The sky over Manitoba was the color of mackerel,

The sky over Manitoba was the color of mackerel, surfing the wrong channel. The hibachi sizzled as Sandy MacPherson scanned the police bands, hoping that The Watercolourist

who painted her obscene portrait would soon be arrested so she could commence the vigorous beating she'd arranged. Sandy reasoned that he was a pretty crappy painter anyway, so

she got him a job as a barrista. That's what all the really crappy painters do for work. He got giant, plastic spacers in his ears, a trucker hat and tribal tattoos and on his

name tag he Sharpied over "Andy". His new barista pseudonym was "&e". But his twitter-savvy hipster rival, "@#", entered with a Slint concert tee and a post-post-modern smirk. "May

be tree's don't want to be hugged?" he offered in reference to current trending topic on the now mandatory tweet-feed display on the wall. I thought about @-ting his smug face.

I knew everything about Twatter. I no longer knew that # was the "pound symbol", only called it a "hashtag". I was the head Twit. And I posted every Twerp on my bedroom wall.

Then I got the call, I had been nominated for the top tweet in the "What I Had for Breakfast" category! Other awards included 'Celebrity Drudgery" and "Funny Thing my Kid Said."

That is I became a big scary piece of felt. It was a natural unwashed animal fibre felt, I think it was Yak & it reeked. Was this my prize? I felt someone rub there feet on my felt

loins, and I felt degraded. Slightly excited, but degraded. What kind of game show was this, that the million $ prize was stinky Yak skin?Panda-pelt maybe...but Yak-skin? No way.