Dodgy ID...

...or How Swimming Saved My Christmas.

It's 6h40 on December 24th. I'm very tired. I've had about two and a half hours sleep. I'm in a line slowly moving towards the counter to show my ID and boarding pass and get on a plane to take me to Ontario for Christmas. About 3 people away from the person who wants to see my ID, I realise I don't have my ID. Two nights prior I had taken it out of my wallet along with my bank card and put it in my smaller more compact much cooler Run DMC wallet which I like to use when I'm going out somewhere that a large wallet bulge in my pants pocket might be unseemly or just plain unattractive or when I just don't need my library card, my MEC card, my VES card, my ACCT card, my Rider's Sushi card and twenty different coffee cards. I'm usually pretty good about putting it back into my wallet, but the previous day when I took the money from my wallet to head out to watch el Gran Classico I hadn't fully recovered from the previous evening and the two cards only made it to the table. Anyhow, I'm now one person away from needing to show that which I don't have, I'm tired, I'm panicking, it's Christmas Eve, I'm flying home, it's 20 minutes until take-off, there's no way in hell I can make it back to my house to get my id and make it back to the airport in time, I'll be spending Christmas Eve alone all because I was too damn stupid to make sure I had everything I needed. When I get to the woman who needs to see my id, I still have the look of panic on my face, I begin to plead my case...I'm holding my wallet open, looking too tired, scared, dumb-founded, and I say: "I just realised I don't have my driver's license with me." I don't know what I expected her to say but it wasn't: "Oh, that'll do," while pointing at my wallet. Which is what she did say. The "that" in question? My Vancouver Parks Board Flexipass. Luckily it happened to be on the top of the pile of cards in my wallet as I would never have thought of it. The only reason I have the card in the first place is because of ongoing bouts of acute tendinopothy and medial tibial stress syndrome that have prevented me from running and cycling the past few months. I had been doing nothing until my doctor told me to hit the pool. I was leery about beginning swimming for a couple of reasons. First of all, I can't really swim. That's not quite true, I can swim and since I've been doing it more regularly I'm improving but my body isn't really designed for swimming. I sink. The thing that keeps me afloat is the air in my lungs. As that goes, so does my buoyancy. I can actually lie on the bottom of a swimming pool without having to try to keep myself down. That's just where my body wants to go. The second reason is that becoming an active swimmer would mean that I actively participate in all three of the disciplines involved in triathlon which would only add fuel to the fire for certain friends of mine that are trying to bully me into doing Ironman 2009. But I digress. I had only been swimming for a couple of months and it was pure luck/blind chance that the card was on top of the pile. Aviation Canada requires all passengers to show government issued identification in order to board a plane. Technically speaking, the Vancouver Parks Board is a level of government, and the card in question has both my photo and my name so it is identification, but, well, let's just say the process involved in getting such a card isn't the most stringent. Anyhow, I got on my plane, flew home and had a good Christmas with my family and friends, all because of some dodgy ID. Or because of some dodgy running shoes made by (snip...could incur lawsuit~ed.) that caused the injuries which forced me to hit the pool in the first place. What am I trying to say here? I'm not really sure, something about cause and effect, or maybe nothing at all, maybe I'm just amused by the story. Yeah, I think that's it.