Dealing With Stress

Suppose you’re having a lousy week. (Oh, let’s be honest: a couple of lousy weeks.) You’d like to put it all behind you, and spend an enjoyable evening. How do you do that? I have the solution! Follow the simple steps below, and you’ll be fine.

1. Control the weather. These steps will only work if it’s a nice warm evening.
2. Make plans to meet with Andrea after work, for dinner. (For best effect, it really has to be Andrea that you’re meeting with. Results not guaranteed if you’re meeting someone else.)
3. On the way to the meeting, have your car windows open (see point 1 above), and have DJ Shadow playing on the CD player.
4. Meet Andrea in the Yonge and Eglinton area of Toronto.
5. Wander up and down Yonge St. for a bit, trying to decide where to eat. (See point 1 above.)
6. Choose a Thai/Vietnamese restaurant, and go in.
   • Note: If you’re following these steps carefully, it doesn’t matter if there are two loud, obnoxious, über-yuppie women sitting behind you, having a conversation so high in volume that you can hardly have your own. It won’t have any negative effects on the evening.
7. Order the mango chicken, and a Sleeman Cream Ale. (Alternatively, you can order some kind of pho—I think it was the dumpling pho—which Andrea has indicated is also very good. However, you may need to choose a different beverage, as the Sleeman Cream Ale wasn’t tested against the pho.)
8. Since the Yonge and Eglinton area is pretty yuppy-ish, spend much of your meal watching yuppies walk by, out the window.

And that’s all you have to do. You will have a wonderful evening, forget your stresses and aggravations, and enjoy yourself.

Of course, you’ll have to go back to work the next day, and it will all hit you again. This is only a temporary reprieve for your problems, not a cure.