Most people just do not understand what it is like to have someone else give you your super power. I had no choice in the matter, I made a simple slip of the tongue, a small typo on my blog and before I knew it I had the full power of the Choas. I am told the Choas has the diversity of 'The Force' and the destructive power of the 'Kamayamaya.' I thought it was a simple typo, but I guess it has imbued me with untold powers that I have yet to fully discover.
It was an early spring day in Calgary, Alberta when the Choas was forced upon me. I was in the process of hunting down contract work, and was shaking my network of gamer, geek and artist friends to drum up something to help pay the bills. It was then that 'The Jessica' pointed out a short-coming on a blog post I had made nearly a year ago. A typo. A simple slip of the fingers that transformed C-H-A-O-S into C-H-O-A-S. A small, minor issue I thought at the time. Just go back and change the title of the blog post, and fix any spelling errors in the copy. No big. No worries... until HE discovered it. Known only to me as 'The Fernandes' he came at me over my Skype chats like an old testament prophet. No amount of banning could prevent his messages. He followed me through user name changes, across the gulf of chat applications to MSN and iChat. There was no escaping 'The Fernandes' or his prophetic ranting and raving.
It is he that forced the power of the Choas upon me, it is he who turned my life from that of a simple sub-urban technophile into that of a super-powered being of unknown abilities... Do you have any idea with it is like to make a pot of coffee with the power of the Choas? The first time I tried my coffee maker exploded, sending coffee grounds and scalding water all over the kitchen. Clean-up was no simple matter, I turned to grab a mop and the back door to my house changed into A Flock of Seagulls, Mike and Ali Score right there in the space between my house and the back yard, and both of them wanting something to eat and asking if I had any extra hair gel. My whole first day with the Choas was like this, a never ending nightmare of Lokian proportions.
I would go to cut a slice of bread, and my knife would turn into a chainsaw. I'd sit on the couch and a dozen mice would run out and start doing the Can-Can at my feet. I'd go for a walk and behind me in, my footprints, would appear all manner of things: lost car keys, small children, apples, oranges, a potted bonsai tree. In the time it took me to walk to the convenience store and back I got 5 tickets for littering, and 2 for having pets off-leash! On the up side I had enough houseplants to redecorate my living room, but what good is that when the mice are starting to build a miniature replica of the Globe Theatre out of your wood laminate flooring?
That first day was a nightmare.
And then, like nothing had happened, it all vanished. The weird things stopped happening around me, the mice abandoned their attempts to rebuild Victorian London, and my life returned to some semblance of normalcy. I know not when or if the Choas will return, I hope that it won't... but I dread that it will. So a word of warning to all you authors out there, professional and amateur alike, be wary of your typos lest you find yourself facing 'The Fernandes' and the Choas.
