Would You Like Rice With That?

I have found in my thirty one years there are rare, exceptional pleasures to living on this rock known as Earth. The first electric kiss you share with your partner, the first time your baby smiles into your eyes, getting an unexpected tax refund or even being told your mother-in-law is moving out of province. (I can only dream about that last one....)

Likewise, I have also realized there are always definite certainties. Beyond death and taxes. Some things should always be avoided, because they will never bring pleasure; only disappointment and perhaps pain.

Choosing to eat Chinese food in a small Alberta town where there is only three liquor stores, a post office/general store/feed mill combination and a handful of unkempt houses, ought to be one of those definite certainties. Upon entering, you know it won't taste good and will most certainly end in the manner of you clutching your sides, moaning about death and becoming best friends with the nearest porcelain throne.

Yet you proceed anyways.

Welcome to my world, dear internet.

As if the injustice and indignity of having to suffer through a three day parenting course out in the wilds of Alberta wasn't enough, my lovely government choose to punish us potential parents by ensuring the location of said parenting course was in a town small enough that you can't find it on a map. A town with few means of nourishing yourself. A town where you either took your chances with the gas station vending machine and a slightly suspect, nearly green, ham sandwich with no expiry date on the packaging, or you rolled the dice and tried the local restaurant. It was a crap shoot either way.

Pardon the pun, dear internet.

It was like adding insult to injury, after ingesting the questionably brewed coffee and poorly disguised dog-food they tried serving to us parents.

And the end result of my three day weekend to learn how to parent a special needs child? Well, I can't say I learned much about parenting a special kiddo that I didn't already know.

But I did learn this small town was unusually rodent free and didn't seem to have a dog in sight.

Hmmm....