Here’s my story: I woke up yesterday morning with that funny little chest pain that you get when you inhale. You know the one, where you breathe more deeply to test it and then you double over, screaming in pain and contemplate WHY NOW? WHY AM I GOING TO DIE? I DO NOT WANT TO DIE! And you think about all the ways in which you’d prefer to die, meaning “of old age and in your sleep”, not say, “in the mouth of a tiger shark while enjoying some snorkelling off the coast of Oahu”. Then you start worrying about which girl your husband will likely marry TO REPLACE YOU (the bastard) and NOT ONE FEMALE (sluts! all of them!) that you know seems good enough for the role of Mummy to your precious angels, so you stoically sit up and take another breath because THE KIDS NEED YOU, so help you God. (I actually typed “Todd” there instead of “God”. I don’t even know a “Todd”. What is wrong with my brain?) Then the kids do stuff like scream at random intervals for no reason and scare the crap out of you (The Stepson), scream at random intervals because they’ve dropped a toy, book, stick, rock, piece of lego, themselves (The Bun) or scream at random intervals because NEMO LIVES IN THE POTTY AND HE’S GOING TO DIE IF YOU FLUSH IT DO NOT FLUSH IT YOU CAN’T FLUSH IT NEEEEEEEEMOOOOOOOOOOOOO! AND DORY! WHAT ABOUT DORY? DORY IS DEAD!!!! DEAD! IN THE TOILET! All loud noises designed to make you think that maybe that barrista from the coffee shop where your husband gets his daily brew might be better at this than you are anyway, so what the hell, you may as well die, the kids will be better off and overall dying in bed from chest pain is better than being attacked from behind by a cougar while taking an innocent stroll through the underground parking lot at The Empress and bleeding to death in a pool left by someone’s dripping oil pan. Probably. Although the cougar-thing would likely get you in the local paper and stuff, whereas dying of some kind of lung embolism is a bit less newsworthy.

All day the pain got more and more intense until it hurt all the time, on both sides, and also randomly in my hip. I spent at least half of my babysitter-time — i.e. the time when I pay someone else to look after the kids (who NEVER scream when she is here) so I can write my latest book, which is totally awesome by the way and I use the words “totally awesome” to mean “please please please let me live long enough to finish it and then for a long time after that, too, because damn it, I DON’T WANT TO DIE” — Googling variations on “OMFG MY CHEST HURTS SO BAD (BUT ONLY WHEN I BREATHE) AM I GOING TO LIVE SYMPTOMS HIP PAIN” and things like that. At random intervals, the pain would be so severe that I’d be pushed back into my chair by it, like a giant hand shoving me and a loud voice — something British maybe, or German — shouting, “SIT DOWN RIGHT NOW AND DON’T YOU DARE INHALE”. But I like inhaling. It goes so well with exhaling, sort of like a nice zinfandel with a barbecued steak. By 8 pm, I’d had enough. I went to the clinic. Because I’m like that. Inhaling roolz, old skool.

At the clinic, the doctor became alarmed about a mole on my back, which was approximately the last thing that I needed, because, you know, I was busy worrying about the crushing chest pain and did not want to in any way dilute my worry pool with worry about skin cancer. I do that most of the rest of the time, when nothing significant is hurting. Dr. Clinic (I can’t remember his name) correctly diagnosed my problem as a chest wall injury incurred by intense sneezing, which he recommended that I stop doing.

Here’s the problem: I have to sneeze in this certain way, which is to say explosively and in a way that terrifies dogs, the elderly, and small children. If I do not sneeze in this specific way, I a) pee my pants and b) throw my back out. Both of these things suck, especially when you are at a playground with your kids. The KIDS are allowed to pee their pants, but in another illustration of how kids are right and life is NOT fair, adults are not supposed to do it. I know, crazy, right? So as a result of all this excitable, strange, frightening sneezing, I pulled or tore and otherwise damaged some kind of intercostal something or other and this means that for days or weeks or hours or no one actually knows how long, every time I inhale, it feels like someone is thrusting a sharp stick intended for marshmallow roasting into my chest, just above my right boob, and then TWISTING it and stabbing it again and then removing it, dipping it in lighter fluid, igniting it, and doing it again. It ain’t fun. Needless to say, my mood is poor-ish.

You can only imagine how joyful I was when I returned from my chest Xray to find an “informative” brochure in my mailbox from a by-law officer informing me that it was HIGHLY ILLEGAL to park our camper in our driveway. That’s right, in Oak Bay, where I live, you are not permitted to PARK YOUR OWN VEHICLE in YOUR OWN DRIVEWAY in front of the house that you spent EVERY PENNY YOU HAD AND EVERY PENNY YOU WILL EVER EARN on. It is not your driveway. Not really. Your driveway belongs to Oak Bay. The things you are not allowed to put in your driveway include: Campers, Trailers, Boats, Motor Homes, and yes, even CARS if they are not insured, even though insurance laws state that you are, in fact, allowed to store uninsured vehicles on your property. NOT IN OAK BAY. (I don’t care about that, I just hate that Oak Bay can override other laws with their tight-arsed stupidity. See how I said “arse” instead of “ass”? This is because I write books for young adults and I can’t be corrupting them with words like “ass” on my blog. “Arse” sounds much more correct, as I’m sure the Oak Bay council would concur, being a sort of pseudo British enclave of elderly people who abhor both change and recreational vehicles.)

After a brief back and forth with the bylaw officer (no, I don’t mean fistfight, but that may have been more fun because I suspect I could have taken him, the average age of anyone on staff in Oak Bay is 97), it was concluded that I was allowed to have the camper on the property for two days for packing and unpacking, so really what it comes down to is that I cannot have the camper IN MY OWN DRIVEWAY on a Tuesday or a Wednesday. The other days are exceptions because we can have Monday to unpack and Thursday to pack.

I don’t really know why I’m blogging about this or why I’m so annoyed about it, I think it’s the smug little drawings included with the information that have labelled and colour-coded areas marked where storage of these outlandish vehicles that the lower classes insist upon owning IS verily permitted, and areas where such storage is STRICTLY FORBIDDEN, which include camper pads and driveways. I mean, obviously.

Now today’s babysitter time has been fully consumed by me twittering about the whole camper-in-the-driveway thing and compiling lists of things that I plan to store in my driveway that are not on the “restricted items” list (which, lest we forget, only includes vehicles) (I mean, what kind of jackass — sorry, jackarse — would keep a vehicle in their DRIVEWAY?). I think we can blame Oak Bay for the fact that I did not get my 2000 words done today and am in fact stuck in some kind of morass where I have an extra character that I can’t quite fit into the scene, but nor can I remove entirely without the scene falling apart. Such is my life.

Anyway, here is my list so far. Feel free to add your own suggestions.

1. A heap of old appliances, the rustier the better, with a sign tacked to the top that says “FREE”.
2. A rotting deer carcass, with a warning “informative brochure” attached to let other deer know that deer are not welcome in Oak Bay.
3. A miniature horse (real or stuffed, haven’t decided yet) — or better yet, an entire hobby farm of animals.
4. A life-sized model of Santa’s sleigh, replete with eight tiny reindeer, or maybe even nine, made from illuminated plastic that flashes at uneven intervals, giving all passers-by immediate seizures.
5. A huge still, in which to make grain alcohol, that we’ll sell at a lemonade stand (also on the driveway).
6. A guillotine, labelled “Danger! Sharp blade! Do not stick your head on blade!”
7. A large collection of brightly painted ladders (which we could refer to as an “artistic statement” and then sue the by-law enforcers for infringing on our creative rights when they tell us that we can’t do that).
8. All our living room furniture, arranged to look exactly like our living room, where we will commence to live.
9. The giant, red octopus play-structure that we could steal from Cadboro Bay Gyro Park. (Which is in Saanich, where it’s probably legal to own — or even steal — one.)
10. Cardboard cut-outs of every member of Oak Bay’s enforcement squad, arranged on our living room furniture, with glasses of our fresh distillery drinks in their hands, moustaches drawn on each and every one of them
11. A large cardboard re-creation of the camper itself. This would technically be legal because it is not a camper, per se.
12. A bear. Like a real one. Probably a brown one because bears mostly come in brown and not a grizzly because they are terrifying. Which we could get from somewhere, I’m not sure where. I’m also afraid of bears, so this is my least favourite idea, but I’m just brainstorming here.
13. 47 beehives. Beehives have recently been given the A-OK from council, so why not?
14. That really big frightening clown/gnome statue from that gas station on the highway where there used to be a bumper car place.
15. A troupe of gypsies and their caravans. Caravans are not on the list, obviously just an oversight, but let’s exploit that loophole!
16. Six rottweilers in a chainlink pen, sandwiched between the remains of four Camaros. (All insured, of course.) (I don’t know how to spell Camaro.)
17. A wading pool in which we could keep a seal from the marina so that people waiting at the bus stop could feed it frozen herring for $2/bag, all profits going to charity, of course. We know how Oak Bay feels about businesses.
18. A number of yurts which we could rent out by the night, billing it as a healing community on the sea. Of course, that would be a business, too. Oh, Oak Bay, you got me again. Just when I think I can outsmart you, there you are, being all Righty McRighteous Rule-Enforcerson. Drat.

I don’t know how to wind up this post, so I’m just going to go ahead and stop typing, go upstairs and get more Tylenol, and contemplate how if I’d used up these 1970 words on the novel instead of the blog, I’d be a good deal closer to finishing the book, wouldn’t I? Thanks a LOT, Oak Bay.