"Just when I thought this weekend couldn�t get any better...�"

It�s really not a good idea to let Melissa and I spend more than twenty four successive hours together, because the endless parroting and quoting results in the following...

Danielle, driving car, attempts to exit parking ramp in Niagara Falls, Canada. Exit is halted because Danielle has misplaced parking ramp ticket. Tony sits in passenger seat and has flashbacks to an October day in a New York City hotel when Danielle tore apart purse and luggage trying to locate lost valet ticket. Tony is certain Danielle will talk her way out of the parking ramp and locate misplaced ticket minutes after exiting. Tony is correct. Melissa sits in back seat, planning emigration to Canada..

The parking lot attendant approaches the car. I roll down my window and look up at him, innocently. He says, �Ticket machine�s not working?�

�I can�t find my ticket, budd-EH,� I reply, in South Park mock-Canadian voice. Melissa, and I have been parroting this voice all goddamned day and now I am unknowingly and unconsciously using it in conversation with an actual Canadian person.

�Well, you can pay me here,� he replies.

�Do you take American?�

He nods and I hand him a twenty dollar bill, at which point he says �Oh, you don�t have exact change, eh?�

I reach for a ten when he whips out change and says, �All these people paid the parking inside the Casino. That�s how they�re getting OOT.� We�re not sure what to laugh at first. The �oot� or the little parking lecture we�re receiving.

The window is barely up when Melissa exclaims, �Holy shit! We�re not even FIVE MINUTES from the border, and did you HEAR that dude�s ACCENT? I fucking HEART the Canada.�

Melissa�s extreme hearting of �the Canada� began forty eight hours prior to this tender encounter when we drove from Buffalo to Toronto to see Canadian Idol winner Ryan Malcolm perform at the Hummingbird Center. We�ve assembled a darling group of misfits over the internet through a shared obsession with a certain Mr. Clayton Holmes Aiken nee Grissom. We see eye to eye on most things, but the Ryan Malcolm fanship has divided us into haves and have-nots. Melissa, Tony and I HAVE the Ryan Malcolm obsession. Kat and Kelly HAVE NOT. In fact, they have a violent and extreme hatred for the man they consider to be a balding, talentless hack. Knowing we, the Ry-Ry hearters, are correct, we overlook this small ignorance on their part in the name of true friendship. That and the fact that they are wrong.

We drove to Toronto on Friday through rush hour. The bridge was free of traffic, and we willingly gave up our rights at the border crossing to a very nice agent who seemed mildly amused by the fact that we were driving 120 kilometers to see the Canadian Idol. She was a vast improvement from the toll taker with the purple mullet on the highway back in America. We had our IDS ready for presentation, but they were unnecessary. This trusting soul just let us right in to her lovely country. Actually, when I say WE had our Ids ready for presentation, I mean Tony and Melissa had their passports out. I did not have my government issued identification in my hand. The reason will be revealed later...

We drove through the land of maple trees and mounties. We parked, had dinner and walked to the concert hall just in time to pick up our tickets, find our seats and scan the audience for freaks before the lights went down. The opening act, Jacynthe, was a disaster, but it gave us our first taste of the quaint polite nature of the Canadian people, which in turn, gave Melissa a taste for a work Visa.

The audience was incredibly excited, but reserved, like Clay Aiken fans on Darvocet. Jacynthe kept calling out, �Put your hands together, TORONTO!� and �Let me hear you, TORONTO!� and �Wave your hands in the air from side to side like this, TORONTO!� Four people took Jacynthe up on her offer. There were a few Malcolmaniacs in front of us dancing up a storm and singing along to the music, but for the most part, the audience sat quietly on their bottoms and applauded at the appropriate moments. We kept looking at each other skeptically, waiting for the insane frenzy of screaming and panty-throwing to begin. It never happened. Instead, the politeness just INCREASED.

People kept running down the aisles to snap pictures. I decided to be a sheep and follow suit. I started walking down the left vom, when a security guard stopped me. I was completely prepared to make a 180 and head back to my row, but I thought, what the hell, and said, �I just want to go up and take one picture. Would that be ok?� He replied, �Oh, you want to take a picture? Yeah, go ahead, then.� I looked at him incredulously and kept walking. The dancing Malcolmaniacs moved out of my way, unsolicited, and I walked right up to the stage. I stood for a minute or two trying to focus on the fancy dancer before me, but he kept moving, so I just snapped the picture. The security guard up front looked at me, smiled, and said, "Did you get your picture?" I took this to be a hint to go back to my seat, but in retrospect, I think he was just curious. I probably could have stood up there all night snapping photos and the guards would have asked to see how they were turning out. Still, I was overcome with socially appropriate feelings and headed back to my seat with a jaunty bounce in my step.

Later, two young girls were standing in front of us, dancing away. They turned around and asked, �Are we bothering you?� WHAT? Melissa and I thought they must have been joking, after our last concert experience where an old ass hag hit me on the back with her knockoff Kate Spade purse and screamed, �SIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOWN,� sounding remarkably like the South Park bus driver, Miss Crabtree. I�m not positive, but I think the bitch had a bird�s nest in her hair...

Ryan Malcolm made short work of our libidos with his skinny, concave body. He was dressed in jeans that were loose enough to require constant hiking, especially since he spent the majority of the night jumping up and down and losing his breath. Hot, I tell you. Hot. When he appeared on stage, he had on a CUB SCOUTS UNIFORM shirt. Yes, you read that correctly. It had the badges and everything. A few songs into the show, he removed this button-down shirt to reveal...

Are you sitting down, because this is so friggin� sexy, it�s unbelievable.

A long-sleeved white shirt under...

AN ORANGE TSHIRT WITH AN ATARI LOGO. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. Seriously, ATARI. And ORANGE. It was beyond hot. I kept thinking, �Why can�t Clay Aiken dress like THAT?� And then I thought about the beatings I would receive from my friends if I said those words out loud so I shushed my inner voice as best I could. Still, you can�t look at THIS FASHION

and tell me it�s not infinitely better than THIS FASHION

and expect me to believe you.

Except for the shoes. Clay ALWAYS wins with the shoes.

To be continued...

Thank you, KAT, for letting me steal the picture of Clay on his cellphone without your permission.