Everything Life Has to Offer

By Shari Kasman

Life is unpredictable.

In this strangely endearing, wonderfully whimsical, and exquisitely hilarious collection of stories, life offers a free trip for two to Ethiopia and an imported cat, a pool of vegan gravy and an Internet Elvis wedding officiant, a confetti machine and a potentially life-changing hot tub. Everything Life Has to Offer is like nothing you've encountered and it’s just what you've been looking for. Prepare to be amazed.

"Everything Life Has to Offer is a heart-melting read and a hell of a good time.”—Jessica Westhead

“Kasman’s collection offers a sharp, sometimes eccentric, often hilarious vision of modern life.”—Anna Leventhal

• Language: English
• Publisher: Invisible Publishing
• Release date: Nov 1, 2016
• ISBN: 9781926743851

Shari Kasman

Shari Kasman is a writer, multidisciplinary artist, and musician. Her work has been shown in public space and private space, but not outer space. Her writing has appeared in publications including Joyland, Taddle Creek, and This Magazine. She lives in Toronto.

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Invisible Publishing

Halifax & Picton

Text copyright © Shari Kasman, 2016

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, by any method, without the prior written consent of the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may use brief excerpts in a review, or in the case of photocopying in Canada, a license from Access Copyright.

All of the events and characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Kasman, Shari, 1978-, author

Everything life has to offer / Shari Kasman.

Short stories.

Issued in print and electronic formats.

ISBN 978-1-926743-84-4 (paperback).--ISBN 978-1-926743-85-1 (epub)

I. Title.

PS8621.A6275E94 2016 C813’.6 C2016-905498-5 C2016-905499-3

Cover illustrated by Haiti Tynes

Interior design by Megan Fildes | Typeset in Laurentian

With thanks to type designer Rod McDonald

Invisible Publishing | Halifax & Picton | invisiblepublishing.com

We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts which last year invested $20.1 million in writing and publishing throughout Canada.

I’m Going to Ethiopia Tomorrow

There’s a song about blessing the rains down in Africa and I know it because I heard it on the radio. I’ve never been to Africa since I haven’t been able to get there because I’ve never been on an airplane, but I won a pair of round-trip tickets to Ethiopia from a contest on the radio station that plays that song about blessing the rains. Blessing things is something I do know about because I’ve blessed a few things before. I blessed the radio announcer when he said, Congratulations, Irma! You’re the winner! You’re going to Ethiopia! When he said that to me, I said, Goodness gracious! Bless you, Riled-Up Rick! and then I screamed because I was so shocked that for once in my life, I finally won something good. After I screamed, there was a siren from a fire truck or ambulance and I had to hold the phone away from my ear because it was very loud.

I won the contest because I correctly identified the song they played backwards on the radio and the prize was a trip for two that included free airfare and accommodation. The song was Like a Prayer by Madonna and it’s one of my favourites, so it was easy for me to recognize, even when they played it backwards. I’m allowed to bring someone along on the trip, so of course I asked Riled-Up Rick because I was so thrilled that he let me win the contest and there was nobody else I wanted to spend time with in Ethiopia. It’s a good thing I asked him when we were live on air, because otherwise, if I had phoned him some other time to ask him to come with, I might have felt like a dweeb, or his radio partner Sassy Sue might have answered the call and I would have had nothing to say to her. After I offered the Ethiopia ticket to Riled-Up Rick, all he said was, Ha ha, but later on when we spoke about our trip, he explained that making travel plans during the radio show would have been boring for listeners.

We’ve met each other a few times during his radio breaks, which means that I’ve only seen him in half-hour segments. Every time we’ve met it’s been like a real date. We’d always sit right inside the coffee shop in the building where all those radio people work and lots of people would come up to him and say, Hello! so it’s like having coffee with someone everyone knows. In real life, Riled-Up Rick sounds exactly like he does on the radio. It’s incredible! But he’s shorter than I thought. I assumed he’d be tall because his voice is so deep, and he looks tall in the ads for the radio station on billboards and in subway stations, which is amazing considering those pictures only show the top half of his body. Also in most of those ads he’s hovering over Sassy Sue, which makes him seem especially tall but might actually mean she’s a midget.

The first time we met, he told me I’d have to call him Ricardo or Dick because Riled-Up Rick is just his nickname for the radio show. That makes sense but I still have to call him Riled-Up Rick because that’s more like his actual name. Then he said that I shouldn’t broadcast to people that he’s coming with me on the trip. Get it? Broadcast? He must have said it like that on purpose.

Riled-Up Rick said that being a radio guy is as good as being a very famous person like Ricky Martin or Rick Astley. I told him that being on the radio is probably better than being either of those popular pop stars because Ricky Martin and Rick Astley both get bad publicity from tabloid magazines, and even though they’re really famous people, bad publicity is never good, even if it makes them more famous. Plus, Riled-Up Rick doesn’t have to sing his own personal songs for his whole entire life. He can sing whatever he wants to sing by any singer in the world and he doesn’t have to live in boring places like Puerto Rico or England.

I asked Riled-Up Rick if he’d been to Africa before and he said that he hadn’t been back to Cameroon since he was an infant. He said he was born in Cameroon because that’s where his mother was when she gave birth. He wasn’t conceived in Cameroon, though. He was conceived in a hotel room in Orlando when his parents were on their honeymoon, but that doesn’t matter because where he was actually born makes him exotic and he was born in the capital city of Cameroon, which is a place with a name I can’t pronounce because it’s spelled with only vowels and nothing else, and since neither of his parents are African, his skin’s not dark so it doesn’t look like he was born in Africa. If you saw him, you wouldn’t guess he was born there. I was surprised when I found that out!

Riled-Up Rick doesn’t remember anything from Cameroon because he only lived there for a few months when he was an infant, but he said he knows what great music sounds like because he heard a lot of music when he was a tiny baby and also before that, when he was in the womb. He’s sure he heard music from big and small drums, shakers, and xylophones. And he said that people sang a lot, too, even while they were doing boring chores like picking fruit from trees, but he only knows about that since he’s seen photos where people have their mouths open like they’re singing songs. He learned how to play the shaker as a baby and that’s something that really influenced his life. When I told him that I played tambourine in my high school band, he said, Whoa! He was extremely impressed. I still have that tambourine and I’m good at playing it, so I’ll bring it to Ethiopia if it fits in my suitcase. I think Riled-Up Rick would like it if I brought a musical instrument on the trip. I could probably make room for it in my suitcase if I take out a pair of high-heeled shoes since I might not need them if we’ll be walking on the sand all day long. There’s a lot of sand in Ethiopia.

The next time we met for coffee, he asked me if I’d ever been to Africa and I told him that I haven’t been there because I’ve never been on an airplane. He told me that airplanes are great because the stewardesses serve drinks like alcohol or wine—not just water—which means we could get a little tipsy when we’re in the sky. Flying in an airplane will be exciting, especially if I get to meet the pilot. I don’t know any real pilots, so when I meet my pilot, I’ll ask for his autograph. Maybe I could get him to sign something from the airplane, like a napkin or a magazine or my passport. And if I don’t meet the pilot, I’ll ask the stewardess for her autograph and stewardesses have to be nice so I’m sure I could get her to sign anything. It will be like a memento—something that will prove that I actually flew in an airplane to Ethiopia. Anyhow, people go into the sky all the time so I’ll have nothing to worry about, except for the motion sickness. It would be embarrassing to barf when I’m in the sky with Riled-Up Rick. I’ll make sure to take anti-motion sickness medication and some sedatives, too.

When we met for another half-hour, I asked Riled-Up Rick if we could sleep in one bed together and he said that would be ideal and that means he’s going to be my lover in Africa. He said that this trip to Ethiopia would only work out if we shared a bed and that he wouldn’t stand to have it any other way. Then I told him I loved him and he laughed because he thought that was funny and I laughed with him because I couldn’t believe I said that out loud, but I suppose I do love him. I hear his voice every morning when I wake up and it’s like he’s there with me always, every morning. So when we’re in Ethiopia, it will be the same as being at home, hearing his voice say things when I wake up in the morning, except being in Ethiopia with Riled-Up Rick will be better because Sassy Sue won’t be there with her nasal voice and bad laugh. When we’re in bed, I hope he’ll say some of the things just like he says them on the radio, like Gooooooood morning!

I made such a big deal at work about going to Ethiopia that everyone there threw a goodbye party for me and there was a banner that said Bon Voyage and we all ate cupcakes. I always thought that bon voyage was something people said to their friends who were going on cruise ships but I guess I was wrong about that. My boss was so nice to give me time off work. She told me that I could use the vacation and that they’d be able to handle things at the front desk without me, and that she could book manicure appointments while I’m gone, and she also said that they’ll throw a welcome-home party for me when I get back from Ethiopia because that’s how nice they are. They’re really nice. Really, really nice. They’re the nicest people I’ve ever worked with. They’re even nicer than the nice people who worked with me at the gift shop in the hospital, which was a place where everyone was so nice all the time because there were sick people everywhere and it’s important to be nice to sick people so everyone hired to work in the gift shop was especially nice.

We’re flying into Addis Ababa tomorrow, which is this place I hadn’t heard much about so I bought a guidebook at the bookstore and looked at the photos, and now I know they’ve got plants there, and animals and people with face paint. I read about the weather, too, then I flipped through the book and saw a picture of a building, and that’s how I learned that there’s a national museum called the National Museum of Ethiopia. We have a stopover in London, England, and we’ll have to switch planes but we won’t have time to get out and look around and see Buckingham Palace. Maybe I’ll get to see Buckingham Palace from the top, when I look out the window of the airplane.

I’m mostly entirely ready to go and I’m bringing the lyric sheet to the song Africa, which turns out to be the title of that bless the rains in Africa song, so I can sing it when I’m actually in Africa. I was practising it this morning and it’s getting me really excited about the trip. I hope it rains while I’m there, for at least a few hours, so I can stand outside in the rain and sing that song. I packed my umbrella in case it rains.

But oh boy, now, there’s only one small thing that just came up. Riled-Up Rick phoned with his cheery, low voice, making chit-chat like nothing was wrong. Then his voice got sour like he drank a bad coffee with curdled milk and he said that Sassy Sue got a nose infection, so she’s been rushed to the hospital and now she’s in the emergency room hooked up to a machine, and they’re pumping stuff through her body to keep her alive until her nose starts working again. So Riled-Up Rick can’t go on the trip anymore. He said, Look, I’m sorry. He said that both of them can’t be off the airwaves at once, so he has to skip Ethiopia to be on the radio to wake up all the sleepy people in the morning with his loud voice and corny jokes. I told him to do the radio show live from Addis Ababa. He told me to have fun in Africa with someone else.

So now I have this extra ticket to Ethiopia and I don’t want to go there all by myself and fly in the airplane alone with nobody to talk to on a flight to a country that has foreign people everywhere. I need a companion, someone who will share the Ethiopia experience with me, someone who will take photos of me standing in important places, like in front