Work Horses

There are several people that I work with and whose services I patronize that I consider real weight carriers. The workhorses. The people, places, and things who make mine, and others’ lives easier. They carry the burden of being competent, communicative, and good at their jobs in a way I find so wonderfully satisfying, like watching those compilations on Youtube of vacuum cleaner heads fitting gracefully into a corner that appears perfectly molded to it. Or the ones where they steam clean the dirtiest rugs you’ve ever seen. In a world full of cutting corners, prioritizing rest and relaxation, and a seemingly indefinite amount of excuses to not get the job done, I cling onto these people like they’re human life rafts. And in a way, they are.  

Christina 

The devil works hard but my therapist works harder. She is amazing. I know this sounds like a testament to my own mental wellbeing, but please know that it isn’t. I’m still very crazy. However, I would be more crazy if I didn’t have Christina as a therapist. We’ve never met in person, I don’t know where she lives or if she’s married, I know literally nothing about this woman except the few details I can extrapolate from her life by trying to make out what’s in the background of her zoom setup. We talk weekly, sometimes every two weeks, to discuss two of my favourite topics: my life and all the people I’m mad at at the moment. I vent, I ramble, I ruminate, and sometimes I even cry. I talk about what I’m grateful for, and for all the kind people and gestures that have touched me that week. I discover new insights about my childhood, my dreams, and my future. I feel so alive when I’m talking to her. She works harder than anyone I know.

Dr. Oben

For the longest time, I had been going to the same dentist I had had as a child. This man was not my cup of tea (an asshole). I have one vivid memory of him looming over me, both hands grasping one of those tooth jacks, pulling one of five teeth that needed removing that day to make space for my adult teeth. I wasn’t under general anaesthesia like I had been for the removal of my four wisdom teeth years later so while I couldn’t feel any pain due to the laughing gas and numbing cream in my mouth, I could feel the tooth being pulled from its socket as he shook over me with the effort. His mouth was covered by a mask but I could tell he was likely biting his lip in frustration at how deeply the tooth was packed into my gums. I hated him. He casually referred to me as Bugs Bunny because I had a wide gap in my front teeth and a massive overbite from sucking my thumb until I was ten. His jokes never landed because they were usually at my expense. He was too informal for the gravity of the procedures he was doing. I realized he was incompetent when I started to see my orthodontist at 11. HE was the funniest, sweetest, tallest, most stunning Greek man I’d ever met, and he greeted me every appointment by saying “Hello, Beautiful!” as if that was my given name. He also managed to fix my gap and overbite without making fun of me, a child, in the process. My teeth are nice now, thanks to his help. Once, when speaking about him at the lunch table at school, a friend of mine who also had braces looked shocked and said “He’s MY orthodontist too! I love him.” Our mutual admiration and respect for (crush on) him made us bond even more.

But this part is about my current dentist, Doctor Oben. At one point, after lamenting at how far my first dentist’s office was, and how much I disliked his attitude, I asked my dad about where he went. His dentist was a bit closer to my house, but still an hour’s trip on the subway each way. But my dad loved him and the dental hygienists he worked with. They were all delightfully kind and compassionate, and they cleaned his teeth gently but thoroughly. I wondered why I had never thought to crowdsource my dentist with my dad, especially given how much disdain I had for my former one. Now, I go to him as often as my insurance will allow me to (every six months and not a moment later). He’s honest, professional, he answers my questions about drinking lemon juice and oil pulling with coconut oil. He’s quiet and never rushes me out of the office. He works very hard.

Libraries

Where else can you go for free books? No late fees? Free language lessons, career classes, tutoring for kids, or just a place to hang out quietly? Exactly. Nobody is doing it like the libraries are.

Nespresso machine

The Nespresso machine in my apartment works harder than every coffee maker I’ve ever had. I use it every day, sometimes twice a day. My sister bought it for me as a Christmas present in 2017 and I haven’t sought out another way to make coffee since. I briefly considered buying a percolator because I thought it would be a slower, more intentional way to consume coffee. It also would create less waste. However, I never got around to it and simply kept buying individual pods to consume every morning like a little gerbil drinking its milk. 

It prevents me from having to buy my coffee on the way to work. It makes a loud noise. It scratches an itch in my brain I didn’t know I even had. The way I can put in a pod and press a single button and walk away from it only to come back to the most beautiful little cup of coffee I’ve ever seen. Every day it’s like this. 

At a time when it feels like you’re getting scammed every time you leave the house, when something works as effectively as a Nespresso machine, it feels silly not to acknowledge it. 

Pimples patches 

Never has a beauty product been more effective than a pimple patch. I would buy pimple patches if their only purpose was to prevent me from picking at my skin. They may not completely eradicate an unfortunate, under the skin, hormonal pimple that you get in advance of the worst period of your life. But they help. If I had these patches when I was a teenager, I would have had a completely different experience. I envy teens these days who proudly wear yellow and pink stars on their faces to cover their spots and remind me of their youth. They don’t know how good they have it with pimple patches. To wake up to a used pimple patch, having dried to your face, feeling the tug at your skin as you peel it off slowly and finding a perfectly circular white mark of oil and dirt that was once living there. Pimple patches do what they say they’re going to do, and then some, and I like that.

The Airport Express

In my city, there is an airport express that works so well it blows my mind. We are used to the most garbage public transit that North America has to offer. I’m embarrassed whenever I go to Europe or any city that has had technology on their public transit for decades that we have only recently adopted within the past six months. We’ve only just got the ability to pay for the subway by tapping our credit cards. 

This airport express is 20 minutes round trip and can take you from the farthest you can go downtown, to the airport which would be at least an hour’s drive away in traffic on a good day. It saves time. It’s centrally located. It’s reasonably priced (for now). It’s built in a way that makes sense by engineers and public transit architects/designers that don’t hate the people of this city yet. It’s quiet and luxurious, the seats are wide and there is ample space to put your luggage and feet. It’s quick and efficient yet they give everyone enough time to get off and on. It runs on a tight schedule of a train every 10-15 minutes during peak hours and runs early enough on the weekends that I can usually get home in half an hour if my plane arrives after 6am. I love it and will continue to badger my friends into taking it for every trip to and from the airport. It’s saved me hundreds of dollars in cab fare and literal hours from my life. 

Spotify Playlists & Podcasts

The other day when I told Siri to play my Waking Up playlist, she mistook my command for “Play Relax with Animal Facts”. I don’t see the connection, but somehow Siri accidentally stumbled on my favourite new podcast. I listen to it while I get ready for bed and sometimes when I’m already in bed trying to fall asleep. The fact that this podcast exists on God’s green Spotify makes me happy to be alive at the same time as the narrator. His voice is calm and quiet. I listen to podcasts on Spotify more than I do anything else on my phone. Having peoples’ conversation on in the background while I clean or go for walks is a level of peace I never knew existed outside of silence.

Spotify creates from thin air the most on brand, appropriate to my life playlists that I couldn’t even dream of curating myself. When people tell me they use Apple Music to listen to their favourite artists, I look at them like they’re morons. The interface and search functions are useless. It’s expensive unless you’re on a family plan. I just don’t see how they justify it when Spotify is so superior minus the fact that it’s too dark to look at. Spotify knows me better than I know myself. Better than my family and friends know me. Spotify knows what I want for my birthday and what I ate for breakfast today. For that, it is priceless to me.

Angie the Massage Therapist

I read a review on Angie’s website that said “God speaks through Angie’s hands.” and it’s exactly true. The shortest way to describe a talent that I often refer to as God-like, to my friends. Angie is a masseuse who I found by walking by her studio and reading a sign to her website. Angie is so short and small but she turns me out every single time I go to her. She does acupuncture and Reiki but she specializes as an RMT. I love her and would follow her into the dark. 

Harris

There is a man at my work who is so kind, I sometimes think he’s pranking me. We interact regularly and his mask of gratitude and kindness never falls off. Almost as if it isn’t even a mask at all. His only goal seems to be to help me and others and to do so in the kindest, gentlest way. He is never overbearing, he’s respectful, and his message is (usually) received loud and clear. He has taught me to listen and to apply people’s advice, instead of trying to talk over them to convince them why you shouldn’t have to follow their advice. He’s taught me that getting along with people is easy and that being antagonistic to others is hurting my career options. He is equally brilliant as he is kind and I find those two qualities very hard to embody.