Chilled Almonds

By Johnny Fox

Chilled Almonds is a collection of 40 hilarious humo(u)r columns and essays based on the often absurd and always memorable life experiences and observations of British-Canadian journalist Johnny Fox (AKA BC Johnny).

Life and the world, as Johnny knows it, is full of ups and downs, ins and outs, swings and roundabouts and, most of all, equal parts wonder and absurdity. And that's just in this paragraph.

To survive, he tries to make sense of it all by writing about it. More specifically, he dissects each experience and observation to get to the guts of each story; plucks out all the interesting bits (the funny and absurd; heartfelt or heartwarming; somewhat interesting; and, most importantly, educational); then throws the lot into his mixing pot and gets creative.

What comes out the other end are pieces dripping with wit and wisdom, designed to educate and entertain all who are brave (and generous) enough to take the plunge.

Topics include Johnny's escapades as a Great Dane-evading paperboy; the fun & games of traveling; his hero-worship of The Littlest Hobo; a strange compulsion to disco-dance; fly-on-the-wall looks at life with Santa Claus and the Royal Family; his obsession with (his own) weight; managing a running addiction; and his (often painful and frequently embarrassing) search for the Holy Gail.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Johnny Fox
• Release date: Mar 6, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301886371

Johnny Fox

Johnny Fox—AKA BC Johnny—is an award-winning British-Canadian humo(u)r writer living in Canada. He's worked as a sports journalist since his early 20s, including stints at the Daily Mail, Golf Monthly, Cycling Weekly and Canadian Running. Highlights include chasing Tiger round The Open in 2001, blagging his way to Wembley multiple times and watching Kournikova at Wimbledon. He was there to see Becker and Henman, but kept getting distracted. He's also edited for the Vancouver Sun, written for BC Business and hosted his own radio show in Toronto. Johnny has a First-Class degree in Sports Science—which sounds good but obviously means diddly-squat in the real world. And he loves to run, though vehemently claims it's not "away from" anything and always "towards" something. Usually a post-race buffet. And the 'award-winning' he refers to up top is nothing to do with humour writing: They're all for playing soccer, golf and running. But if people want to assume things. Those humour gongs are imminent, though. It's simply a matter of time... and some focused bribery. Johnny lives in Victoria, British Columbia—the perfect place for his conservative pot-smoking. He's single and something of an anomaly, now being in his mid-40s and never having married. He believes this may be to do with his secret admiration for King Solomon, and would be up for trying out the 700-wives thing—at least for a month.

Book preview

Chilled Almonds

Volume One

Essays of Wit and Wisdom to Brighten Your Day

By

Johnny Fox

Smashwords Edition

Chilled Almonds: Volume One

Copyright © 2013 by Johnny Fox

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

An Alien Encounter on Planet Starbucks

The Sure Shank Redemption

On the Lode to Nowhere

Steering Wheel of Fortune

From Russia with Love?

There’s a Voice, Keeps on Callin’ Me

Locating My Inner Shizzle Bizzle

Weather You Think You Can…

PROcrastinator Too: Driven to Distraction

Weight Expectations

Cowboy Car Maintenance

How to Chat Someone Up Without Looking Like a Jackass

Phonetastic Foresite

The Neon Orange Wheelbarrow

Divine Comedy On the National Express

Cartwheel Courting

Attack of the Flaming Loins

Power to the Paperboy

Twas the Night Before Christmas

Racing Dynamite

A Strange Bout of Saturday Night Fever

Arnie the Reinventinator

The Queen’s Speech

Mr. Paisley: A Teacher for the Ages

Stomach for the Fight

Magic of Bohemian Rhapsodizing

Surviving an E-mail Avalanche

The 12 Yays! Of Christmas

50 Reasons Why You Should Date BC Johnny

The Magic of Writing

Breaking Ze Language Barrier

Dazzling to Deceive

Olympic Fever – Part One

Olympic Fever – Part Two: Soaring Like an Eddie

Olympic Fever – Part Three: I Know You Got Seoul

Day in the Life

Puntastic Pete and the Case of the Rising Dough

It’s a Wonderful (Dog’s) Life: Part One

It’s a Wonderful (Dog’s) Life: Part Two

Life Really Begins At 40?

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CHILLED ALMONDS: Volume One

INTRODUCTION

I BEGAN my blog after being inspired by Pulitzer Prize-winning humourist Dave Barry’s brilliant book, I’ll Mature When I’m Dead. In fact, I had something of an epiphany after reading his essay The Ultimate Script (his own inimitable episode of Kiefer Sutherland’s 24). It went something like: "What the HELL have I been doing with my life?! This is what I should be doing! Taking the p*ss out of life, and all its craziness. And so the journey began.

It’s been an exhilarating ride so far – and I hope you’re able to soak up some of that exhilarative goodness in the following 40 pieces. Thanks for reading!

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An Alien Encounter on Planet Starbucks

I WAS in my local – Lynn Valley – Starbucks the other day, feigning interest in buying a small sack of Blonde Roast Veranda Blend while waiting for my order to be whipped into shape, when a guy wandered in and asked for a coffee.

Clearly – and remarkably – he’d never come across (or at least ordered java from) a Starbucks before.

Because, in our brave, new 21st Century World where the number of choices for types and strains and flavours and sizes and places to go for coffee is enough to make your brain explode, specificity is crucial.

Particularly at Starbucks. At least if you want to avoid being metaphorically caught with your pants around your ankles.

The server – or partner, as Starbucks likes to call its minimum-wage staff to make them feel more distinguished and important – looked at the guy (let’s call him Guy) like he had three heads.

Like that was the most ridiculous question in the history of mankind.

As if to say: You want a what?!

What she actually said (or would have said had I actually been within earshot of the conversation and not making this up), was:

Starbucks Partner (SBP): What kind of roast would you like?

To spark the ensuing dialogue…

Guy: Roast? Um… chicken? I haven’t had a good Sunday dinner in a while. Could I get a coffee, too?

SBP: No, roast of coffee, sir. Blonde, medium or dark?

Guy: Um... well... blonde? Hmm... that sounds a little lady-like, and I’m a man’s man—don’t want to come across as effeminate. Scratch that one. Medium? Then I’ll be Mr. Average… I’m so much more than that. Dark (and mysterious)... yes, that’s me. A little edgy (not least since he decided to grab a coffee at Starbucks).

SBP: Size?

Guy: Size?

SBP: Short, Tall, Grande, Venti or Trenta?

Guy: Trenta?* Isn’t that like ‘30’ in Spanish or something? 30 litres of coffee in one cup? WOW. Tall sounds pretty big. Go on, I’m feeling lucky; let’s go for a tall. I’m only 5-ft 7, though… do I still qualify? (in case it’s like a fairground ride where you have to meet those height requirements).

SBP: Regular, Latte, Mocha, Espresso or Frappuccino?

Guy: Al Pacino? You have a coffee drink named after the film legend? That’s amazing! I’ll take one of those. Could you also do me a Godfather Latte to go?

The server pretends not to hear. The confusing back-and-forth continues back and forth for what seems like hours, until a bewildered and bamboozled Guy staggers off in the wrong direction (trying to locate the drink collection counter), feeling like he’s gone 10 rounds with Mike Tyson (when Iron Mike was in his prime... and known as Iron Mike).

* * * * * *

Ordering a coffee these days requires military-style preparation – and precision in executing the plan (your order).

Once you’ve navigated your way through the 15,000 different coffee shop chains/options in your town or city (including Starbucks, Tim Hortons, Blenz, Roastz, Waves, Ripples, Second Cup, Third Cup, Café Art Iguanas etc.), you have to study the menu (you can do this online if you have access to the InterWeb) with the same intensity used (and pressure felt) by an arts major revising for a crucial high school chemistry exam.

The only real difference is that it’s actually useful to retain this information (your carefully crafted and memorized order, that is) longer than 24 hours, for future coffee jaunts. Providing you don’t fluff your lines and leave mentally/emotionally scarred.

It’s OK to have the order written down as back-up – just in case your Starbucks (or selected coffee-house) partner chooses to confirm one piece of the puzzle in a different order to which you memorized it. The order, I mean.

At which point all the vital information scatters from your head like a flock of resting seagulls being chased from a harbour pier by a Bull Terrier on crack.

Fail to prepare and prepare to fail, as they say (those esteemed prophets of wisdom).

You can always spot the customers that ‘blew their audition’ a mile off. They’re the ones sitting sheepishly by the window trying to subtly shield their Short, Regular Green Tea from public view.

They’d stridden in purposefully with dreams of a Grande Decaf Skinny Pumpkin Spice Banana Extra-Shot Latte, only to be spellbound by the amazing array of cakes and mouth-watering baked goods on offer and completely lose their train of thought; crumbling mentally as soon as the director cried Action!

Yes, make no mistake about it, ordering a java these days is not for the faint-hearted.

However, I’ve chosen to embrace the complexities and am actually a Starbucks fan. Even if you have to mortgage your house to cover the cost, there’s something about that homely, inviting atmosphere which ignites my inner cappucino (or should that be Al Pacino?) and leaves me feeling all warm and fuzzy inside.

Plus, I'm now a Gold Card member and get a free drink every 12 stars.

But I always go prepared… and memorize my lines ahead-of-time (Grande decaf Skinny Gingerbread Soy Latte... garnished with a sprinkle of cinnamon, splash of nutmeg and pinch of vanilla, please).

I don’t want to be that Guy caught Short and made a Mocha-ry of... again.

It was embarrassing enough the first time.

The Sure Shank Redemption

ONCE UPON a time I had designs on being a pro golfer. You know, one of those chaps who loves dressing up like Rupert Bear (the 1920s British comic strip character), in Nuclear Canary Yellow checked trousers (pants) and woolly jumpers so garishly red, they’d repel a herd of charging bulls.

Hey man, we like red but that’s ridiculous! Come on fellas, let’s go and spear that guy on the ninth who’s dressed in subtle crimson, this one’s blindin’ my eyes.

The idea of travelling the globe chasing birdies, while repeatedly trying to thrash a little white ball into orbit with every ounce of juice I could muster, really appealed to me. As did winning $350,000 for coming 8th.

However, there was one giant spanner thrown in the works, which ultimately cost me my place on the PGA Tour. And Uncle Fred’s Spicy Three-Bean Mix Mini-Tour, for that matter (17 rungs below Tiger & Co):

I couldn’t hit the ball straight.

In fact, I was so wild off the tee my playing partners would often shout FIVE! to alert golfers on adjoining fairways that a wickedly slicing Titleist bullet was about to knock their dentures for six. The traditional war-cry FORE! just didn’t cut it.

When I got lucky, I did sometimes find the fairway. But usually on the Back 9, while I was still playing the Front.

Once word got around I was on-course, fellow fairway dwellers would often whip out crash helmets from the bowels of their wardrobe-sized golf bags, just to be on the safe side.

I cut my golfing teeth on a quaint public municipal in Gloucestershire (pronounced Glosstasheer), England – known as the Minchinhampton Old Course.

Minch Old was densely populated with some of Mother Nature’s finest bovine (ie. cows), as the 18 holes were carved on and across public common land.

We got very well acquainted over the years (the cattle and I); my black-and-white blotchy-patterned friends eventually figuring out that the safest place to congregate when I was poised to wildly swish my driver in the vague hope of hitting a fairway, was directly in front of the tee-box.

There wasn’t a cat (or cow) in hell’s chance I’d hit ’em.

Minch Old also offered cow-pat bunkers, instead of the traditional sand-based variety – and things got pretty ugly if you happened to land in one. Which, for me, was usually every other shot.

Inevitably your Maxfli 5 Balata – the ball – would plug smack bang in the centre of the freshest pat, still brimming with enough steam to organically heat an Olympic-sized swimming pool.

The club had a local rule which stated you had to play the ball as it lies when lodged in the bosom of a smoking pattie. So, if you’d bagged a ride home with a buddy, you were usually made to walk. The stench from your pat-pounded clothes would inevitably become so embedded within the car’s DNA, the vehicle would conk out and die.

This particular local rule also had a clause which ensured that every time some sad sack hoicked one into a bunker and was left with a plum lie, a permanent video-cam set up on the hole would beam live coverage of the ensuing carnage back to the 19th hole for the enjoyment of club vultures—I mean, members.

But I digress. My main problem in the couldn’t-hit-a-whale’s-ass-with-a-banjo stakes was that I had a tendency to shank.

The word shank has around 753 different meanings, but in golf terms it’s defined as the following (courtesy of Dictionary.com):

To hit (a golf ball) with the base of the shaft of a club just above the club head, causing the ball to go off sharply to the right.

Things came to a head – unfortunately not a club-head – when I was playing a round with my Old Man (dad).

He chose to stand about 30 yards due north-west of me, essentially 45 degrees to my right. I did warn him that he was playing Russian Roulette standing there, but he assured me things would be fine.

And things were fine. Until my four-iron misfired at the point-of-impact and hit the ball with the base of the shaft of a club just above the club head.

The ball ‘soared’