Icy

January 5th, 1998. 10:15 AM. That’s the time I arrived on the very first day at my very first job out of university. I was aiming for 8:15 AM but the Ice Storm of 1998 got in the way on my drive in from my parent’s place in Mont St. Hilaire to Ville St. Laurent. Despite whatever excuses I could muster, my boss then was not so understanding, but in the ensuing days, my very first gaff was quickly forgotten.

Living in the Montérégie region where the worst of the storm had hit, my parents were essentially out of power for three whole weeks. The entire family including the dog camped out in the livingroom, huddling for warmth. I remember cooking meals over the fire in the fireplace that was not meant to burn wood for more than three hours at a time. Eventually, the house slowly froze and my parents soon had to flee to friends’ places in Brossard and later Beaconsfield. The dog at some point had to be put into a kennel, and in her confusion and panic triggered a rare Black Lab/Doberman condition that made all the muscles in her head atrophy. (Thankfully, this resulted in not much more than a drug prescription and making her look a little like a Klingon, with protruding ridges of bone).

At some point during this time, my father stayed over at my apartment downtown, which was miraculously one of something like a ridiculous handful of buildings left with power in the greater city of Montreal. (That, and my workplace, dammit). He had not showered in days, he looked like an unkempt wild man of the woods and was more concerned about the basics of survival. Job was the furthest the thing from his mind and it took him a moment to comprehend that I still had to go to work the next morning. Interesting – I remember thinking – how swiftly we revert back to our survival instincts in the absence of the basics of life.