“Oh, c’mon, Ray! Just think: we’ll get free tickets to fly all over the place! And I get this snazzy hipster uniform! It’s perfect!”

“But what about your writing?”

“What about it?”

“You gonna have time for that if you’re flying between here and… wherever?”

“Of course I will, silly. This is just going to be part time, once I finish the training.”

“Training?”

“Yeah!” he grinned like a ten year old. “They’re sending us to Disneyland to learn how to be … you know… nice. To the passengers. When they get unruly. Or drunk. Or both.”

“And you’ll be able to do that?”

He kissed me on the nose. “Of course I can, silly.”

I wasnt so sure. For some unfathomable reason, Doc had decided he needed to get a job, and all of a sudden I come home to him jumping around in delight: Air Canada had accepted him as part of the initial run of flight attendants for their new discount airline, rouge. I didnt even know he’d applied to be one. I suspect the job in question had less to do with actually working to make money and more with looking très cool…

… but then cool, like so many other things, is sometimes in the eye of the beholder. “You shaved your head.”

“Yeah,” he grinned. “Ya like it?”

“It’s… gonna take some getting used to, I think.”

He grinned. I think he looked less a flight attendant and more a surly guy who would hang out listening to indie bands who sang songs about the way the government was misinterpreting the loving gesture of a raised middle finger. The papers were describing the uniforms as cast offs from the costume racks at Glee, and perhaps they were right. “So,” I said with the kind of resigned tone that I hoped he’d catch, “when do you start?”

He didnt. It flew right over him. “Tomorrow morning.”

“Tomorrow?!?”

He nodded.

“What about your hair? Does everyone who shaves it off get a job?”

Laughing, he grabbed my shoulders and spun me around for a hug. “It’ll grow back! C’mon, Ray. This is gonna be so… cool!”