed them that they were required to keep their windows rolled up and that yes, the animals could potentially wreck your vehicle. Realistically the majority of the animals were so lazy that they had no interest in approaching the cars to the point that I actually remember being kind of bored when I visited as a bratty kid.

“Mommy, what do you mean that that lion is just going to lie there?”

 It is possible I’d watched too much National Geographic and thought I was going to see some crazy lion chase. Also, I should confess, when I say ‘watch National Geographic’ I meant I just watch the Lion King on repeat, which is almost the same thing, right? #RIPmufasa

To be fair, the monkeys did really jump all over cars and cause some serious damage. You could always take the “monkey bypass,” but if you did that I would have certainly labelled you as no fun at all. You were probably the person who wouldn’t buy the funnel cake at the theme park either.

When I first started working at ALS I was a fifteen year old with a fanny pack, just trying to make $7.10 an hour. Our uniform, which took me half the summer to pay off, was a beige button up shirt with matching beige khaki shorts with a branded baseball cap. I’m a very pasty person, but the summer I worked at African Lion Safari I can safely say I was genuinely tanned. At least from my knees where my safari shorts ended to my ankles and from my elbows down. The ultimate safari tan. On my very first day I also learned a hard lesson about the uniform – that if it rained, which it did, the shirt would go entirely see-through. A lesson my insecure fifteen-year-old body would never forget.

Several people have messaged me recently since watching the popular Netflix documentary Tiger King to ask me if my experience was similar to working with Joe Exotic or Doc Antle. In other words, is the reason I’m so fucked up because at fifteen I was part of a polygamist cult that also involved a lot of meth and the occasional murder?

Well all you cool cats and kittens, sorry to disappoint, but I still have ALL my real teeth and African Lion Safari doesn’t even have tigers! (It should be noted that I was told this was because a tiger once mauled a guest, not that, you know, tigers don’t actually live anywhere in Africa). Maybe my criminal record wasn’t crazy enough, but my experience working there was just like most other crappy summer jobs – boring. That being said, my brother loved working there in the staff kitchen where he ate fried food all day and probably had 5 girlfriends at once (hmmm drawing some connections here…). So it’s possible it wasn’t really a bad job, but I remember I didn’t want to work there so badly that when they called me to work there the next summer, I turned them down so I could enroll in doing grade 11 advanced calculus to get a year ahead in summer school. No surprise that I was VERY cool in high school. Naturally, after I realized I had to do math for 8 hours a day in 30 degree weather I dropped out. That’s right, I was a summer school dropout #BADASS!

So despite the potential for drama and intrigue, my safari experience was dull enough to think advanced calculus held more exciting prospects for me. I thought that was the end of my run with the wild, until just a few months ago I had an incredible opportunity to tag along with a friend and go camping and do a few real safaris in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area and Serengeti National Park in Tanzania. That’s right – fifteen years later and I was going on a REAL safari! I thought that my African Lion Safari experience would FINALLY serve me well!

 It was an incredible trip in a stunningly beautiful place, where I met lots of wonderful people. I learned a lot and would love to bore anyone and humble brag about it, but instead I’m going to leave a few key takeaways my friend and I learned from our trip:

1. You do NOT need to pack an entire wardrobe of khaki, despite what you think. Plus you do not look good in beige.
2. When people tell you it gets VERY VERY VERY cold at night camping in the desert, they actually mean it may get as low as plus 20 degrees Celsius (BRRRR) and therefore a toque and Canadian winter sleeping bag are NOT required (even if multiple sources tell you to bring one). DO NOT pack them. You will regret using your backpack space when you could have packed something that was not beige.
3. Your phone camera really does suck and there is a reason people invest in good cameras. Having photo jealousy is real when someone has a majestic photo of a cheetah and you have to be like, “I think that’s its tail?”
4. Even if you think you put enough sunscreen on the top of your legs and butt when swimming, you didn’t. You will burn. You will not be able to sit for days. You will wish you had the courage to ask  your boss for a standing desk.
5. You will lose your phone, hat, sandals, and towel and maybe find some of those items again, and maybe not.
6. Fighting the impacts of climate change really really matters.
7. The Lion King is a great movie.
8. Konyagi and coke in a glass bottle a day will kill everything inside you and prevent you from ever getting sick.
9. Those annoying messages your mom sent you about washing your hands and not biting your nails because there is some virus going around is not something to roll your eyes about and think, “My mom is SO paranoid and weird!”
10. You can live through a teeny tiny airport packed with people in 45 degrees Celsius even if you didn’t know you had it in you. (One day can you please stop arriving at an airport the suggested three hours in advance- it has mostly caused more harm than good. STOP BEING SO DAMN PUNCTUAL YOU OCD PSYCHOPATH!)
11. For the love of God, pack some more normal coloured clothes and more than one pair of shorts!
12. Your mother would be ashamed at how poorly you can hand wash clothes.

AND LASTLY,

1. Working at African Lion Safari taught you nothing about a real safari except how to accessorize your safari beige, which is, don’t.

I truly hope some of my mistake can help you all out with your future adventures – that is, if we are ever allowed to leave the country again 😉 Here’s to hoping!

*I do feel the need to acknowledge that at the time I worked at African Lion Safari I felt all the animals were cared for and loved by the people who worked there, but despite this, I didn’t understand how problematic animals in captivity could be. At the time, it was a place my brother who I idolized and many other people I knew worked as a summer job and I didn’t think much else about it, which is no excuse. I regret not being a more critical thinker and questioning what conservation and animal welfare really means. I only hope I can be better and keep trying to be better.

Do you know anyone who has one of those faces that looks just SO familiar? One of those faces that you could swear you’ve met before? Maybe at your friend’s cousin’s Bar Mitzvah or something like that?

Well I’m THAT face. That’s MY face. And, no, we have NEVER met. The closest I’ve ever been to a Bar Mitzvah was watching Gordo go through his on the Lizzie McGuire show – so I’m pretty confident it wasn’t me.

 I don’t mean I have these mistaken run-ins once a year. I mean it happens to me almost once a week. People always ask, “We’ve met before?” No.

“You have a sister who looks like you?” No.

“A cousin?” No.

“Are you sure we haven’t met before?” Yes.

“You’re really, really sure?” Really, really, yes. I’m sure.

I suppose maybe I have met some of them and don’t remember, but I have pretty insane memory for faces so I doubt it. Try and ask me something useful and my mind is blank, but ask me to recall the face of that girl who was the cashier at the store that closed down 12 years ago and BAM, I’ve got it.

I know this familiar issue is just one of my own hang ups. My constant fear of being both too much and too ordinary all at the same time. Like I could slip in and out of your life so easily – so comfortably – but also never really make an impression on you. To be some nice girl you once kind of knew. Or maybe it was some other plain short blonde girl? Hard to say.

I mean I get it – I I understand that it goes both ways. I have a friend/past co-worker who has the opposite problem, a forgettable face. She could meet people over and over again and they would still introduce themselves like they had never met before. I’ve had someone do that to me several times and it would throw me off because I felt so certain they DID know me. Eventually a friend assured me, “Yes, they know you, they are just an asshole.” So to you musicians out there who do that, I just want to say a big FUCK you in this blog, which none of you will ever see. Clearly I’m very brave and confrontational.

Anyway, my co-worker and I had discussed our forgettable/familiar faces on a four hour car ride to a conference in Slave Lake. Was Slave Lake, Alberta on my bucket list of dream places to visit? This may shock you, but no, no it was not, BUT it did get me out of the office and I was allowed to expense my McDonald’s lunch (the only restaurant on the drive there) and I can never say no to Dons (I will FIGHT anyone who doesn’t see McDonalds as the monarchy of fast food fries).

When we finally arrived at the conference my co-worker spotted a table with a handful of people who she knew from many past conferences. We sat down with them and began with painful conference small talk and went around and did introductions. MULTIPLE people at that table insisted they had met me before. After a lengthy conversation assuring them that they didn’t know me, my co-worker finally piped in to inform that that they actually did know her, and had met her numerous times. At the end of the conversation I don’t think we had truly convinced anyone that they knew her and didn’t know me, but we tried our best (for the record I don’t think she’s forgettable and she should really consider becoming a spy).

Although people commonly think they’ve met me – occasionally people even straight up think I’m someone else. Once when I was donating blood a guy came up to me and casually started a conversation with “Hannah.” At first I was confused until I realized what was happening and had to inform him:

I’m not Hannah, and sorry if I haven’t been that engaged in hearing about your dog peeing everywhere, but I’m about to pass out from losing so much blood SO can please you grab me one of those nurses? Or better yet one of the free packages of Oreos? Thanks! Great to meet you and good luck with the new puppy!

The funny thing is, it’s not just my face. I’ve been stopped by a cab driver who timidly asked if I was a talk show host from his favourite radio station in Edmonton because of my voice. I choose to believe it was because I was wildly funny and engaging, but sadly I had to inform him that I wasn’t an Edmonton voice celebrity, but rather just some nobody girl who talks a lot (not on the radio). Even the first time I ever got a massage the masseuse asked me if I was a horseback rider because she recognized my back. Yes, recognized my BACK. She thought I was a former client who was a competitive horseback rider.

Ah, yes, the old familiar back problem. A common mistake I’m sure. I suppose if I have a familiar face and voice…. why not a familiar back? Totally normal.

So go ahead PLEASE tell me you know me, or my voice, or my back, or any other part of my body or personality for that matter. It’s not like I haven’t heard it before, and obviously I take it really, really well 😉

I’ve always thought people with glasses looked so much cooler and smarter than I could ever imagine being. I idolized people who could rock big bold glasses. I’d never had vision problems, which of course is ideal, but I always wanted what I couldn’t have. I know I wasn’t alone in this – I even had a friend in high school who popped out the lenses of our free 3D glasses from the movie theater to make them work for him. I probably would have too if I wasn’t so painfully insecure and worried that they would draw attention to me and that someone would call me out for wearing glasses without lenses.

As I got older, I mostly got over it. I’d still glance a little too long at someone with really cool glasses, but beyond that, I mostly didn’t care. Maybe I started to realize that everyone I knew was paying thousands of dollars to get laser eye surgery and should just be thankful that I didn’t have that added expense?

However, right when I started to appreciate my perfect vision, I started to notice I was having some troubles driving home at night. I was living in Alberta at the time and when you live in northern Alberta short days in the winter are just a constant reality. You can’t avoid “driving at night” because so much of the day is dark. My drive into work at 7:30am would be pitch black and when I left work at 4:30pm it essentially looked like it was midnight. You truly have never seen someone as pasty as an Albertan between the months of December to February. It would get to the point where I wondered if the blue light from my cell phone was my best hope for getting a tan or if I was becoming a vampire.

With all this dark “late night” driving at 7:30am and 4:30pm, I started to notice that I was straining my eyes to see things in the distance and was just generally struggling more than I ever had before. I hadn’t gotten my eyes checked in over a decade because I’d never had a reason to go before, but I decided I needed to just finally book an eye exam.

As the day of my eye exam finally arrived, I was feeling pretty desperate. The drive home after work was starting to get down-right scary. I have always been a pretty crappy driver, but this was getting out of control. Not to mention I had to drive down some particularly scary unlit rural roads that could easily be subbed into any scary movie in the last decade. As I was getting ready to leave work and head to my  appointment my co-worker Nick approached me,“Hey Lisa, I just wanted to let you know, I was driving in front of you the last couple of days home from work and I noticed that both your headlights of your car have burnt out.”

That’s right- BOTH of my headlights were out of commission. AND I HADN’T EVEN NOTICED!

I was obviously embarrassed, but I can’t say I was overly surprised. I know absolutely nothing about cars and tend to be generally unobservant about how they work. So of course I assumed it was something wrong with me rather than the car to explain my sudden poor vision. It hadn’t even occurred to me to check my car lights. I thanked him for the information and assured him that I would get them fixed, but I figured since I had an eye appointment, I might as well keep it.

When I arrived at the appointment the optometrist asked me, “So why are you here?”

“Because my headlights are burnt out?”

Silence. Followed by a rather awkward explanation from me and some intense judgement from her. Ultimately she concluded that I should get an eye exam anyways because it had been so long since I had one.

At the end of the consultation she confirmed, “You need to get your headlights fixed.”

It turns out my vision was still pretty excellent.

She did say I had a very very slight astigmatism and gave me a laughable prescription that kind of seemed like a way for her to get me to buy glasses from her-which is absolutely what I did. I bought myself some very cool glasses and wore those glasses (that essentially did nothing to help my vision) almost every damn day and felt like the smartest girl driving without headlights in Alberta.

I feel like a professional wedding guest. I’ve been to dozens of weddings. Literally. DOZENS. I’ve seen people go through all the emotions of weddings: joy, family feuds, friendship break-ups, financial grief, joy again, followed by more financial mourning. Despite attending numerous weddings for years, I somehow had never been to a destination wedding.

Then finally, one summer I graduated to the wedding equivalent of a black belt and I got my first destination invite! Now when I hear destination wedding I instantly think of a drunken resort wedding in Mexico. It turns out this wasn’t a destination wedding like that – It was a destination wedding in Edinburgh, Scotland. I know what you’re thinking….CLASSSSSSY!

I was invited to Scotland because my childhood friend had gone for a school term there several years ago and met a Scottish dude. Scottish bloke? Wanker? Lad? (Confession: All my British slang is from Harry Potter and Downton Abbey and cannot be trusted).

She met him a few weeks before she came back to Canada and he had already planned to move to Canada to work before they even met. Apparently it’s quite common for people from the UK come to Canada to travel, find themselves, marvel at the wide open spaces of Canada, and soak in the attention their confusing accent gives them. He was planning to work at a ski resort in British Columbia, learn to snowboard, and gain the confidence to say things like “pow day” and “shredding it” with a straight face.

My friend and him spent several weeks in Scotland and when she flew back to Ontario they decided maybe he should move to Ontario instead of British Columbia. Ultimately he never did learn to snowboard, but they did end up getting engaged several years later. It honestly sounds like something out of a super dramatic romance movie. Of course there were lots of drawn out issues with immigration, but for the purposes of my story it really is the rom-com of my dreams and the reason I was getting invited to a wedding in his hometown in Scotland.

Initially I was worried a flight to Scotland would be too expensive and……well, it was expensive, but flying to the UK is essentially the same price as flying across Canada, but with the benefit of, you know, not being in Canada. Instead I’d be in the land where it was acceptable to be drunk in the streets at 10am and where I would be the one with an accent FOR ONCE (although it turns out literally no one cared). It also offered the possibility of meeting a guy with an accent so thick that I could convince myself that he *might* be saying all the things I want to hear! (Spoiler alert- I met no one).

I started planning my trip and decided to visit a friend in London first and then make my way to Scotland. I had explained my plan to my parents who were typically skeptical of my plans, but to my surprise my Mom actually asked if she could come to Scotland with me. I agreed and we decided my Mom would join me as my plus one at the wedding in Edinburgh and from there we would travel around the Highlands and live out her Scottish dreams from reading the book series Outlander and me confirming my limited knowledge of Scotland based purely around Merida from the Disney Pixar movie Brave.

We were originally planning on renting a car to drive around the Highlands and stop at airbnb’s along the way, until one day my Mom called to let me know that she found a bus tour that was reasonably priced and provided the tour and accommodations for three nights. I couldn’t really argue with that because there was absolutely no way in hell I was going to drive. I’m a terrible driver- truly awful. I can’t last long distances, I can’t drive standard, and I panic when I don’t know where I am. I had already decided if she wasn’t comfortable driving, who was I to force her? So I agreed. Without thinking too much about it we went ahead and booked our “reasonably priced bus tour.”

The beginning of my trip went pretty smoothly and I made it all the way to Scotland without a hitch and I went to the wedding with my Mom as my plus one. I also wondered in horror if bringing your Mom to a wedding as a plus one is the adult equivalent of bringing your cousin to prom in a 90’s teen movie? Probably.

After the wedding was over (which was great) and we felt like we had sufficiently experienced eating haggis, hearing the bag pipes, and enough men in kilts, I was ready for our big Highlands bus tour. I was pretty excited and I figured it was going to be a leisurely tour with a bunch of older people and me. I figured we’d have nice dinners with oversized glasses of red wine and I’d learn so much about the Highlands because these tour groupies would be genuinely interested in it! I felt I had spent enough time slumming it on friend’s couches or crappy hostels while travelling that I was looking forward to getting to travel in a slightly more “adult” way.

But, damn, was I wrong.

Dragging our suitcases behind us, my Mom and I strolled into the meeting location for our tour. The employee with hipster glasses and an ambiguous forearm tattoo looked at us and tentatively asked what we were there for. My Mom didn’t miss a beat and informed him we were there for the tour leaving that morning. They asked again, “Today? From here? You’re sure?” My Mom started scrambling around looking for her ticket. At this point I had wandered to the other side of the room and started looking at the promotional brochures and found the brochure with the tour we were scheduled to go on and ever so slowly started to…. PANIC!

I opened up the pamphlet: “FOUR AWESOME party days! THREE nights at different wild bars! Hostel accommodations all three nights! Party like a true Scot!” I felt my pulse quicken as I looked over at my 60 year old mother, Bernice. She had on Mom running shoes, a big floppy Tilley hat, a fanny pack, a money belt safely tucked beneath her clothes, and was pulling her sturdy and practical wheely suitcase behind her.  She was picture perfect for a middle aged bus tour, but I was quickly realizing, this was not that kind of tour.

I saw some of the other tour “participants” starting to roll in (not the 30 minutes early like we were!). They were all younger than me, wearing oversized backpacks with leftover make-up from parties from the night before smeared on their faces and suddenly I realized… we had been booked on a four day party bus with a bunch of backpackers.

Me. And. My. Mom.

 This was the type of tour I had opted out of in my early twenties when some of my friends had wanted to go because it “wasn’t my scene.” It was something comparable to a Scottish version of a Contiki tour I’d assume? When I was younger I had avoided those tours because I was nervous about the thought of having to party with a bunch of strangers and feeling the pressure of rushing through a bunch of countries with people I’d exchange numbers with and never talk to again. I know lots of people who have had amazing times on these kinds of tours, but it had just never appealed to me. So it goes without saying, the thought of experiencing that with my Mom appealed to me even less.

I pulled my Mom aside, “Mom, LOOK at this pamphlet! Did you even read about this tour before you booked it?”

She looked at me perplexed, “Of course I did, what’s the issue?”

I gestured to the people already taking morning shots of tequila to start the day.

“Well, I guess they all do seem a bit young,” she admitted.

“I should have read it first too! What was I thinking? The tour is all about hitting bars and you didn’t mention staying in hostels?”

Sleeping in hostels wasn’t an issue for me, I had been staying in hostels myself for a couple days prior to meeting my Mom, but the real issue was my Mom staying in hostels and the fact she snored louder than anyone I knew! I don’t think the bus of partiers knew what they were in for.

Before I had time to protest that we shouldn’t go and that we should try and get our money back and find a different age-appropriate tour, or try and rent a car, somehow we were getting ushered onto the bus.  Before I knew it, my bags were stored underneath us and I was trapped on this bus for four whole days. I insisted we sit right near the front so I could stare right ahead in a rage and not make eye contact with anyone. Our tour guide got on the bus microphone to introduced himself and exclaim the first activity of the tour: SPEED DATING!

We were told that everyone was supposed to switch seats and answer the next couple of questions with your new friends. My Mom looked at me, eagerly undoing her seat belt ready to start to participate. I continued to look straight ahead and made it quite clear that I was not moving anywhere. To be fair, I would hate a speed dating ice breaker in the best of times, but certainly not in this situation. My Mom rolled her eyes at me and told me I was overreacting. She wasn’t wrong, but I was in denial that I was on a party bus tour with my Mom in my late 20s. I wasn’t sure anything summed up my life so well.

Finally, the bus tour carried on and the guide started talking about the Scottish history over the microphone, but everyone on the bus was still talking, bonding, and making new friends so I couldn’t hear anything. The thing was, I genuinely was trying to learn more about Scottish history! I’ll never know exactly what I missed about the intro to the Scottish Highlands that I’ll never get back. So please don’t ever test my knowledge on Scottish history because it remains influenced purely by pop culture.

Ultimately, I did survive the four days and it turns out the tour ended up being pretty fun. My Mom snored HORRIBLY loud in a way that was mortifying and also caused me severe sleep deprivation. Earplugs did nothing, but we did get to do some hiking, see some really beautiful scenery, and learn some interesting stuff.

My Mom also lived the true party bus experience while I watched her on the sidelines. She was like the cool kid and I was her nerdy friend. Everyone thought it was cute she was on this trip.  She made a bunch of  new friends, listened to people explain their travels, learned to eat new and unfamiliar foods, discovered facts about new countries, and enjoyed everything she saw.

In the end it wasn’t exactly the way I thought my first party bus would be, and I don’t think I’ll be on another anytime soon… or at least not until I’m 60 at the very least.

Even though I didn’t make nearly as many friends as my Mom and wasn’t a fraction as popular as her, I have to say I did still love the trip and her. When the tour came to an end I pulled our bags and started walking away from the bus ready to go on the next leg of our trip to Glasgow, but my Mom stopped me and insisted we had to say a full goodbye to everyone. I stood awkwardly on the side as my Mom hugged all her new Australian, American, and British party bus friends goodbye as they exclaimed “BYE BERNICE WE’LL MISS YOU SOOOO MUCH!”