![i hate my village ondarock i hate my village ondarock](https://www.semmstore.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/semm-store-evento-instore-i-hate-my-village.jpg)
I ’ve often wondered how my parents really feel about my village, the ceramic sprawl that’s been growing with the force of manifest destiny and that now occupies the entire dining room table.
#I hate my village ondarock windows#
I arrive twenty minutes before it opens, which gives me time to pace the windows and vow to not spend more than $20-plus tax, of course. If we’re being robbed while Litia’s at work, I won’t be able to call 911, but then, we don’t have anything to steal.Īt the strip mall, the Christmas store is near a Mongolian grill and a now-defunct Magicuts. We can also disconnect the land line I’ll use Litia’s cellphone to make my fortnightly call home to Calgary. I got a whole $23 dollars for it.īy the time I get to my bus stop, I’ve settled on cutting out grapefruit, coffee cream, and Halloween candy. I feigned ignorance and then inconspicuously checked our Kijiji account to make sure I’d deleted the ad. “Where’d that striped top go? ” she asked once. My wife doesn’t realize that I’ve been selling articles of her clothing for the past three years. And I try not to make eye contact with our dog, Maisy, while I sneak dried rice into her kibble. I’ve rescued all of our plates from alleyways our cutlery comes from the spillover sections of Salvation Army drop boxes. I like to think of our one-bedroom, 396-square-foot basement apartment as a museum exhibit on the lengths my generation has to go in order to stay debt free. Here, of course, I use the word our in its most liberal sense, since Litia is the only one who receives a salary. As I ride the bus, I mentally scroll through the Rolodex of things Litia and I can cut in order to bank even more of our paycheque. From our apartment, it is a forty-five-minute bus ride to Christmas Traditions, the nearest pop-up holiday shop. M y wife, Litia, and I live in Vancouver.
#I hate my village ondarock full#
And I am filled so full with wanting it is all I know. Then, aiming the metal prongs of the master plug at the socket, I take a deep breath and look at my dark city.
![i hate my village ondarock i hate my village ondarock](https://deerwaves.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/tooo-800x800.jpg)
Once the buildings are in place and the villagers are snug in their beds, I link my eighteen adapters into one long chain of industrial power strips. In fact, I am so intoxicated with it, I hardly notice that when it turns on, it emits a faint but constant squeal. It is, by far, my most commented-on piece. The moon is the first piece I bought for myself I wanted to give my village a certain gravitas, and it did just that. Rising behind that is a full moon, upheld by an adjustable stand. Rising behind the department store is a modest hill.
![i hate my village ondarock i hate my village ondarock](https://www.nerdsattack.it/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/top5019.jpg)
And sitting in its display window-brace yourself-is a miniature miniature Christmas village. At the far end of the village is my department store. Next is my fire hall, my school, and my post office: public monies at work. But I knew exactly what I was getting myself into. My parents were hesitant to buy it for me, thinking I didn’t understand what I was asking for. It was my first piece I was in grade nine, and it was a gift from my mother. When I unpack my restaurant, I am awash with nostalgia. Then there’s my theatre, my hotel, my millinery. Sovereignty Street is bustling with shoppers. First comes my gift shop and then my bank, both of which boast extended weekend hours. Once you’re downtown, the street lights will guide you. To cross, you have two choices: the Voltaire Viaduct, stony and austere or the Pont de la Paix, wooden and ornate and fragile. To make your way downtown, you’ll have to traverse the Kemick Canal, its crinolined torrents now fully frozen. Then there is my public park, which includes a hockey rink and two-dozen towering conifers. I move west to east, starting with my six houses, the bourgeois ones placed closer to my church. Once all the boxes have emerged from their summer hibernation, I begin.
![i hate my village ondarock i hate my village ondarock](https://www.rollingstone.it/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/IHMV_martaclinco_5bw-1148x765.jpg)
My mother has already resigned herself to hosting next week’s dinner party for twelve around the kitchen counter. So now I am back in Calgary, hauling an unending line of boxes out from my parents’ basement and into their dining room. I moved out of my parents’ house at seventeen, but my heart has never left-not out of some romantic notion of remembering my roots, but because the idea of renting an apartment with enough room to store my Christmas village borders on lunacy.