Andrea Mulder-Slater

by Andrea Mulder-Slater When I was a teenager, I worked in a record store located in the downtown core of a rapidly growing city.  Beside the store was a run-down hotel where lived an assortment of characters – many of whom had an appreciation for Elvis Presley music and heavy metal t-shirts. I still remember the time an exotic dancer came in to purchase a Metallica shirt. She asked if she could try it on. We had no change room so I suggested instead that she buy it and return it if it wasn’t a good fit. Instead, she removed her sweater – the only piece of clothing separating her bare skin from the patrons in the crowded store - and proceeded to don the t-shirt. It fit – thank God, much to the dismay of several young boys who had been flipping through the vinyl. It wasn’t the last time I saw someone naked at the record store. One evening, a man in an oversize Santa suit came into the store. Not a completely unusual event – we usually saw several folk...

by Andrea Mulder-Slater In the time it took for me to wrestle a Brazil nut out of its shell, my three-year-old daughter stealthily transported 7 rolls of toilet paper from the bathroom to the living room.  When I pulled myself away from the nutcracker, it was too late. She had created a pathway of "wipe-away" in the living room, around the corner and down the hall. She even used tape. The amazing thing was that all of this had taken place, in a matter of mere minutes. It was highly creative – and really, I couldn’t bring myself to scold her for such an imaginative performance. Instead, I let her continue to play – to see what else developed. After the path, the toilet paper morphed into a dog named Max. Later, it became ribbon “like the ballerinas use”. Eventually, my daughter became a orchestra conductor - throwing Charmin shreds in the air with gusto, while singing the Wonderpets theme song.  I was reminded of when I was a kid and my parents and I flew out t...