Unprepared ⇥ mattgemmell.com

About a week ago, I spent my first night in my first apartment. It was a big change — moving out of the house I grew up in, with the same view outside my room all my life. It was equal parts exciting and nerve-wracking.

I’ve had a pretty late bedtime for as long as I can remember. So, on my first night in my new place, I decided to head to bed at about 1:00 AM. I put some flannel pants on, washed my face, grabbed a glass of water, and then went to brush my teeth.

And I had no toothpaste.

Where does one find toothpaste at 1:00 on the Sunday of a long weekend in downtown Calgary? There’s a 24/7 convenience store chain here called Mac’s, and I’m pretty close to one of the more famous locations in Calgary: the lovingly-dubbed “Crack Mac’s”, for its rather specific clientele. It’s not dangerous, really, but you’ll often find people nodding off or completely fucked-up just outside its front door.

I changed into proper clothing, popped into Crack Mac’s, and looked around for toothpaste. Couldn’t find any. I asked the clerk who — and I shit you not — was fully Jamaican, “could you please show me where the toothpaste is?”

He takes me to the place I had already been looking. “Looks like we’re out, mon,” he said, “but there’s another location nearby. You know it, mon?”

So I began walking the eight-or-so blocks to the other Mac’s location downtown. About halfway there, a police car drove by, and I couldn’t help but think of how they would not believe a single word of this story so far, should they have stopped me to ask: I’m looking for toothpaste at 1:00 on a Sunday and a Jamaican guy just told me to head in this direction. What’s the matter, officer?

I got to the other store, found what I was looking for, put all $2.51 of it on my Visa — because cash is for chumps — and walked home, the new proud owner of a tube of toothpaste.

“Unprepared” is right.