It's only 7 a.m!

Lighten up!  I swim with a middle-aged woman I have always suspected of being "a problem".  This is the phrase I have used over the years with my kids to describe a person or situation I don't like.  We could be standing in the checkout line at the supermarket, we could be in the library, we could be on an airplane, we could be at the movies, we could be at the drug store, we could be at a concert..........you name it, that was my stock phrase whenever someone was making a scene or taking too long.  "This person is a problem," I would say, and the kids always knew exactly what I meant.

Being "a problem" means that someone is causing some kind of disturbance -- big or small, doesn't matter.  My mother referred to it as "making a fuss".  She hated it. 

Anyway, "F" now fits perfectly into the "problem" category.  "Well, I'm here," is usually what she says when I cheerily ask how she is in the locker room at 7 a.m.  Everything is always "oh dear" and "ho hum" and "I don't know yet" and "my daughter had an accident"...........

But today clinched it.  When I raved about The Stampeder Horse getting into the lobby of the Royal York Hotel, she sneered:  "I hate those people.  There's so much to worry about in the world and all they do is try to get a horse into a hotel."  I suggested she  "lighten up", it's just good fun.  "And I object to all professional sports," she added for bad measure.  "These people are ridiculous."

Well, at that superior pronouncement I just had to tell her about meeting the Argos in Regina and getting my picture taken with them and getting their autographs -- just to be a further annoyance.  She told me that was ridiculous too.  "Obviously, you're an ideologue," I added.  "I just have fun."

To top it all off, this sanctimonious preaching comes from an American who ended up in Calgary because her husband dodged the draft in the '70s.  And she brags about not having Canadian citizenship, yet still collecting CPP!  As I said, she's a problem.