Rrroll up the Rrrim for Crrrrrap.

This is not a picture of my thumb. This thumb is too victorious. What do I mean? Read on ...

Somehow, despite the fact that I am addicted to Tim Horton's coffee, I have never won ANYTHING during the annual "Roll up the Rim to Win" contest. Not one thing. EVER.

For those of you who have been living under a rock (or in America ... or under an American rock) Tim Horton's coffee is more than just a beverage ... it's a fundamental part of the Canadian lifestyle. If a Canadian were to get mugged between the hours of 7:00 and 9:00 am and had to choose between handing over their wallet or their Tim's coffee, there would have to be some serious consideration of the pros and cons of both choices, possibly involving flow charts and Venn diagrams. And if the coffee itself wasn't addictive enough, every March and April, they distribute the coffee in contest cups that may (or may not) have a redeemable coupon under the rim.

The contest seems to cause a bit of a frenzy in Canada. Everyone has a "technique" for actually unrolling the adhesive-laden (and often a bit saliva-soaked) rim. My friend Megan very tastefully uses scissors to snip the cup on either side of the prize area to get the "rim rolling." Me, I fold the empty cup in half and then use my thumbs to unveil the (invariably) pink portion of the cup which chirpily encourages me to "Play Again!" Not to be outdone by myself or Megan, another of my colleagues (I am not making this up) has a "rim roller" keychain, manufactured specifically for this purpose, and this purpose only.

It can certainly pay off to roll those rims. There are some big ticket prizes up for grabs including cars, boats, GPS systems and cash. You can win $50 gift cards redeemable for Tim Horton's food and coffee, which could lead to literally weeks of blissfully caffienated mornings. And, even more persuasive, there are the ugly cautionary tales about what could happen to you if you DON'T roll up your rim, and foolishly discard the cup with the rim intact.

Two years ago, a 10 year old girl found a cup with an unrolled rim in a garbage can in her St. Jerome, Quebec elementary school playground. Her little fingers were too chubby to unroll the rim herself, so she asked her 12 year old friend to help her. When the girls unrolled the rim together they discovered that they were the proud new owners of a $28,000 Toyota SUV. When they ran home to tell their parents, a bitter dispute erupted between the two families as to which child actually "won" the prize. The controversy escalated when the original owner of the cup came forward demanding a saliva DNA test to prove that that she should be awarded the prize. Tim Horton's finally decided to award the SUV to the parents of the girl who originally discovered the cup (as a minor she could not collect the prize herself.) Justice prevailed, I suppose, but maturity and grace suffered.

Here's the thing. I don't care about any of the big prizes.. I don't want a SUV or even a prize card. I just want a damn donut. According to http://www.rolluptherimtowin.com/ Tim Horton's gives away 31,000000 food and drink prizes per year. But not to me.

This has become something of a joke within my social and professional life. For the last three years I have bought my friend Kevin a coffee in the morning to help him ease into the workday. Our coffees are differentiated by distinctive markings on the lids ... his has a big R (for regular coffee) and mine has a D (double-double.) Kevin has probably won 30 donuts from rims that I BOUGHT WITH MY MONEY AND BROUGHT HIM WITH MY OWN TWO HANDS. And my coffees ... nada.

Two years ago I was whining about my bad coffee luck to my brother, while he was driving me home after yet another fruitless attempt to win a donut. "Here," he said generously, reaching into a compartment below his dashboard and pulling out a handful of torn rim coupons, "take some of mine." Needless to say I pushed them away disdainfully. "I want to win my OWN donut." I sniffed haughtily. "The next one I buy will win. You'll see."

And here we are today ... two years after that statement ... and I have NEVER won myself a donut. How can that be? It's true that my luck is inconsistent to say the least - at 22 I was probably the youngest citizen to have have been audited by the government of Canada. I have been called for jury duty FOUR TIMES in my life. But I wonder if there are larger powers at work here. Perhaps the universe is preparing me for my inevitable SUV rim? Maybe I am not supposed to win until a prize that I really want is up for grabs, like a trip to Iceland or a role in a Bruce Campbell zombie movie or ... a pony!

Look, I'm trying to be mature about all of this. I'm fairly certain that I will never try to pry a soggy rim out of a 10 year old girl's little fingers. But I can't promise that I'll show the same restraint with my friends or family or even (sadly) my students, because one of these days I might just snap from the frustration. So hold onto your rims tightly my friends ... because SOMETHING will have to break the cycle of (start rolling your "r's" now ...) rrrrrolling up the rrrrrrim for CRRRRRRRAP.

The hardest thing about creating a blog ...

... is naming it.

I should have seen this coming, but it's been six years since I created my "hotmail" address, and I had forgotten how difficult it was to compete with the billions of web users out there who are way more savvy than I am.

As it is, I am barely savvy enough to turn my computer on, much less write a "blog." I must admit that I never thought that this day would come. But, day in and day out, I do my best to teach teenagers to write, and the reality is that I have not written anything myself in ages. I need to be clear here, I love my job, but there are only so many times that you can correct apostrophes, explain the difference between "their" and "they're" or try to explain the problem with the sentence "The author uses the last chapter to tie loose ends to the reader," before you want to slam your face into the Unabridged Oxford Dictionary of the English Language.

Why a blog? It's pretty simple - I want to practice the type of writing that you do for an audience. I do my fair share of melancholic whining into a personal "journal," but I wanted to try something different. I come from a family of very talented and successful writers, and I want to do my best not to let my end of that bargain down. Finally, although I doubt very much that anyone will actually ever read these blogs, I hope that an imagined audience will make me more disciplined and creative in my writing.

So ... creative task #1 ... find a name for the blog. "Alison Hunter's Blog" is boring and lame, and if my students are going to find my writing and ridicule it (or me,) I would at least like them to have to work at the internet search a little bit. I considered "Just One Thing," a reference to the fact that my friend "ACR" and I are always yearning for "just one thing" in life to be simple, but it was taken. So was "Here's The Thing," which is a phrase that my best friend Viki and I use because everything good in life comes with some kind of qualifier. Example:

Alison: "How's the new automated kitty litter box working out?" (Note: I am not making this up. Viki bought a $300 dollar kitty litter box that SCOOPS AND DISPOSES OF THE WASTE ITSELF. It's gigantic and looks like the Death Star. I would drop $300 on this invention in a second if I didn't live in a one-bedroom condo.)

Viki: "It's incredible! It really does everything it promises - it cleans and scoops and all I have to do is carry the sealed bag out to the trash! But HERE'S THE THING ... one of the cats is so fascinated with the scooping that he leaps into the box the minute it begins to do its thing ... and it automatically shuts off as a safety precaution."

Alison: "So - it never actually gets to "scoop" itself out?"

Viki: "Well no, I've had to do it so far. We're working on it."

Unfortunately, "Here's the thing" was already taken. As was "Here's-the-thing," and, as I learned in a moment of desperation, "Here's the thang."

I quickly abandoned the idea of using some pretentious literary reference when I realized that if I did it was very likely that the name of the blog would consistently be more meaningful and interesting than the writing within it.

So then I began to think about catchy TV/movie phrases that still might be recognizable in a year, or at least funny to me. The Simpsons and Family Guy provided some frontrunners, including "See you in the car!" (Millhouse's yearbook message for Lisa) and "I'm hungry or teething!" (Stewie's explanation for throwing a faux-fit on a plane). Both taken.

I had high hopes for "Blarp" which refers to a running joke with my brother, Colin. A character in the very funny "Hot Fuzz" (if you haven't seen it, you must) only answers questions in the affirmative, with a definitive "Yarp." Later in the movie, the gag is referenced by throwing in one negative - "Narp." Colin and I have discovered that EVERY word is funnier if it ends with "arp," and utilize this gag often, much to the bemusement of everyone around us, including his girlfriend Liz (aka Larp.) But "Blarp," ... believe it or not ... was taken.

So then I started digging deep.

I'll spare you the trauma, but I begain this damn "blog" journey at 5:30, and I am about to wrap it up at 10:30, which gives you an idea about how tricky this quest has been. So let me just tell you about "The Workshed."

Last weekend I read Bruce Campbell's excellent book "If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B Movie Actor" (if you haven't read it, you must.) In it, he points out that there is a very obvious overdub in "Evil Dead 2" where Ash "says" the word "workshed" so that audiences know where he's headed. His lips clearly do not move at all when he formulates this plan, and this has become something of a legendary joke on college campuses. I couldn't believe it when I typed in "The Workshed" and it was accepted.

And really, it's kind of fitting. In "Evil Dead 2," "workshed" is a superfluous word. It's clumsily edited in, and it's not at all necessary - the audience figures out that Ash is headed to the workshed because ... he goes there in the next scene. And now it has become a gag to watch for for every hard core "Evil Dead" fan out there.

I hope that the entries this blog will be kinda like that. They are just superfluous, unnecessary words, written for my own gratification in an attempt to leave a literary legacy other than red scratchings on student essays. And I hope that someone will be amused or entertained by the writing, even if that someone is me. If they become a running gag, so much the better.

So if you are reading this, I hope you enjoy it. We'll see what happens.

Alison

P.S. There is a chance that an "Evil Dead" purist will happen upon this blog as a result of their frantic "Evil Dead" google searches and quickly point out to me that the infamous line is not "The Workshed" but simply "workshed." Well, smartypants, I tried "workshed." It was taken.

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