Thursday, May 10, 2012

Post 1991 - The Year That Changed My Life

Welcome to the year 1991!

Let's see what I can remember from that year.  Some of these years start to run together.

I saw a bunch of movies that year.  Most of it, I was single.  Probably my favourite was Terminator 2.

A couple of major things happened to me in 1991, though.  I will tell you about them now.

In the early Fall, I attended a friend's stag party at another friend's apartment in downtown Halifax.  There was drinking.  There was porn.  There was more drinking.  We went out on the town.  As we were walking along Brunswick Street toward Jerry's Pub (which is now called something else; it is at the corner of Brunswick and Prince), I stepped off the curb to avoid walking into someone.  My foot rolled, and I heard a loud snap.  I didn't think much of it.

The stag party continued at Jerry's Pub and then went on to other places.  Eventually, I returned to my apartment and went to bed.

I got up several hours later to use the washroom and found I couldn't put any weight on my right foot.  I hopped to the bathroom and back to bed and fell asleep again.

More hours later, I got up to face the day.  It was the afternoon.  When I tried to walk, though, there was a blinding pain in my right foot.  Something was seriously wrong!

Somehow, I made my way to my car, mostly by hopping to it from my apartment to the parking lot below the building.  I had to use my left foot to drive to the nearby hospital on Queen Street (it's where they're building the new library).  I got as close to the hospital as I could and hopped in to the waiting area.

Eventually, I was waited on and told that I had broken my foot.  The alcohol consumed the night before had numbed me to the pain.  Once the alcohol had worked its way through my system, I had no protection from the injury.  He put a cast on my foot, and I somehow made my way to my car and there to my apartment, once again operating the pedal with my left foot.  

The funny thing is, the groom had gone off to be married right after the stag party.  He enjoyed his honeymoon.  Probably got laid.  When he returned to work, he saw me and got the greatest laugh over what had happened.  Ha ha.

That year, at the company Christmas party, I got the "Party Animal of the Year" award.  Once again, ha ha.

I wore the cast for 3 weeks. When the cast came off, I came back home and jumped in the shower.  Easily the best shower I had ever had.

Later on that Fall, after my cast was off, a woman at my work sent an email out that changed my life forever.  She was a member of  Toastmasters, you see, and was trying to drum up new members.  I had experienced a bit of TM meeting in high school and decided to respond to Debbie's email and attend a meeting.  On November 7th, I attended my first meeting.  On November 14th, I joined the club.  I remain a member of that club to this day.

At the Christmas party where my client site was, there was a bit of drinking and an outing with the staff.  It's where I hooked up with Patricia for the first time.  I will spare you the details of this tryst, but we have always viewed December 20th as our anniversary, and it all began in 1991.

1991 was a pivotal year in my life.  I broke my foot and took a lot of grief for it.  I joined Toastmasters.  I started seeing Patricia.  My life changed in fundamental ways, and I like to think it was for the better.

Tomorrow, I will discuss my life as it was in 1992.

Bevboy

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