The Headline

Chapter II - Pouting, the Last Refuge of the Unimaginative

Chapter II

Pouting, the Last refuge of the Unimaginative

The terms “a big fat nothing” must have been invented when a poor man was staring out the eternal flat landscape of the Prairies.

            Words couldn’t describe how pissed off I was right then. Dad was driving the rented car we had gotten at the airport. He was going to drop me off at Mom’s. At least he wasn’t completely abandoning the ship. He was also witnessing its wreckage before fleeing.

            I sighed loudly and fog appeared on the window. I scribbled “Canada sucks” on it with my index.

            Dad laughed beside me and turned down the radio that had been playing country music ever since he found the stupid station. I hated country music. “It’s not just Canada Mimi-Mouse, it’s Saskatchewan!”

            I sighed again and ran my palm over the writing, erasing it. “Oh joy, a state—oh wait that’s right province—that I can’t even pronounce, let alone spell. Awesome.”

            I stared at the radio and realized that if I didn’t change the station it was going to keep on playing crap music.

            That could be my goal for the rest of the ride; find something decent to listen to.

            “What have we agreed about sarcasm,” my father asked, and took a sip from his traveling coffee mug.

            I stared at the mug jealously, almost longingly. Dad had offered to buy me some at his pit stop at Tim Horton’s—he pretty much set the GPS to get us to the closest one before even putting his seatbelt on—but I had refused. I didn’t feel like encouraging anything Canadian at the moment even if the Timbits looked so darn good in their little box and the coffee seemed excellent too with the face Daddy was making. Or maybe he was just overplaying it. Either way, I was more a tea girl, than a coffee girl.

            “Last refuge of the unimaginative. In your book dad. Now I’m going to live in Saran-wrap-ewan. Sarcasms will be my means of survival.”

            I turned my head and stared out at the nothingness again. I would have loved to go into a long description of the landscape but it simply resumed to eternal flatness covered by grass. On each side of the high way it was the same thing—nothing.

            Dad sighed. “Look Mimi-Mouse—”

            “Stop calling me Mimi-Mouse,” I snapped.

            “I’m sorry…” Apology was written all over his features but I ignored it. I had the right to be pissed. “You know I can decline the job if this is so awful,” he trailed, his voice getting quieter.

            Reporter tip one-oh-one; reverse psychology all the way.

            I let out a long breathe. “No, don’t do that Dad, I’m sorry… it’s just…” I ran my fingers through my blond hair, “Why couldn’t I stay home!? You know you can trust me!”

            “I know.” He smiled. “But I’m still your overprotective father and leaving you all alone in a big city is overwhelming. And you ought to spend more time with your mother. She barely even knows you, and it saddens her.”