Fairmont Toastmasters Club

[Maria Pablo]

Anton & I have been BIG movie fans since the time that we were dating. Now that we have kids,
we hardly had the time to go for movies nor the time to watch videos. We now have missed a lot of movies. To start catching up, Anton and I came up with the concept of “movie marathon weekends”. We would pick certain weekends in the year and do nothing but watch videos. Last Canada Day long weekend was supposed to be our first movie marathon weekend.

Friday being the holday, we went to the video store Thursday night, armed with my coupons. I was the only one who went inside as Anton stayed with the kids in the van as the two were sleeping like logs, exhausted from playing in the park.

Inside the video store, I didn’t know where to start – Comedy, Drama, Suspense, Horror…

Hmm, GP actually wanted to watch that new Amityville movie so I went to the Horror section first. I don’t know about you fellow toastmasters, but I am not too keen on horror movies. Imagine paying $10 in a theatre or $5 for rental just to be scared? I have been scared in my life countless of times and I didn’t even have to pay a cent. Let me see – when was the scariest time of my life? I then remembered the image of my father almost lifeless, lying in a hospital bed in North York General Hospital. Earlier that afternoon, he went to the mall which was just across our apartment. On his way home, he got disoriented and got lost. From where he was found, he actually walked quite a distance under the scorching heat of the sun and he just lost consciousness. I was the one who got the call from the hospital and the news hit me like lightning bolt. As we drove to the hospital, my heard was spinning, my heart was racing, my stomach was lurching - I was hoping I was just dreaming but everything was real – everything was so real. In the hospital, I couldn’t even look at my father. Neither could I look at my mother who was in agony. All through my life, I dreaded the time when I will lose one of them but that time – it was highly probable that I could lose them both. I was so scared. The doctors didn’t know when would my dad wake up or if he would ever wake up. Miraculously he regained consciousness after a day. Would that not scare you?

So definitely no horror movies, no drama either… But then next to the horror section was all the Suspense/Thriller movies. On the rack I saw the movie Outbreak. It was about a deadly virus. That reminded me of SARS, two years ago. No one in this room probably came this close to the terror of SARS than I did. I was right in the middle of it and so was my family.

Three years ago, when I was pregnant with Marty, my doctor asked me during my check-up if I would like to have a normal delivery or a c-section again. I had a choice? It was like asking me what flavor of icecream do I want – strawberry or chocolate. Having had a c-section before with GP without any problem, I picked chocolate – I meant - c-section. Then to my further amazement, my doctor asked, what date would you like? What? I can pick the date too? That’s unbelievable. Yes as long as it’s around your due date. I then picked March 17, which was also GP’s birthday. My doctor refused saying that we should give the two different birthdays - The reason why I wanted them to have the same birthdays is to save money and just have 1 party. It’s like shooting two birds with 1 stone.

On March 24, 2003, I gave birth to Marty at North York General. That was also the time SARS erupted in Toronto. Two days after, we were sent home to give way to the flock of patients from the closed Scarborough Grace Hospital. Having been advised that we are safer at home, we went home only to find ourselves in the hospital a day later. Marty was dehydrated. All the hospitals in close to our area were closed. Our only option was Sick Kids right here in downtown. Downtown was a complete chaos. Fire trucks, ambulances and police cars everywhere and people were panicking. We stayed at Sick Kids 24 hours. The longest 24 hours in my life. I was so paranoid. I held my mask firmly all the time. Disgusted everythime it would fall. Not knowing how one get SARS, I didn’t dare touch anything and if I did, I’d wash my hands right away. Everytime I cough, I would worry, panic, ask myself – do I have SARS now? Did I get it? But we went home – SARS free.

But the terror of SARS will come back to haunt us 2 years later. Last year, Anton brought GP to the hospital a day after we came back from the Phlippines. He could hardly breathe. In the hospital, they were put in quarantine – doctors suspecting that it could be SARS. We were just in HongKong 2 days ago where we had a layover prior to flying to Vancouver. I couldn’t believe it. Is SARS back? Did we carry SARS with us? GP came home 2 days after - negative for SARS. It was a case of bad asthma attack. Terrifying isn’t it?

Enough with suspense…I might as well try comedy…

There’s one movie that caught my attention - Little Rascals. Oh…I’ve got 2 of them alright. 3 actually 2 little rascals and one big rascal. The youngest of the rascals, Marty, drives me crazy. One time, I caught him playing with the cordless phone. I grabbed the phone from him and put it back on its base. Then it rang. I picked it up and as I was surprised I just said ‘ Hello?’ The other person said, This is 911 and we’re just checking if everything is alright there. I thought it was a prank but it wasn’t…. “Um..yes…Why?” We got a call from your number just now. Now ? Are you sure? It’s just me and my son who’s here and my son was…Oh…Oh…my son was playing with the phone just a few seconds ago. Did he dial 911? “Yes he did.” Oh I am so sorry. So maam – are you sure everything is ok. Yes. Grr…that little rascal almost put me in trouble.

My phone then rang. It was Anton rushing me. I told him I’d be out in a minute. I then looked around the video store and realized that life is like a video store – It has drama. It has action. It has comedy. From time to time, it has horrifying moments as well which makes it thrilling too. We do not know what will happen tomorrow and that’s the suspense.

We might as well go home and watch our own videos – our wedding video, our vacation videos, GP’s school videos…Oh, we have tons of videos and NOTHING could be better than watching our own movies - uncut, unedited, unscripted, AND most of all - we are the STARS!!! Now…who needs to rent a video? -- I don’t.