The maladies that plague me

5/31/2006

Regardless of what illness gets you down, the key to a speedy recovery lies in accurate diagnosis.

So, ask your doctor about dromomania.

Dromomania is the medical term for the obsessive urge to travel. I only read about it last week, but already fear I may be coming down with a slight case of it. In fact, I suspect it might be in its advanced stages by the time the snow flies again.

Some folk, hooked on collecting new experiences in new places, seem to have it bad.

One of today’s most traveled individuals is California millionaire Charles Veley, who visited more than 500 places in one five-year period, beginning with his honeymoon in Paris, and following up with Munich, Fiji, Bali, India and Australia.

Not content to view only the better-known countries, Veley has visited such out-of-the-way spots as Mizoram, Lampedusa, Tatarstan, and Limpopo. He has logged 1,160,000 miles in six years, and visited 264 of 265 countries in the Guinness records list.

Ultimately, I am not too worried if I come down with a bit of dromomania. It should fit right in with the long list of other ugly maladies that plague me.

Take molsonitis, for example, which is an otherwise normal person’s inability to refuse a cold beer when it is offered. This one is often hereditary.

Going hand in hand with molsonitis is the dreaded rambleonia, in which the sufferer is incapable of shutting up after only a few drinks. When chronic rambleonia is left untreated, everyone suffers.

The best known treatment is to administer a healthy dose of pork rinds or other munchies. In extreme cases, an emergency yappendectomy involving chicken wings may be necessary. On second thought, you should always keep an order of chicken wings handy, just to be on the safe side.

I also suffer from acute accessoritis, which is a deep psychological aversion to accessories of any kind. This is why you never see me sporting an iPod, cell phone, wristwatch, piercings or jewelry.I also avoid hats, neckties, engagement rings, sunglasses and shoes, until they become absolutely necessary. There is no known cure for accessoritis, and longtime sufferers have been known to refuse pets, ketchup, cable television, kitchen appliances and trendy underwear with cute sayings printed on them like “Home of the whopper.”

Many people are also hampered, from time to time, by inflamed lame nodes. This malady leaves a person unable to endure Ben Affleck movies, Celine Dion songs, daytime television, small dogs and diet soft drinks, to name only a few. This illness is easily and often misdiagnosed simply as good taste.

As you can guess, when you are this messed up, any sustained bout of dromomania is just another walk in the park. It’s going to be a good summer.

Grandpa’s surefire yellow jacket trap

5/24/2006

The May Two-Four weekend is widely regarded as the kickoff to the outdoor season in Canada.

Unfortunately, with barbecues and bonfires comes the arrival of biting bugs and stinging pests. Most of us can handle the odd mosquito or black fly, but yellow jackets are another matter entirely.

Yellow jackets are those busy little bees who can’t seem to resist feeding on your hot dog, your ice cream, the lip of your pop can, or your lips in general. This can be a real problem for the timid, the hyperactive, or the severely allergic.

If you are one of these people, fear not. All you need is grandpa’s surefire yellow jacket trap.

Invented who knows how long ago, the trap is non toxic, pet and wildlife friendly, and harmless.

It is also deceptively efficient in removing all the yellow jackets from a campsite in a matter of a single day. By the end of one week, an entire campground can be free of these hostile pests that make camping and other outdoor activities miserable.

To build your trap, begin by adding one or two inches of water to a dish pan or wash basin. Mix in one tablespoon of liquid dish soap, preferably non-scented, and slowly stir it in. Be careful not to leave any soap bubbles floating on top of the water.

In the dish pan, build a tripod out of three sticks, each about one foot long. Bend a short piece of wire into a hook, tie it to a string, and tie the string to the tripod so the hook is dangling above the water.

Attach a piece of raw fish to the wire hook.

Tie the string to the top of the tripod so that the meat is only half an inch above the water level in the pan. Do not get any of the soapy water on any portion of the fish, or your trap will be useless.

It works, because yellow jackets love fish and will begin to cut off small pieces to take back to the nest. In their excitement of buzzing around the bait, a few will occasionally hit the water. The soap in the water breaks the surface tension of the waterproof coating on the yellow jacket, and it sinks instantly.

Even the best swimmers will drown in a few seconds. Some yellow jackets will successfully haul a piece of meat back to the nest, and promptly tell all their friends where this great food source is.

Soon all the wasps from the nest will be working on the fish and, over a period of time, all will eventually make mistakes and either fall off the fish and into the water, or bump other wasps flying around and knock themselves into the drink.

Leave your trap somewhere up and out of the way, and it will only take a day or two to wipe out nearly every yellow jacket in your area.

A thin piece of fish with vertical sides works best for having the insects fall off. The best part is, while everyone else is busy setting up camp, you get to go fishing right away—for yellow jacket bait

The hybrids have begun to emerge

5/17/2006

“If it is possible, it is done. If it is impossible, it will be done.” — a favourite saying of Evel Knievel

The impossible has finally happened.

The hybrids have begun to emerge.

Last week, way up north where the drifts meet the sky, an American hunter paid the ripe sum of $50,000 to shoot a bear—and that isn’t even the remarkable part. For $50,000, I could live inside a bear for a winter, but that isn’t important.

What makes this story important is that Johnny Gun shot what he thought was a polar bear. The authorities thought it was a grizzly bear and, after a round of testing, it was determined the blonde, suddenly unique, bear was both polar and grizzly.

And that isn’t even the remarkable part.

Officials are now saying the bear could be the first hybrid of its kind to be discovered in the wild.

It had been considered nearly impossible for the two species to mate, since polar bears mate on the ice, while grizzlies mate on land.

Confrontations between the two usually end in fighting. Then again, when two top predators are in the mood for love, not a whole lot can stop them.

Hybrids are not new, and breeding in captivity has been attempted for many years. In 1936, a male polar bear accidentally got into an enclosure with a female Kodiak bear at the U.S. national zoo, and the romance resulted in three hybrid offspring.

I doubt the polar bear felt it was an accident, and one of his sons, named Willy, grew into an immense specimen. Yes, strange things have been going on in the night at the zoo for many years, but this new case in the Northwest Territories is a first.

The scientists who know about such things believe the hybrid is the result of global warming.

Other intelligent folk believe this global warming problem is being caused by a rise in greenhouse gases, thanks to all our car parts, cow farts, and a multitude of other human sins, such as people who belch too much after eating garlic bread.

If this is indeed true, then we can expect more and more hybrid animals to show up from here on.

This is certain to rattle a number of people, especially those who resist change of any kind, but I prefer to look on the bright side.

For starters, arctic animals may start mixing and mingling with their southern cousins. This could throw a real wrench into the animal skin traditions of the north; but, from the sounds of things, our Inuit brothers will all be running around in shorts and T-shirts in 10 to 20 years anyway.

Nature has a way of looking after itself, and global warming may see animals from the tropics create hybrids as they venture north. If the pig and hippo ever end up hooking up, I look forward to the amount of bacon the hippoporkamus will produce.

The only acceptable use for a parsnip

5/10/2006

The next time you catch someone bragging about how they can barbecue anything and make it work, knock them down a peg with the parsnip.

A root vegetable hiding somewhere between the carrot and the rutabaga, the parsnip has a characteristic strong flavour that appeals to many people.

I am not one of those people.

Whether you boil it, bake it, or dip it in batter and fry it in hot fat, there is little that can be done to salvage the parsnip, and little reason to try. Its only truly acceptable usage is in making likker.

Likker should not be confused with liquor. Liquor is sold in stores for a lot of money. The people who make liquor generally know what they are doing. Likker, on the other hand, is any hooch or rotgut an amateur might try to concoct at home.

An old book I’ve had for years, with pages as yellow and brittle as a moonshiner’s teeth, describes the general process of making likker, and lists the parsnip as a friend of the ordeal.

To make likker, begin by filling a barrel with any vegetable matter that will “work”. This is where the parsnip comes in; or elderberries, or peaches, or apples, or potatoes. People who know what they are doing prefer cracked corn, but I’ve read even marmalade will “work” if you are feeling brave, or a little crazy. Most likker makers are a touch of both.

When your barrel is full, take it out to the barn, and set the barrel in horse manure. If you don’t have a barn, ask for some space with a neighbour. If you do have a barn, ask your neighbour anyway.

Heap the manure all around the barrel, and the heat will augment the working of the grain, or fruit, or parsnips. Watch the contents carefully, because left too long, it will start the chemical process of turning to vinegar. Nobody wants vinegar.

Except my grandfather. Grandpa said whisky was horse liniment and parsnips were health food. His idea of a wild Saturday was to watch Lawrence Welk on television and eat a bowl of granola.

He also drank a spoonful of vinegar twice a day, claiming it chased bugs from his system like a cat chases squirrels. I’m not sure it did anything, other than save the undertaker some work, since Gramps was halfway to being pickled when he died.

Once the “mash” has “worked itself out”, you can decide to make wine, or cook the gunk over a slow fire and run it through a still. In the end, if your parsnips haven’t let you down, your likker should have a kick like a constipated mule. Don’t be surprised if it ends up with a similar smell.

The book says oldtimers added a kick to their hooch by adding tobacco leaves, or a sprinkling of strong lye, to the finished product. Personally, I think no parsnip is worth that kind of trouble, and will be sticking to burgers and steaks this summer.

If only life were like the commercials

4/25/2006

After what seemed like a lifetime of separation, the NHL playoffs are finally underway. That means I, like so many other good Canadians, will be immersed for the time being in the magical world of Hockey Night in Canada.

The Stanley Cup playoffs are a bona fide tradition in this country, and watching them on a Canadian broadcast makes all the difference.

I just wish life were more like the commercials that get played over and over and over again.

If life were more like a car commercial, my car would always be brand spanking new, spotlessly clean, and every road, ramp or parking space on earth would be deserted and free of potholes.If life were more like a doughnut commercial, we could all eat caramel by the bucket load and never gain a pound, or a zit, or new dental work.

If life were more like a fried chicken commercial, my bucket wouldn’t need a lid, because it would be overflowing with so many perfect pieces.

If life were more like a drug commercial, I could eat a big, blue pill or two and my wife, or girlfriend, or both, would break into a happy song and kick up her heels in all sorts of suggestive directions.

If life were more like a beer commercial, it wouldn’t matter where I went drinking, I would be surrounded by beautiful women with long hair, longer legs, and perfect, gravity-defying breasts.

If I only owned a beer brewery, I could make all kinds of commercials starring me, visiting China, rubbing shoulders with some of hockey’s all-time greats, ruining classic rock and roll songs with my own pet band, and further humiliating a great Canadian athlete like Ben Johnson with a new, all natural, performance enhancing sports drink.

If life were more like a bank commercial, I could get a long term mortgage for the lowest rates the world could muster, go into debt for years and years, face thousands of dollars in interest charges, and be completely happy about it.

If life were more like a lawn care commercial, I wouldn’t know what a dandelion looks like, I would think that thick, green grass is important, and that every day in my back yard would be sunny, and warm, and entirely free of skunks and grubs.If life were more like commercials, I would be eating more fibre, drinking the finest tap water ever bottled, and popping pills to ease my guts.

I would constantly be winning the lottery, painting the walls of my home, or sweeping its floors, and I would fill my car with all the comforts of home, and then never stay home.

I would be sweating, shaving, sneezing, wheezing, coughing, laughing, sleeping and leaking.

Looking on the bright side though, at least I would get to play road hockey with Sidney Crosby.

Taking a good trip on Bicycle Day

4/19/2006

"The use of sacramental vegetables has gone back in history. It's an ancient human ritual that has usually been practiced in the context of religion. I didn't pioneer anything.” — Timothy Leary

Give normal people a reason to celebrate, and they probably will. Give party people a reason to celebrate, and they will come up with Bicycle Day.

Today, April 19, is still celebrated by some die hard stoners as Bicycle Day; the day Albert Hofmann took the first intentional trip on LSD.

The Swiss chemist was synthesizing a fungus called ergot in the spring of 1943, when he became ill preparing the sample. He went home to rest, and had bizarre (but not unpleasant) visions for two hours. Three days later he intentionally ingested a minute amount of the substance and, feeling odd again, rode home on his bicycle—watching the world fantastically reconstruct itself along the way.

Hofmann went on to synthesize psilocybin, the active ingredient in “magic” mushrooms, in 1958.

Hofmann called LSD his problem child, originally thinking it would hold great promise for psychiatry, or as the next wonder drug, alongside aspirin. In the 1950s, the C.I.A. “researched” LSD by operating whorehouses in the San Francisco area, and dosing customers with “acid” without their knowledge.

Most research into LSD was banned in 1962, and the drug was soon illegal in 1967, when it became popular in U.S. counterculture. Dr. Timothy Leary rose to fame in the late 1960s as a psychologist and campaigner for psychedelic drug research and use, and the spiritual and therapeutic benefits of LSD.

Leary argued that the drug, used in the right dosage and setting, could alter behaviour in new and beneficial ways. His experiments produced no murders or suicides and, apparently, no “bad trips”.

The acid guru was arrested twice for possession of marijuana and, in 1974, “the most dangerous man in America” was being held on $5 million bail, which today would equate to around $21 million.

Love him or hate him, Timothy Leary had to have been one incredibly charming individual to get away with ingesting, offering and promoting LSD in a world so hostile to psychedelic drugs.

In 1969, he somehow got into bed in Montreal with John Lennon and Yoko Ono to participate in the peace protest. Naked to the waist and waving a two-fingered peace sign, he smiled his way through “Give Peace a Chance” at the hairy foot of the bed.

For my money, it would have been fun to see what a character like that could have accomplished away from the glare and grip of the authorities. He might have been on to something valuable, and probably would’ve got along well with Hofmann.

One can only imagine what their bicycle rides together would have been like. Far out, man.

Enjoy the last of the good stuff

4/11/2006

The next time someone asks you why gasoline is so expensive, tell them the answer is simple.

Gas prices are on the rise, because we are running out of oil. Well, fellow guzzlers, not exactly.

There is plenty of oil left in the ground to last us decades, and longer. Billions upon billions of barrels of black gold lay buried under sand and stone, with even the best oil wells pulling only about half of the available oil out of every decent deposit.

We are, however, running out of the cheap oil known as “light sweet crude” that is easily extracted, refined and transported through pipelines. Our thirst for the good stuff is insatiable, roughly 1,000 barrels a second on the world scale—but gushers are simply not turning up very often anymore.

The oil that is left is getting difficult to find and harder to refine. It’s kind of like going to a dance where, after you’ve had a good long spin, you look around and all the pretty girls are gone. You can keep on dancing, but it’s going to take some work.

Given the difficulties and risks involved in extracting lesser-grade oil from remote and hostile environments, the price will remain high to make it all worth it. There are few places left on the planet where the incentives to drill justify the effort.

Picture an Olympic swimming pool full of oil, and then draining it every 15 seconds, for close to 5,500 pools every day. With over one billion new consumers in China awakening with their own powerful thirst, the world is going to need every extra barrel of oil it can find—and the prices will rise.

The logic is grim. Higher oil prices are required to provide incentive for exploration, leaving our right to abundant, reliable and affordable energy in the tank. Because supply is getting tight at a time when global demand is accelerating, changes loom on the horizon that threaten to tear the very fabric of the comfortable lifestyles, and world, we know.

If you want gas in the future, and I suspect most of us will, we had better get used to paying for it.

Oil at $20 a barrel is history, and prices are almost surely going to become increasingly volatile over the next few years. Seasonal spikes of $100 per barrel, or more, will become the new reality.

Even with a surge in electric cars, solar power, and trans-Atlantic hot air balloon flights, our oil problems are not going to go away for a decade or more. North America’s addiction to cheap energy is too strong, and the technology of the last century too deeply entrenched, for any new approach to be quickly, easily, or painlessly, adopted.

Gas prices are going up because we are unable to live without it. Oil is increasingly harder to find and more expensive to produce—and the few lucky ones who have a bit of the good stuff left now have us, if you’ll pardon the pun, right over a barrel.

A broken gift may be the best

4/4/2006

My first car was a real hunk of junk.

It was plain, cheap, and in need of some tender care. Looking back, that was probably the point.

There is an old school of thought that suggests when a person asks for a particularly large or complex gift, one they may not be totally ready for, you should make sure it doesn’t actually work.The idea is, if the individual wants it badly enough, they will invest the time and energy it takes to learn about it, understand it, and go about repairing it. If they are still in the game at that point, you can bet they will take care of it as well.

Many a young person has begged for their first motorcycle, or car, or jet airplane, or whatever; only to be given a dilapidated, rusted-out, heap of nuts and bolts that one day, given enough time, will become that car, or bike, or interplanetary shuttle.Many a young person has spent their waking hours tinkering away on something they will one day be proud to show their friends and family.

I just wanted a hunk of junk to get from point A to point B and, if the stars and planets were properly aligned, back again. Sometimes, it did.

Frivolous accessories such as hub caps, a rear bumper, accurate speedometer, windshield wipers, and functioning brakes, were seen as needless luxuries, so long as the machine was operational.When the vehicle really started to go downhill, which I still contend was the very day it rolled off the assembly line, the rear windshield wiper rusted out and escaped somewhere on the open road.

Oddly enough, the washer fluid mechanism still worked, and when we tried filling the reservoir with beer and using it to dispense drinks in the back, it never really lost the bitter hint-of-antifreeze taste.All the project probably required was a little more tinkering and thought, but enough time, energy and tender care had already been invested in the car. It was time to move on, to bigger and better things, to a new-but-not-too-new way to get around.

My nephew recently turned 10-years-old. Double digits, if you’ll remember, is a pretty big deal, and any young person who makes it through their first decade deserves more than a pair of pyjamas, a new video game, or a case of root beer.

At 10-years-old, he has already begun to think big, and is looking ahead to his first dirt bike, chainsaw, compound bow, and compound fracture.

I’m thinking it may be time to take the big step, to find him a gift that he can learn about, work on, and, given enough time, take pride in owning.

His dad already rides a motorcycle, so a two-wheeled relic might be just the thing they can fix together. He likes to fish, so an old outboard motor might do the trick. Then again, I will probably play it safe and get him a puppy—with a limp.

From the two-lane to the table

3/28/2006

“It’s good meat for free, and I know nobody has been messing with it.” — Arthur Boyt

It is spring, and that means creatures great and small, short and tall, are waking up and wandering over hill and dale. Chances are, one of them might even wander under the front tire of your car.Do not be alarmed by this. Concerned motorists can rest easy knowing there is a practical approach we can all take when faced with the unpleasant prospect of encountering fresh roadkill.

Take it home and eat it.

Arthur Boyt, a retired civil servant with a degree in biology, has been doing just that for 30 years.

His practical interest in roadkill began at an early age, when he would cycle to his sister’s house and pick up pheasants and hares along the way. She welcomed the visits, and stocked her larder.Over the years, he has tried everything from otter to the greater horseshoe bat. He regularly eats deer, rabbit, badger, weasel, squirrel and fox.

In fact, Mr. Boyt has lived off roadkill for three decades. The practice of eating it is harmless, provided you cook the meat at a high temperature for a long time, thereby ensuring it is safe to eat.Mr. Boyt insists wild creatures are no threat to health if they are well cooked. He even goes so far as to suggest animals in their natural wrappers are better for us, devoid of the chemicals, additives, hormones and whatever else goes into the food we consume from supermarkets and grocery stores.

The variety of tastes roadkill offers can provide a welcome change from the tired holy trinity of beef, pork and chicken. Some people will tell you wild animals taste better just because they’re free.One of Mr.Boyt’s favourites is dog, a delicacy in the East that just hasn’t caught on here yet. He says it tastes a lot like lamb—but don’t take his word for it. Tell dinner guests they are enjoying natural, fully organic meat, and they will praise you for how much you care about them and the world.

Tell them they are eating a dog you found in a ditch, and their reaction might be slightly different, even though the main course is not.

Imagine a piping hot Jack Russell casserole, with the meat braised and added to a sauce of cider, mushrooms, onions and shallots sweated in balsamic and butter, with roast potatoes, baby carrots, fava beans and a nice glass of Chianti.

There is no two ways about it, eating roadkill is a natural, environmentally friendly, guilt-free way to dispose of animal carcasses. Animal lovers and conservationists should be the first ones on board.

All you have to do is keep your eyes, and mind, open. And yes, Mr. Boyt’s wife is a vegetarian, so don’t be surprised if yours becomes one too.

And don’t hesitate to invite me to supper.

Learning a little from the locals

3/21/2006

“Good times come and good times go. I only wish the good times would last a little longer.”
- from “Story Of My Life” by Social Distortion

It is remarkable what you can learn about a place if you take a little time to talk with the locals.

On a whirlwind tour of the eastern United States last week, I learned some interesting things about a few of the people and places of the American south.

Memphis, Tennessee, for example, is known and revered by many as the home of Elvis Presley. Many of the locals, however, don’t hold “the King” in such high regard. Elvis was only a small part of Beale Street, and its incredible music and culture.

In conversation with a street preacher at the foot of the Elvis Presley monument at the top of Beale, I learned Memphis has a long history of individuals who fought for change. The man, who had more quotes from Martin Luther King Jr. than he had teeth, was also fighting for change—at least, enough change to buy his next bottle of wine.

At Hunting Island State Park, on the southernmost tip of South Carolina, I learned our campsite was the location for the filming of such notable screen classics as the Demi Moore epic G.I. Jane, the popular Tom Hanks film Forrest Gump, and an episode or two of CSI Miami.

A lagoon in the park was the exact spot where Forrest hauls his fellow soldiers out of the jungle, and a short drive up the coast takes you right into the heart of shrimp country. To celebrate, we stopped at the Shrimp Shack, right beside Barefoot Bubba’s Beach Wear, and enjoyed steamed shrimp, buffalo shrimp, jalapeno shrimp, popcorn shrimp, and crab cakes, just for something different.

Hunting Island is an alcohol-free park, but one of the locals said no one ever notices a straw sticking out of the sand if you feel like burying a jug of something on the beach. You just have to be careful of high tide. I got the feeling he probably had all sorts of things buried in the nearby dunes.

At Wall Doxey State Park, up in Holly Springs, Mississippi, I learned the most important piece of advice of the entire trip—how to trap an armadillo.

All you need is a football, and some lipstick.

I heard armadillos are easily tricked as spring approaches, when frisky males are out on the prowl looking for love. Any armadillo worth his shell will be so occupied with the football that he won’t even notice you, or care, if you happen to get too close.I said we could try a similar trick up in Canada with the porcupine, but the species is well protected because it is one of the only animals you can eat raw without any ill effects. Apparently, that’s true.

When the locals said we were crazy, I said I wasn’t the one carrying around a football and a tube of lipstick. It’s funny what you can learn at times.

Sharing life with an overachiever

3/14/2006

I celebrated a birthday last week, and so did someone I have grown to despise over the years.

Barbara Millicent Roberts, daughter to George and Margaret, and better known to millions simply as Barbie, was “born” at the American International Toy Fair on March 9, 1959. I was born exactly one decade later, and nothing I have accomplished in life has come even remotely close to Barbie’s many achievements. No sir, I don’t like Babs one bit.

Physically, I can’t hold a candle to the blonde bombshell. She is curvaceous, has great skin, and a perfect smile. She is ten years older than I am, but never seems to age or gain weight. Her head might pop off once in while, but not even that seems to slow her down for very long. It simply isn’t fair.

Barbie's height and exaggerated hourglass figure, if scaled into real life proportions, would equal five-foot-nine and a slinky 39-18-33, with size three feet and no apparent body fat. I, on the other hand, look more like a 300-lb bottle of lumpy milk.

She has me beat, hands down, in the job market as well; and has been a model, rock star, firefighter, politician, Olympic athlete, doctor, dentist, astronaut, paleontologist, and even ran for U.S. president after breaking up with her long-suffering boyfriend, Ken.While Barbie has been used to promote gender equality as an example that women can "be anything", I have paid the bills at times catching chickens, driving a forklift, and once interviewed a kid who could belch the entire alphabet, backwards.

She is a classic overachiever, the kind of girl you wouldn’t want to bring home to mother, because Mom would only look at you and be ashamed.

Much to my personal satisfaction, Barbie's presence in the life of girls has recently been said to hold a negative influence. Many groups now say young girls will set her up as their model, leading to issues with body image and gender role insecurities later in life.

So, if anyone is planning to paint some “Barbie must be stopped!” banners, you can count me in.Barbie is often looked upon as a popular icon of Western childhood, but her affinity for accessories reflects a lifestyle that is unobtainable for most of the people unlucky enough to be around her.

She is perhaps best known for her pink Corvette and big pink camper van (and who knows WHAT goes on in there when you’re not looking), but her insatiable thirst for material possessions doesn’t end at the garage. Barbie’s enormous range of available accessories feature, but is not limited to, clothes, hair, make-up, jewelry, parties and looking pretty. It has given rise to the accusation that Barbie encourages girls to focus only on shallow pursuits.

Bottom line, Barbie is bad. Even though she has accomplished far more than I ever will, I can look on the bright side. She still has to buy her friends.