Saturday, March 15, 2008

Mail the Opera

Nothern Lites Presents Mail the Opera: A Farce.

Post Card Prelude.

In the beginning there was a post card. I found it in the Yellowknife air port gift shop. It was pretty with a picture of the Northern Lights one better then I could ever take. I picked it up to send to a friend who I knew would like the random surprise of it. I picked it up without having an address to send it to or even a stamp to send it with. Those failures were quickly fixed. Armed and ready I wrote out my note in my best(worst) script and pondered how to send it on its way.

I was at camp, no roads to town at that time, and there was chaos around the planes. Lots of flights coming in but I was always else where when they came in. A week after my arrival I sent it off with Doug, the site manager. This almost worked. It got passed off to the chief Geologist and some how made its way back to Doug.

Through Doug it traveled to Saskatoon Sask, where after a week in hiding it was cleared out of the depths of a brief case. I have been told that an extra note was added to it. I had spent some a few seconds worrying about the content of that extra message, but all people in the loop have a good sense of humour. My worries were replaced with a good laugh and an interesting story to relay. Ultimately the card was well received and unlike other items it was received.

License Fugue.

Events parallel to those of the post card. On the day that post card started its journey out of the store to BC, I was on the last leg of my trip north. As is routine I had stayed the night in Edmonton. As is often the case I slept poorly. Worse then normal, that night. I slept for 20 minuets at a time. I was dead in the morning. Which is how I managed to forget my Drivers License. It was folded up in a spent West Jet boarding pass. I was able to sweet talk my way through the air port.

Once at the gate I tried to call the hotel. My phone was dead, thankfully airports are the last hold out of pay phones. It was easy to call the hotel and have it sent south to family. So far so good. It made it home in a little over a week. During that week I picked up what I was told was an address that would get things to me.

This package like the post card before it spent a week in hiding before it got sent out. By this time my rotation was nearing the half way mark, and speed in postage became key. I tracked the package online. I saw what day it arrived in Yellowknife.

I was in Yellowknife. It had vanished. two and an half days in town talking to all the people at all the places it logically could have shown up, and nothing, nada, zip.
After those couple days I had became convinced I should become a Spy master and say to hell with the geology.



B.C. Coda.

A day or two after my pointless running around Yellow Knife, I was back in BC. I had a busy time off planned. Mostly things went as planned, and it was a generally sanguine time. Its vacation like qualities were masked by things like a trip to the dentist. As I was running around half of BC I had concluded that drivers license was fully lost.

So as I was waiting to go into to the dentists chair, I set the wheels in motion to replace my lost ID. Because I had lost or placed securely in a safe place some other key papers, I had to start from scratch. Two cities later, the day of my departure for the north I was able at last to start the replacement of the lost drivers license. It was in the mail after I came back up north.

I have not yet seen this new version. I have no faith in the post so the new one can wait for me to come to it. My temporary one will be valid long enough to get me home where I can take my new peace of plastic into my hands.

For the musical score to this opera please send $1dollar, cash, to
Po Box 111, Nowhere drive,
Nowhere BC, N0W 0R1.

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