After getting to really sleep in for the first time in a week, I woke up in the Gladstone Inn feeling like a million loonies (Canadian dollar coins, so titled due to the ducks scripted on them).
The obligatory, while in the Great White North, Tim Horton’s breakfast had me feeling like two billion toonies (Canadian two dollar coins).
The nearly two hours crammed in the backseat of a Monte Carlo, on the way to Morden, Manitoba, with two other wrestlers and gear bags that wouldn’t fit in the trunk had me feeling like a single, now extinct, Canadian penny.
As we pulled up to the venue for the night’s event, the Access Events Centre, which was a much nicer hockey arena then the one from the previous night, I was hopeful that I would be vibrating at a higher currency in time for the event.
While we waited for the ring truck to arrive, Sigmon and I explored the event (and it pains me to spell it like this) centre. It had a couple different ice rinks, a fossil museum, and a large gym where we were to be costume fighting for fun, money, and respect.
The free wifi and the sh__worthy toilets had me feeling a little less impoverished of spirit. And, after watching, to quote one of my favorite episodes of South Park, “yet another scoreless peewee hockey game”, I was feeling comfortably coined again.
Sigmon wanted to go to the Fossil Museum, but it cost five Canadian dollars, which was four dollars and sixty cents in real money and the miserly old McDuck in me wasn’t about that life.
The ring arrived and we got it up fast, with plenty of time for me to play in it before the event. Which turned out to be awesome because the venue also hosted children’s gymnastics, which meant we could pull out the fatass practice pads to try out high risk moves with lessened consequences-of-f__kin’-up.
While I was working up the courage to try something silly, a drunk guy pushing around three hundred pounds did a picture perfect moonsault onto the fatmat. To this day, I use that moment as motivation to stop being a kitten-ass-coward when performing difficult to execute moves.
I was still dizzy with impressed-ness when a more asstonishing sight appeared before me: a man in a two sizes too small Tony The Tiger t-shirt, a three sizes too small pair of volleyball shorts, a fanny pack big enough to carry a loaf of bread in, and snow covered flip flops.
The curly haired, tall, dark, and random fellow walked up to the ring, smiled at me and said in a French-Canadian-Scooby-Doo voice, “So, you’re th’ American assh___ I’m beat-ing, tonight? Wel-come to Mor-den! Whataya want to lose to?”
Before I could finish processing the absurdity of the encounter and formulate a response, he spoke again.
“I’m just f__k-in’ withya, pal.” He held out a hand for me to shake, then added, “I am Shaggy!”
“I’m flabbergasted.” I replied.
He had already stopped acknowledging me, though, and was staring at the fatmats.
“Oh, sh__! Crash pads! Damn it! Well, it looks like I have to prac-tice my shoot-ing star presses.” Shaggy lamented.
I thought he was joking, again, but he wasn’t. He kicked off his flip flops, took about two minutes to get his six foot, two-ish frame steady on the top rope, and finally did the absolutely sh__iest piece of fossilized frog sh__ shooting star ever perceived by a sentient being. To this day I use that moment as motivation to halt any attempts at viking-balls-craziness when coming up with new moves to try.
After having his life saved by the mat, Shaggy jumped to his feet like a child on Christmas morning and with just as much zeal said, “Holy f__k, boys! Solid! I nailed that one!” Then, laughing at his own joke, he exited the ring as quickly as he arrived.
I f__king love this guy. I thought.
Sigmon leaned in close and said, through laughter from the Sh__ty Star Press, “I love this guy.”
I had an enjoyable match with Shaggy, in my Morden debut, who wrestles as Tommy Lee Curtis (I’m guessing because he vaguely resembles Jamie Lee Curtis in the face?), but ended up kicking him extra-hard in the eye socket, at one point.
After the match, he wasn’t in as ridiculous of a mood and, with as much seriousness as he could muster, which was almost some, he looked at me through his swelling and darkening eye and said, “Do I owe ya, mon-ey, or has wrest-ling stopped being a work, down in Ah-merica? Be-cause here in Morden it’s still a work!”
I gave a remorseful shrug and uttered my best Canadian apology.
“Sore-y.” I told Shaggy.
Shaggy gave me a wide, Cheshire Cat grin and said, “It’s o-kay, pal! You can still come ov-er and f__k my sister, eh.” Then changed out of his late-nineteen-eighties-fall-guy gear into his late-nineteen-seventies-beach-guy gear.
As the event ended, I noticed the token single, attractive female getting out of her seat to leave.
Shaggy noticed me notice her.
“Ah, got tha maple-fever, do ya, now, eh?” He asked.
“Sure, but I’m kinda shy. Go tell ‘er: I wanna be mor-den friends.” I replied.
My pun got a nice little chuckle out of Sigmon, but Shaggy shrugged his shoulders and said, “Will do, pal.”
He started walking towards her.
I didn’t take it as a bluff and, with all the rushed panick of an embarrassed child I grabbed him by his spandex manboy-shorts and squeaked, “No! Don’t!”
This time Shaggy and Sigmon shared a nice, big chuckle.
With righteous malice I asked Sigmon, “How are your legs after your match?”
Having had his attention brought back to his ailing limbs, Sigmon stopped laughing and said, “They hurt like hell.”
“How about your eye, Shaggy?” I asked malevolently.
Shaggy touched the eggplant shaded ostrich egg growing out of his face.
“Owww! It f__k-ing stings, eh, ya prick!” Shaggy cried out.
I walked off feeling like a million good, old fashion, green, dead presidents on dead trees, U.S.of-A-merican damn dollar bills.
At least until it was time to cram back into the Monte Car-load to make the trip back to Winnipeg, where more money and memories were to be made.
More memories than money, of course.
