Author: Jim Hagarty

I was sitting in the food court of a shopping mall many miles from home today, catching up on some people watching, when a married couple in their 60s wandered over to a nearby table, sat down and started chatting with some folks they knew. I have never met this couple but I know they are married and have been for a long time. I know this because this man and woman could have passed for twins. Not identical twins, but pretty close. Similar hair styles and colour. Interchangeable, almost unisex clothing. Many mannerisms in common and they talked and laughed in almost perfect symmetry.

A younger couple at another table also resembled each other closely. Both skinny with long black hair and lots of tattoos.

One night a while back I spent an hour waiting in a movie theatre lobby and was shocked at how closely the middle aged (and younger) couples resembled each other. One man and woman both came in with sweaters hanging over their backs, tied in front by the sleeves. Another walked by wearing the same bright colour of yellow except that she wore yellow pants and he wore a yellow shirt.

Numerous couples had almost identical eyeglasses. Some sported leather, others khaki.

I am not the first to notice this phenomenon. People have been pointing this out for generations. But it is amazing to see, nonetheless.

How can it possibly happen that over time, not only the clothing but the physical features of two distinct people can become so blended? Two souls becoming one, perhaps.

For me, somehow, it’s a comforting thing to see. No individuality has been sacrificed and yet, the sum of one and one is greater than two.

©2012 Jim Hagarty

I fancy myself a creative writer. But Donald Trump and everyone and everything associated with him is putting me out of business. I do not have enough imagination to come up with anything better than his reality.

For example, the wife of his ethics lawyer was caught having sex with an inmate in the back of a car outside the jail he was a guest in. Wife of the ethics lawyer.

That’s kind of like getting run over by the Welcome Wagon on your first day in your new town.

Besides, Trump employing an ethics lawyer would be similar to my hiring a chauffeur for the limousine I don’t own. Or a herdsman to look after my stable of unicorns.

I wonder if it’s too late for me to get my electrician’s papers or apprentice as a carpenter. With the U.S. president committed to keeping the world entertained every day, it’s just too hard for a simple guy to compete with his keyboard.

©2017 Jim Hagarty

I bought a big, new, black, plastic garbage can to put out at the street for collection by my city every week. Thirty dollars or so.

Today I noticed, as I was removing a sticker from it, that it has a lifetime warranty. Really?

I am 61 now. When I am 91 and the thing falls apart as I drag it out to the curb, will I really contact somebody about it to get my money back?

The store I bought it at will probably be gone by then. Maybe even the company that made it will no longer be in business. So how much time am I going to be able to spend by then tracking down the people who promised to replace my garbage can if it breaks before my life is over? And it will break because plastic eventually becomes brittle and cracks, especially in a cold climate such as we have in Canada.

And with our garbage pickup guys treating it like they are roping a wild bull at a rodeo, its lifespan will be limited for sure.

So why print “lifetime warranty” on this thing when everyone knows that except for the first few months or even years, if all goes well, those words hold absolutely no meaning? Unless our garbage pickup guys start treating my can as gently as they would if they were knitting a sweater.

It would have been just as true to have printed on the label: “The makers of this product guarantee a warranty on the lifetime of the buyer.”

To be guaranteed to outlive my garbage can and maybe exist forever is a promise I just might try to collect on.

I like it when sensible things like this occur to me.

©2012 Jim Hagarty

My maternal ancestors, the Morrisons, came to Canada from County Mayo in Ireland 160 years ago. As far as I know, we weren’t chased out of the country by a torch-bearing mob of our angry neighbours so it was a peaceful departure.

And while we weren’t reviled, it looks like we might have gotten out of Ireland just in time because the parties celebrating our departure have just gone on and on ever since.

Last week, for example, three Mayo sisters all gave birth at the same hospital in Castlebar ON THE SAME DAY and a fourth sister is due any day now.

Here’s me, a long-ago lost former Mayoan, making an uneducated guess: That was one hell of New Year’s Eve party!

Either that or the Irish in Mayo are a lot more organized and precise than I had given them credit for. So, three first cousins will all share the same birthdays henceforth. A sure savings on balloons and birthday cake at future birthday parties.

But, oh no! When they grow up, there’ll be family New Year’s Eve parties. Extra shifts for the staffs at the Castlebar hospital coming up in a couple of decades or so.

©2015 Jim Hagarty

This has been an exciting week for me. The other day, I bought a lovely wall calendar for 2022.

Just in time for September.

It’s sort of like getting your winter tires installed in April but these are the reasons the expression better late than never was invented.

I walked by the calendar store now and then this year and had my eye on a beautiful big calendar picturing a dog for every month. But the store wanted $24.99 plus tax for the privilege of looking at lovely photos of other people’s dogs. I thought, and my thoughts are usually bang on as I have a good brain, I can look at my own dog any time I want for free so why lay out all that money.

But last week, there it was. Marked down to $1.99 plus tax so into the store I ran before some other bargain hunter scooped it up. My find cost me $2.25. As I believe the world would be a better place if everything cost $2.25, I was very pleased with myself though I did feel a bit sorry for the store.

I should invite the owner over to have a look at my dog.

For free.

My calendar is open for the next four months.

And yes, I know I am in the company of those who eat their food after the best before dates but I grew up before best befores and somehow am still alive. We used to crack the lid on a jar, stick our noses in and take a sniff. If we didn’t faint, we ate whatever was inside. In the years since, I have dug out many a green section from my bricks of cheese.

Some readers might say the best before date on a wall calendar happens long before September 1 and even suggest the calendar should be hung on the wall on January 1. I am sure they have good reasons to think this as well as $24.99 plus tax in their pocket to spend, but I never want to get above my raisin’.

©2022 Jim Hagarty

We’re getting a new fried chicken restaurant in my town and to be honest, I should be happier about this than I am. In fact, I am a bit on edge about it. Apparently, the food at this popular diner is so good, people go crazy when they can’t get it.

On Monday night, in Houston, for example, an armed group of people rushed the door of one of the outlets demanding chicken sandwiches. Restaurant employees reported a mob of two women, three men and a baby were told at the drive-thru that the chicken sandwiches were sold out, a bit of bad news that apparently triggered the would-be customers, especially the baby who threw a total fit, over the top, in fact, even for a baby.

That is when the hungry gang took matters into their own hands and tried to get inside the restaurant. One man pulled a gun on the employees, but a restaurant worker was able to lock them out. When you work at one of these places, you need to be skilled at thwarting attacks by armed mobs.

Call me chicken, no, don’t call me that, when discussing this topic. Maybe coward would be better terminology. But I don’t want to be walking past this new restaurant some night and have to put up with armed would-be diners, especially baby diners. I can just see me getting involved somehow and I don’t think that would turn out well for anyone.

In fact, if I was hungry, who knows what side I might be on? I might take the baby hostage and demand four chicken sandwiches as ransom.

It could happen.

Oh the humanity.

©2019 Jim Hagarty

Our family has two cars. We are living the American dream. Most days, it doesn’t matter to us that our cars are just a touch shabbier than the old truck The Beverly Hillbillies used to ride around in with Granny in a rocking chair in the back. Yes, we do get envious.

We can’t fit a rocking chair in either car. We are only able to keep these junkers on the road because we have a genius for a mechanic. If he was a medical doctor, there would be people walking around our town well into their 150s. He’s younger than us so we are hoping our driving days will be over just about the time he hangs up his wrenches and oil can.

Many people who own beaten down jalopies know a little about cars themselves which is how they are able to keep their wrecks on the road and the right side of the law. Collectively, my wife and I know this about cars: A sedan has four doors and the AC button, if it worked, stands for air conditioning. So, we pay the car bills and keep on truckin’, in Beverly Hillbilly fashion, minus Granny.

However, our ignorance leaves us open to friends and neighbours who like to assess from a distance what is wrong with our vehicles. In short, we believe what they say even though we have absolutely no reason to have faith in them. Our oldest car, manufactured in 1997 and released on an unsuspecting world, started making terrible sounds a couple of weeks ago. The faster the car goes, the louder the sound is. It sounds somewhat like a space shuttle ready to launch without all the smoke and TV cameras, at least so far.

So, a friend drove it. “It’s your transmission,” he declared, shaking his head. “The car is done. I wouldn’t put a new transmission in a car this old.”

Most people wouldn’t put gas in a car this old, so what was his point? “Don’t drive it out of town,” he ordered us. So we don’t.

Friday night, my wife and I were driving along in our other car, foisted on the general public after emerging from the car factory in 2005. Suddenly, there was a terrible clunking sound from the back end, like might be expected if we had somehow driven over a landmine. Our town of 35,000 souls in Southern Ontario, Canada, is not heavily mined. We ruled that out. As we did a rocket attack by insurgents. Fortunately, the local police have kept insurgents on the run in our town and they are not a big problem. Kids on skateboards? But I digress …

We called a tow truck and our car soon disappeared out of the parking lot and on its way to our friendly mechanic’s shop. It was a Friday night, he doesn’t work weekends, and we had all weekend to worry about the fate of what had been the better of our two cars.

We asked our friend of the transmission assessment noted above what might be wrong. “It could be the differential,” he said, with what appeared to be a sad look on his face. “What the hell is a differential?” my wife and I said to ourselves after our long walk home carrying 45 pounds of groceries. I suggested at one point that we should just sit down and eat the groceries and be done with it but my proposal was spurned.

So, we have spent the past two weeks in a morass of transmission and differential worries. Our mechanic called on Tuesday. “Got your car fixed up,” he said, and explained that the problem was a broken spring. No differentials were harmed in the making of this movie.

Today I drove to the mechanic’s in the old jalopy with the defunct transmission, to pay the non-differential bill on the other car. I fully expected to hand over a thousand dollars. The bill was $129. Pleased, I asked him about the other car, the doomed one with the bad transmission, and told him our friend’s diagnosis. He smiled. The mechanic took it for a short spin. “It’s a wheel bearing,” he announced on his return. “No big deal.”

So, between Granny Clampett, landmines, insurgents and the friend who is always wrong about car troubles, apparently, we have made it through another week. We have a little shrine in our home dedicated to our mechanic. We have a framed photo of him on the wall, and below him burns a candle in an old soup can. We pray to him every night before bed.

©2016 jim Hagarty

I was admiring my face in the mirror just now when I almost fainted in horror, something I rarely do when staring at my face in the mirror.

There, as bright as a neon bulb, on the very end of my nose is a pimple. A man of 71 years can’t have a pimple anywhere on his body and especially on the tip of his nose. It is a scientific impossibility.

And yet, there it is.

This development has immediately set off a few worrisome moments because when a pimple sprouts at the end of my nose, it means I have to leave to pick up my date in 15 minutes. As a young man, going out with every young woman who would say yes, this was a regular occurrence. My face would be simply gorgeous, splashed as it was with very strong after shave lotion, my Buddy Holly glasses nice and straight. One last check before I headed out to the car and there it would be: A pimple for the record books, white and ready to burst.

What would follow would be some frantic self-surgery with a tissue pressed against my bloody nose as I ran for the car.

This happened before almost every date. But if it didn’t happen, that was almost more ominous because when the date was over and I arrived back home, it would be to find a lovely big golf ball living large on the end of my honker.

In any case, back to now. There it is, a new pimple. So, I will need to leave soon for my date, apparently. But I am getting forgetful and I honestly can’t remember asking anyone out on a date today. If I did, it would be the first time I would have done that in 35 years.

I think I will go ask my wife. She’ll probably know if I’m going out with anyone tonight.

©2022 Jim Hagarty

Five minutes.

That is all it took.

Sitting in the leather recliner, dog in lap, phone in hand, reading the news about the Idiot for the Ages, when the dog launches off the lap and takes off after the cat, for apparently no reason at all. Except this time there was a reason.

“Oh no,” comes the alarm. “There is a dead mole on the carpet.”

Swear words escape lips at this news and, naturally, the left lens pops out of the new eyeglasses, disappearing down the side fold of the chair. Many things have gone down that fold over the years, only some have been retrieved. Luckily, the lens hadn’t hit rock bottom but it was heading that way.

Unable to see ahead more than three inches, the hunt begins for the handy eyeglass kit with its screws and tiny screwdrivers. Blindness requires the head to be plunged into the junk drawer in search of the kit. Remarkably, it appears quickly.

The rodent, meanwhile, remains deceased on the living room carpet. The need to dispose of it outweighs the restoration of eyesight so double plastic grocery haulers are pressed into use to form a body bag for the poor creature. The cat will dine on mice all day long but he draws the line at moles. He is not to be blamed as moles do not appear to be eatable things. At least a lifeless, bloodless body is not too terrifying to deal with.

Back at the kitchen table to put a screw into the eyeglasses. The original one is long gone so a replacement from the kit is pressed into use. It is too long and too thick but with the application of elbow grease, a half hour of time and twenty well-chosen swear words, the larger screw has managed to force its way into the too-small hole and the lookers are once again able to see.

All of this activity has produced a blistering headache. A new bottle of painkillers are fetched. The manufacturer, just for fun, sealed the bottle so well it cannot be opened. As in never, ever. A sharp-bladed knife is needed to release the tiny pills.

A semblance of calm has been restored. The dog is hiding behind the couch, spooked by all the drama. The murderous cat is down behind the water heater.

And the Idiot for the Ages is still an idiot.

©2018 Jim Hagarty

I don’t mean to freak anybody out, but I am actively searching for a new place in the world to dwell. I live three miles from the hospital in which I was born and therefore, over my 72 years, I have never gotten very far in life.

Time to spread my wings!

But there are so many places where I could take up residence I am finding it almost impossible to choose.

I love Scotland and can see myself there. In a little place called Dull. It is possible I might be dull enough for there, but I worry there is a total absence of excitement in a place with that name. Same thing with Boring, Oregon and Nothing, Arizona. I’m all for peace and quiet but I sometimes crave a little noise, at least. A summer circus, a holiday parade.

Maybe, as I am just a regular guy, I would fit in with the people of Normal, Illinois.

Then there are places with a little too much oomph for me. Rough and Ready, California, for example. Same with Hot Coffee, Mississippi, Batman, Turkey, and Jot-Em-Down, Texas.

Some places I will avoid as the names just kind of turn me off, for no particular reason, I suppose. I don’t want to have to tell friends and family I am living in Poo, India, Windpassing, Austria, Anus in France, or Fartsville, Virginia not to mention Shitterton, England, Slickpoo, Idaho, or Poopsdale, Indiana.

But I have pretty much ruled out moving to Middelfart, Denmark. Town names get shortened, sometimes, and I don’t want to have to tell people that I am in Midfart.

As an Eyeore sort of guy, I maybe could see myself in Pity Me, England, Lake Disappointment, Australia, or Dum Dum, India.

And I have decided to definitely not go to Hell, Michigan although during my career as a journalist, I was often told to go to Hell.

I am also staying away from the state of Maine and its places called Bald Head, Deadmans Corner, Suckerville, and Purgatory. Same with Cranky Corner, Lousiana, though you never know, I might fit right in there.

Little Heaven in Delaware might be okay, but maybe it’s too soon for that. Maybe I would be welcomed in Humansville, Missouri.

And now that I think about it, five miles away from my current home in Stratford, Ontario, Canada, is a little crossroads called Harmony.

Harmony is small. But maybe, at this stage in my life, I could use a little harmony. In fact, it’s a ten-minute drive away. Maybe I don’t have to move at all.

Maybe I will start a movement to have Stratford renamed Staying Put.

The End.

©2023 Jim Hagarty