Now, I could talk to you about classes, prepare you for the barrage of post-secondary academic turmoil. I could incite wisdom upon thy mind to be a better student and a better citizen. I could do that, but I’d much rather focus on something far more trivial, walking.
Think you’ll fall victim to the Freshman 15? Not if you’re an Arts student at Totem who likes baby carrots. So much walking. My exercise used to be getting up…and that’s it. So for someone who has to walk across campus and back every day, I both dread and treasure the experience. I dread it when it’s 8:46 am, my kettle won’t work and the shower is feeling quite cynical, or to put it un-pretentiously, cold. So damn cold. Seriously, did someone need all the hot water for a steam-powered car? That would suggest an Engineer. I’ll look into that. Although, I like walking when it’s a good morning, like in Disney sit-coms, which as we all know stands for Disney Situational Commercialization. There, I’m being all political and edgy. Deal with it establishment! It’s all the Man, man. Take your [insert political adjective] [insert political noun] out of [insert stupid cause, like domestic abuse against vegetables or petitioning for more cat-sitters].
Hey, I’m just the messenger, the incredibly confusing messenger who’s supposed to be taking about walking.
I love the walk to Save-On. Let me lay it out for you. The idea first pops into my head when I notice the strategically placed, last piece of food I have left, a standalone Kraft Single at the back of the fridge. Don’t get me wrong, I love cheese and Kraft Singles are no exception, but that one slice isn’t for eating. That slice at the back is a calcium-rich alarm, an edible post-it note to buy more food. Because when I see that unwrapped, soggy Kraft Single at the back, I’m thinking, “I need new food now, because there’s no way I’m going near that.”
I’ll put on my shoes and stand at the door, pause, slowly deliver an Oscar-worthy head turn and scan the room. I do that every time I’m leaving. I don’t know why. Every time I leave my room I feel as if I’m embarking on a grand European conquest, one that I must articulately organize every possible possession I might need. You don’t want to be a fortnight into an expedition to realize you forgot the iPod charger. How else was Columbus supposed to get his Lil Wayne fix? Crossing the Atlantic would be dreadful without tunes, especially when you factor in scurvy and everything.
Anyways, by the time I close the door, I’ve spent a long three minutes assessing everything I need, staring down the unapparent organization of my room (i.e. what stuff is in what pile). I walk out the maze of covered walkways and temporary fencing to the main road passing the new Totem buildings, West Mall. I go right on West Mall, left up Thunderbird Boulevard and right on East Mall, passing the soccer fields I used to dread as a whining, young adolescent, before the years of Catcher in the Rye yet after the years of Pokémon. That stage when one feels cultured yet has no credentials to back it up.
It’s just me on the walk, because I love the solitude of the walks at UBC, blending academia with the bounds of Point Grey’s flora and wildlife. On these walks, the beautiful album of For Emma, Forever Ago by Bon Iver helps me disconnect from reality and just enjoy it all. Van Halen can’t do that for you. Although they can convince George McFly to ask Lorraine to the dance.
My first time at Save-On was strange because I realized I had to become a bargain hunter, a coupon-clipper, a Great Sale Dale. Five boxes of Chewy Dipps for $10 was my first great find. It was a new feeling to me, the voice in my head yelling “LOOK AT ALL THE SAVINGS! YIPPEE!” followed by a heel-clicking Charlie Chaplin joy jump by my conscience. Oh, I saved money all right. I saved enough to revive a small animal, a chinchilla or an armadillo of sorts. The one thing I splurged on was Brie cheese. Seriously though, take some Brie and pesto on a Raincoast Crisp cracker and tell me it’s not worth it. I got a wheel of the stuff, which I’ve decided to eat rather than use as a wheel for a vehicle of some sort. I’ve heard cheese doesn’t make a sturdy wheel.
Walking back is awful. It’s worse than that. Imagine awful as a person and imagine awful is frowning. Imagine the word awful frowning. That’s how awful the walk is. It’s a good twenty minutes on the way and a long twenty-five on the way back. Holding up the bags is an uneven and unwanted workout for muscles nobody cares about, and the neck kink won’t pay off any day either. Nobody wants a ripped neck to impress the ladies.
But once the torture is over, then the drawers are once again packed with cheap, most definitely unhealthy food I got slightly on sale. But through the fog of commercial brands of cheaply produced granola bars and low-grade rice cakes, I can relish in the knowledge that a hunk of pretentious cheese lies in my fridge, a large wheel of sophistication and culture, with the deliciousness of chocolate unicorn milk and superbacon, and so the world of Evan Brow revolves once again, one more cheese-filled time.
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