At 1 am on Friday morning I discovered that I was going to Regina for the weekend. I slept fitfully that night, thinking of all the wonderful, magical things that I could do in Regina, like sit in my car and cry, or drive around and around in circles, or yell choice expletives at traffic lights. I was pretty excited. I packed my suitcase with far more clothes than I could possibly need for a weekend in the prairies, stocked up my food stores with food from my mother’s kitchen, and was on the road by 1 pm.
The first 7 hours of the journey went fine. They went brilliantly, in fact. Driving in a straight line on flat, open land is surprisingly easy, even if you did have the misguided notion of doing it in high-heel suede boots. I reached the city in surprisingly good time: two hours before the appointed time. I got all excited because this meant I could shave my legs and take a nap and stretch and do my make-up, and then I would look calm and cool and sophisticated when my friend showed up looking all frazzled after her 8-hour drive in from Alberta, and then she would be jealous.**
It was a classic case of counting my eggs before they hatched. I spent the next hour and half searching for the bed and breakfast we had booked*. The map had been simple enough when I memorized it off of my computer screen that morning. However, construction had created a slight detour that turned this city into a swirling vortex of random crossroads and disappearing intersections. After the third time retracing my steps and the fourth wrong turn, I was ready to cross Regina off of my mental roadmap and drive back to Winnipeg claiming that I couldnt stay there because the whole city had been bulldozed.
At last, I found the street the B&B was on. Or so I thought. Turns out I was on the crescent of the street of my B&B. I went in a lovely spiral that spat me out onto a highway that took me to the edge of town and told me I was going back to Winnipeg. This had been exactly what I’d wanted 5 minutes earlier, but now I was indignant that Regina thought it could get rid of me so easily. At this point I was sullenly glaring at any driver who was not driving at the same speed as me, and loudly cursing any streetlight that misbehaved, and I was absolutely done with anything that was called an Avenue.
Finally, I stumbled upon the Dragon’s Nest Bed and Breakfast. A charming place. Serena had told them to expect us at 8. It was 7:30. I knocked on the door. No answer. I saw that there was a number posted on the door, that I should call to gain access to the building. I phoned. No answer. I looked up the other number to the building, which I had written on my wrist that morning, for convenience sake. I called it. After 10 rings, one of the guests answered, assured me that the Dragon’s Nest was a lovely place to stay, and bid me adieu. I knocked again. Then, I just walked in.
It really was a lovely place, especially for anyone who is a fan of dragons (like me). There were charming little dragons everywhere. Dragons on the lampshades, dragons hanging out on the coffee table, dragons dangling from the hanging plants, dragons on the bookshelves. However, there were no Bed and Breakfast owners, as far as I could tell. Perhaps they had been sucked into the swirling black hole of Regina’s street system. I called ‘hello?’ in a half-hearted, hoarse* voice. No answer. Serena had told me we were in the ‘Wisdom’ room. So, feeling more than a bit like a cat burglar, I took my bags and went off in search of my room.
Found it I did. And it was a thoroughly enchanting room. There was only one dragon here, but there was a large painting of a horse on my wall. Up until the age of 13 or so, my two main obsessions had been dragons and horses. I was standing in a very classy version of my pre-teen self’s dream room.
I explored. There were fluffy, waffle-weave bathrobes for two, some packets of Ruffles All-Dressed Chips and bottled water, and a desk stocked with wisdom-enhancing paraphernalia. There were candles. There was what I believed to be a Taoist statue of some sort. There was a book by the Dalai Lama. There was a wall-hanging that said ‘Vision’ on it. There was a prayer bowl. There were no people.
It was one of the more awkward situations I had ever been in***. I considered becoming a burglar right then and there. Maybe I would just swipe The Dalai Lama’s Book of Inner Peace and a dragon or two and leave.
I have been here for 40 minutes now. I can hear muffled voices coming from above me (presumably from the upstairs, and not from the mystical nether-realm), but there is no discernible way for me to gain access to these voices. Every 5 minutes or so, the phone rings, and no one answers it. I’ve stepped into the twilight zone. Will I survive? Who knows...
*alliteration!
**Or, at least, I would look half as good as she did. Serena looks effortlessly sophisticated at all times--even when we wrap her up in brightly coloured party streamers at the end of dorm-room birthday parties.
***Oh, that is a lie. I have at least one encounter this awkward every week. Last week I had 5. And no, you don’t get to hear about them.
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