In grade eight my entire class went to Quebec City on our Grade Eight Graduation Trip. This was a huge deal- it’s like a 6 hour bus-ride away from Toronto, where we lived. And we stayed in a hotel and everything, boys & girls separated in different wings of a hotel, four to a room, under threat of death if we tried to go co-ed in the middle of the night. And we went sightseeing and stuff, and ate in restaurants. So grown-up!
So this one day, at lunch, as sixty awkward 13-year-olds waited for food on the patio of a relatively nice cafe, this overconfident kid Peter Worseban (this is only sort of a pseudonym) was making fun of me, not for the first time. I was sipping a large glass of ice-water, feeling very sophisticated, and suddenly realized how very nice it would feel to dash the contents of that large glass of ice-water in Peter Worseban’s face.
But we were in Quebec City, on a very important and much-anticipated field trip, and we’d been emphatically threatened about Good Behaviour and Representing Our School and also told that if we Stepped Out Of Line we’d immediately be put on a 6-hour Bus Of Shame back to Ontario. In retrospect, that would never have happened, since a teacher would have had to accompany us, which would suck for the teacher and leave the rest of the 59 kids somewhat under-supervised. But at the time it was a convincing admonishment.
So although Peter Worseban’s face was basically screaming for an aqua dump, I decided there was no way I was gonna do something so gauche. No way, no how. Unfortunately, this kid just would not shut up, and despite my good intentions, the next thing I knew I’d popped a drink in his face like a 1920s vaudeville show.
Artist's interpretation of me showing Peter Worseban what's what.
Time stopped, and there he was spluttering at me with his eyelashes all stuck together and ice cubes in his hair.
And 58 kids and a gaggle of teachers all stopped talking and just stared at us.
Oops.
I got in SO. MUCH. TROUBLE. But of course, nobody followed through on the empty threat to send transgressors home to Ontario, and the rest of the trip passed without incident.
I ran into Peter Worseban in some art gallery at Nuit Blanche last year- hadn’t seen him since Grade 8, but both he and I are the kind of people who still look more or less exactly the same as we looked at 13, so we recognized one another instantly. We had an awkward hello, and all I could think about was throwing liquid at his face.
And eventually he said, “Umm, remember that time in Quebec City when you threw a drink at my face?”
And I said “Uh, yes?”
And he said, “I uh, totally deserved that and I always thought you were kind of cool for having the balls.”
I responded by throwing my glass of cheap art-opening wine at his face.
No I didn’t. I laughed and then he gave me his business card and then I looked at his website later and saw that he has a cool job now and is probably not a douche any more, the end.
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