5 days down....

So, I've been in Coral Harbour for 5 days now and it's been fun, sad, weird, surprisingly not as cold as I would have thought and frustrating. Day 1 I arrived, get picked up at the airport (my grade 6 portable was bigger) and dropped off at the store. The president of the company was there as I'm all disheveled, in my ridiculous powder blue and fluffy astronaut city boots and exhausted from having been up since 4 a.m. As 6 of us pile in to a pick-up truck to take him and the other dudes from the company to the airport, I'm squeezed in the front seat in the middle with my knees up to my chin totally self-conscious that my huge parka is making my butt too wide to fit comfortably between two 40+ men I've known for oh, 5 minutes. After we get back to the store, they give me swipe card with the bar code on it and tell me to swipe myself in. I ask if it matters what side to swipe and the manager says "no" so I swipe, only to have him look at me like I'm from Mars/or a very slow 5 year old child because I've swiped the card horizontally and the barcode appears on the short end of the card, therefore I've only swiped half of it. Duh.... dude, I'm jetlagged from WINNIPEG. I go home giggling after a fisherman comes in and asks if I'm the manager's daughter, turns out he's only 10 years older than me... Quit smokin' and wear your sunscreen kids!! And there are dead flies all over my floor. And apparently the floor had already been swept. I'm warned not to put to much on the coffee table as one of the legs is broken off. My shower is clogged. The water pump rattles and bangs every fifteen seconds. I fall on my butt in a snowbank because there is no real path from the open space that serves as a road/front lawn/parking lot. I had Friday off, so I got to unpack, however the drawers in my dresser are broken so right now my socks and underwear are in the drawers below my TV. My shower is still clogged. More dead flies under the sinks in the kitchen and bathroom. 5 garbage bags later I'm coming to realize that my standards of cleanliness are a lot different from those who "cleaned" my apartment prior to my arrival. Saturday I get a ride to work with my next door neighbour/colleague and meet a few more of the staff who are staring at me like I have 3 eyeballs. After a little while though, people start warming up, and as customers come into the store, everyone asks me what my name is and where I'm from. As soon as I say Toronto, they start teasing me about being a Leafs fan. Big news comes in that someone "caught" a polar bear. My manager offers to drive me home from work on his Ski-Doo, which was terrifying while I was trying to simultaneously a)not fall off the back or sides, b) hold onto my groceries and c) keep my hood from blowing backwards because going that fast, in the dark, in Nunavut, I thought my eyeballs were going to freeze out of my head and my face was going to fall off. Feeling wobbly being on solid ground I fall on my butt in a snowbank again. Shower is still clogged even though the local handyman spent 45 minutes at my place fixing it and the waterpump is still rattling and banging. Just so you know, I've been bathing in my kitchen sink. But, after investigating some wires, I plug in my TV and have free cable!! Yippee!!! Sunday, I'm off again and stay in my PJs all day. Watch the Gold Medal Hockey game and realize only after the 1st period that I've been jumping up and pumping my fist in the air, alone, doing robot victory dances in my leopard-print pajama pants and Canadian Curling sweater with my curtains open. Monday. Fall on my butt in the SAME friggin' snowbank. Apparently the person who "caught" the polar bear is my next door neighbour because now there is a 10 foot bearskin hanging on some logs in their back yard. First official duty as Supervisor of General Merchandise: blow up 75 balls for a spring display. Douglas the handyman fixes my shower for real this time AND shovels my steps. Got home at 7 p.m. after starting work at 8. Legs hurt, eyes ache, I want a beer and the only thing I can get on TV is Ellen because I only get the BC channels which are 3 hours behind my time zone. Oh my god. And it hasn't even been a week yet.