Author: Jim Hagarty

Last Christmas is long gone and we had a good one. Too many gifts, too much food, movie after movie, song after song. We never let that event slip by unnoticed.

And for me, the gifts seemingly never end, in spite of the months that have passed.

I came in the house last night to announce our backyard has been turned into a playground for skunks. Not being a fan of the smelly creatures, though some think of them as cute, I raced to the Internet to take a course at the University of Google as to how to chase away skunks. Suggestions were there aplenty.

But one in particular caught my eye. Skunks like darkness, so along with removing birdseed from the ground and dumping over the water sources, my next assault could only be lots and lots of light. So, I dashed about flicking on outside lights till the Blue Jays could have played a night game back there.

No dice. Skunks laughed at my efforts. Skunks laughing is a sound you don’t want to hear so I won’t describe it for you.

“If only I had a really strong flashlight I would shine it right in their faces,” I said. “They hate that.”

My wife left the discussion, ran downstairs and re-emerged with a Christmas present she forgot to give me. A heavy duty flashlight that could spot a tick on a black cat at 200 metres.

Joy unending. And the light worked. Skunks ran away faster than Blue Jays celebrating a win.

But my enthusiasm took a beating when I later realized that it took me talking about skunks to make my wife think of me. And her gift, of course.

However, on reflection, I realized it didn’t matter that she didn’t think of me until the discussion of skunks came up. As long as I was finally noticed, the hurt began to subside.

I’ve been madly seeking attention all my life, so if it took being associated with skunks to deliver some, I would be one ungrateful cad to raise a stink about it.

On to my next indignity!

©2024 Jim Hagarty

I walk into the second-hand shop.

“Can I help you?” asks the clerk.

“Yes, please. I am looking to buy an albatross.”

“Well, as you can see, our shop is full of albatrosses. Could you be more specific?”

“Sorry, of course,” I reply. “I am looking for a stand-alone cabinet with four shelves, two of them adjustable. I would like it to be made of pressed board, in other words, very cheap and wobbly.”

“And what do you want it for?” asks the clerk.

“To hold other, smaller albatrosses, many of which I have bought over the years in this very shop.”

“Certainly, sir. And how long do you see yourself owning this albatross?”

“I would like to trip over it three times a day for the next 10 years,” I reply. “At the end of that time, I will bring it back to you and donate it to the shop, hopefully with all the other albatrosses it will have been holding all those years.”

Clerk goes in back, comes out with big albatross.

“Oh, my. That would be perfect,” I comment. “How much?”

“Ten dollars,” says the clerk.

“You’re joking,” I say. I pay for it right away in case he changes his mind, load it up in my car and bring it home. What a bargain!

These next 10 years are going to be great!

©2016 Jim Hagarty

I was walking along the sidewalk on the way to the dentist this afternoon when I looked down and saw a hammer. A lightweight one with rubber on the yellow handle. Pretty cool. I am now the owner of a yellow hammer with rubber on the handle.

It occurred to me to leave it where it was in case the rightful owner returned, but I doubt that would happen and someone else’s toolbox would be one hammer fuller tonight. So I walked into the dentist’s office carrying a hammer.

I imagined I saw fear in the eyes of the people who work there and read their minds: “Old Jim’s finally gone nuts” as they are aware that I think dental bills are too high and I wonder if they thought I’d come to seek revenge. I explained the story and all was well. But they still looked at me as though I had hit myself in the head with the hammer 50 times before I walked in.

The reason I kept the hammer was this: Years ago, I was sitting in a coffee shop (when they still had stools) and I was right next to the cashier. There was a lineup. I looked down to see a $20 bill on the floor. I picked it up and said, “Anybody lose a twenty?” A young man in line instantly yelled, “I did” and grabbed the bill out of my hand. A young woman in front of him with two little kids at her legs frantically started searching in her purse, I believe, for the missing twenty. The jerk behind her got it.

So, if I had held that hammer up today and called out, “Anybody lose a hammer?” I know that guy or a jerk just like him would come speeding by on a bike, grab the hammer and take off.

Besides, I think Life throws you a free hammer every now and expects you to take it. So I did.

I nailed it!

©2013 Jim Hagarty

I was startled to read last year that the best food for wild rabbits and the one they love the most is timothy hay.

Having taken a keen interest in the half dozen bunnies that inhabit our yards, I mentioned to the family my finding about the hay. I have to be careful about what I discuss around my family because on Dec. 25, 2022, I got a bale of hay for Christmas. If there was another person in the world that got a bale of hay for Christmas, I want the details.

Shortly thereafter, someone asked me what I got for Christmas and, of course, I replied: “Twenty pounds of grass.”

The other night, I was standing not far from the shed, heading that way to close the door for the night. But My Bunny, the one that thinks I’m her overgrown Dad, raced me to the door and got there first. I talked to her and asked her what she was doing in the shed and I soon saw that she was snooping around the bale of hay, bits and pieces of which we parcelled out to the bunnies all winter.

Then she hopped right up on the bale, turned and faced me and all but declared, “This is my hay! Get your own!”

But to be safe, if I find out this year that what wild bunnies need most of all is a 50-gallon drum of molasses, I am going to keep that information to myself.

©2023 Jim Hagarty

Some families are super cautious. We all know the type. They install deadbolts on the insides of the doors to their bathrooms, lest a home invader wander in while a family member is having a bath. All the drawers on their filing cabinet have locks lest a stranger makes off with their lawnmower manual and warranty. They throw out food a week in advance of the best before date because you can never trust those best before people. They have motion-sensor lights and cameras everywhere and have all the security forces – fire, police, ambulance, etc., on speed dial.

Then there are the careless types who live their lives as though they are the only occupants of a desert island and would be shocked if another human being took their stuff.

My family belongs in the cautious group, though it seems we avoid the extremes. However, while I was cleaning out the car today, I re-evaluated where we are on the Careful Careless Scale. I hope there is a prize for this because I have a feeling we might win.

The first thing I did on my cleaning job was to pull out the heavy winter mat from the floor of the driver’s side. I shook it out and set it on the roof of the car. I dove back into the car only to discover a second winter’s mat in the spot where I had just removed the first one. Curious, I inspected the rest of the car only to find that this car is outfitted with eight winter mats. Underneath the multiple winter mats, I discovered the nice black carpet that was laid by the people who made the car back in 2006. So, the logic seemed to be that the original carpet needed to be protected like the gown Elizabeth I wore to her coronation in the 1500s.

Yes, I revealed that little gem. Our car is 16 years old. We paid $2,000 for it, but that is deceptive. We bought it within the family so were given a break. It has been a wonderful vehicle in the three years we’ve owned it with a near pristine original carpet. I am just glad we didn’t pay $5,000 for it because I can only guess at the precautionary measures that would be taken for a car so much more valuable.

On the careful-careless scale, I sometimes fail to read warning signs so tonight I brought up the case of the eight winter mats at our weekly Family Council Meeting, and in full careless mode, suggested we might be able to get by with just four mats. I won’t go into details about how my suggestion went over except to say I was sad when the meeting was over.

This afternoon I was in a tire store and there before me I beheld a display of rubber winter mats, made to fit any car. My wife’s birthday occurs just before winter. If eight mats keep my people happy, I am imagining their joy at 12 mats.

Sometimes my ideas aren’t great, but this one’s solid gold.

I can feel it.

©2022 Jim Hagarty

It started out innocently enough. Someone from Vernon Directories Ltd., when he or she was preparing the 1985 City of Stratford Directory, felt sorry that I didn’t have a wife at the time. So, he or she or it – it might have been a computer – decided to give me one. Therefore, when the hardcover, comprehensive directories appeared around town that year, Jas. J. Hagarty (that’s me) was listed as living happily ever after on Cobourg Street with his dear wife, Evelyn.

It took a few days for the remarks to die down in the newsroom where I worked. Comments such as, “What are you and Evelyn doing this weekend?” and “Will Evelyn be coming to the company party this year?” And in time, I almost forgot I was married. I’ll admit that was a leap because I had never before been married.

But strange things started happening. Evelyn began getting phone calls late at night from a husky-voiced man who hung up as soon as he heard my voice. An old boyfriend, I presumed. And my dear devoted spouse got calls from other women, inviting her to dinnerware parties, gold parties and bridal showers. Then there were girls’ nights out, the status of women committee meetings and cooking classes.

Before long, I began to feel left out. If she’d wanted to be free as an eagle, she never should have got married. Christmas cards came addressed to Jim and Evelyn and other couples started asking us out. Neighbours invited her over for afternoon tea and soon, it began to occur to me that I might as well be living alone.

I knew things had gone too far when I started leaving the front porch light on for her at night before I went up to bed. But the whole thing really got out of hand when plainclothes detectives visited me one day for a chat. Neighbours were concerned, they said, about Evelyn. They hadn’t seen her around in a while. Not in weeks, they said, months in some cases. Where was she, they wondered.

I tried to explain, in a good-natured way, how a misprint in a directory had led to the confusion. The cops weren’t buying it. What had I done with her, they wanted to know. Nothing, I said. I hadn’t touched her.

“Aha,” they exclaimed. “So, you admit she exists?” It all got extremely ugly after that and before it was over, the three of us took a trip to the basement and to the backyard to see if anyone might have been recently laid to rest against her will.

My name was cleared in the end and the phone calls from Evelyn’s friends and neighbours eventually stopped. I adjusted to single life again. But when a note was left in my mailbox two weeks later asking me to call the directory company with information for the city’s 1987 directory (they publish every two years), I was ready.

“Evelyn’s packed up and left,” I told the woman on the phone. “We had a terrible squabble and she’s gone. Gone forever, she is, and between you and me, I’m darned glad to be rid of her. So, when you’re writing me up in next year’s directory, please leave her name out.”

“That’s fine,” the woman said. “But should I still go ahead and list the names of your four children? Or does Evelyn have them?”

©1987 Jim Hagarty

I’ve tried pretty hard over the years to not get too far from my rural roots, of which I am proud. I recently bought a nice baseball-type cap at a store which caters to rural people with “Farm Boy” written on the front of it. I think it suits me.

But when you live in the city, the hayseed schtick has to be reined in a bit. When I am in my backyard, which is surrounded by a six-foot-high privacy fence, I will happily wear my farmer’s straw hat, which I should wear to keep the sun from further damaging my tender skin. And if the day is hot, I might even take off my shirt. (On reflection, maybe that is why the house next door has sold over and over again for the past 15 years. Hmmm.)

But as backwoods proud as I am, I don’t seem to be able to summon up the courage to go straw hat clad and shirtless in my front yard. To me, that would be kind of like giving up the facade I have developed. I want to be a city slicker and country bumpkin all at the same time. To be honest, I’m not sure I am either one at this stage in my life.

Nevertheless, having lost my nicely toned physique somewhere in my 30s, I am reluctant to foist images of a topless me on the brains of innocent passersby who would have otherwise done nothing wrong but walk by my house at an inopportune time. So, if I am in the backyard wearing a straw hat and no shirt, I will don a shirt and a baseball cap before I go to the front yard to water flowers or cut lawn. Seems only fair to everyone involved, including me.

But last night as I went for my walk, I was confronted by my neighbour George, a widower slightly older than me, who was out cutting his lawn in a huge straw hat and with no shirt on. Taking a quick glance, if I was his fashion consultant, I might have recommended a shirt, as George has shown up for every meal for many years, just like I have. But if being half naked in full view of passersby bothered him, he wasn’t showing it. Maybe he was counting on people not noticing his state of undress as they stared at his oversized cowboy hat made of actual straw.

You know, I will admit to a certain admiration for George. He lost his wife a couple of years back and now, sitting in his driveway, is a convertible he bought a week ago, something he and his wife always planned to do. He also has a new lady in his life. I think there is a connection between the convertible, his new friend, the hat and the toplessness. I think he probably just wants to live the rest of his life not worrying what all those passersby might think.

“I’m going through my second childhood,” he told me, with a chuckle. “I’m still finishing my first one,” I replied.

So, if you see me semi-naked under a big straw hat cutting my front lawn, you can assume Childhood No. 2 has arrived. For confirmation, check to see if there is a sports car in my driveway. And a Buddy Holly CD in the stereo.

©2015 Jim Hagarty

We have a thief in our neighbourhood and it’s troubling.

So far, the culprit has made off with only small things – rhubarb plants (removed by the roots), steel bars, old panelling, used two-by-fours. But the absconder is getting more brazen.

A new house was being built directly across the street from our place after the house that was there burned down. One day, the concrete trucks arrived. They poured the footings. Came back a few days later and poured the walls.

The stealer man noticed that each time the concrete truck left the site, the workers left behind a neat little pile of wet concrete on the ground. They should have put a sign in the pile, “Free.”

Shovel by shovel, the neighbour stealthily removed great quantities of the concrete which he put to good use as mortar for his stone porch which was getting wobbly.

However, he made one critical error. He stopped for supper one night and when he went back, the concrete in the pile had set.

I feel like Grover Monster from Sesame Street who was featured in a great kids’ book, There’s a Monster at the End of this Book. All the through the book, poor Grover gets more and more worried about the monster he will meet at the end of the book and he tries to get the reader to stop, so the end won’t be reached. But alas, he makes it to the final page, only to find the monster is himself.

My front porch never looked better.

©2016 Jim Hagarty

Ten years ago, a big hole appeared under my shed. A groundhog had taken up residence in the hole but he was evicted thanks to my garden hose after I heard that a groundhog can mess up a little dog such as we have.

Even when the hog was still there, I filled in the hole a couple of times, and he dug it out. I even put a rock in front of it after filling it in. He pushed the rock aside.

But ten years have passed. The groundhog is gone, but the hole is still there. A little grassed over and from time to time, it looks like someone has moved in, but it soon goes dormant again.

However, two days ago, I just about fainted when I saw that some animal has not only cleaned out the hole but expanded it. There is enough fresh dirt kicked out onto the lawn to half fill a wheelbarrow.

This is an instance when you wouldn’t want to own the imagination I was cursed with. My first thought was that a bear cub could fit in that hole with room to spare. Maybe two or three cubs were living under my shed. But I am also able to access the logical side of my brain, weak though it might be at times, and decided bears would need more room to create a den under my shed.

The next obvious candidate was a wolverine. For some reason, I was raised to have a terrible fear of wolverines. We did live on a farm and maybe at some time in the last hundred years one did wander though and ate a goose or a calf but my siblings and I got repeated warnings about wolverines to the point where I half expected to run into one on the way to the barn to do the chores at night.

Wolverines are nasty creatures, for sure, and how one got under my shed I will never know. But I wasn’t happy about it.

Then I remembered we have five bunnies ripping around our yard – two adults and three babies – so maybe they are down there. But I doubt that. The wolverine would scare them off.

I discounted the idea that another groundhog had taken up residence as I think I made myself pretty clear ten years ago that groundhogs are not welcome.

So yesterday, summoning up all the courage I don’t have, I went behind the shed and stood by the hole. Almost immediately, I saw a nose emerge from the hole and then two oversized eyes and a head. Then the thing came right out and started zipping around. Fortunately, it didn’t see me.

I suppose there are some who would say the threat level arising from a chipmunk is pretty low. That would seem to be right but some species of chipmunks have been around since the dinosaurs.

So, if they can outlive the dinosaurs, I think one of these hardy guys, if he got in a lucky first shot, could really mess me up.

I’m starting to miss the wolverine.

©2020 Jim Hagarty

I have been on a few job interviews in my life. Some went very well, some badly. My most memorable bad one occurred when I was offered the job but then told the interviewer I would need some time to think about it.

“What kind of guy interviews for a job he’s not sure he wants?” asked the ticked off interviewer, who subsequently hired me. Then fired me later.

But at least one job seeker in Kentucky seems to have gone about things in perhaps exactly the wrong way, though this is just an opinion. A young man walked into a Chuck E. Cheese restaurant in a Lexington mall this week and asked for a job application.

An interview was scheduled for 4:30 p.m. He showed up 10 minutes early which I would say shows initiative and interest. If I had been interviewing him, I would have been impressed.

But in the interview, the job seeker, in my view, made a critical error. If you are looking for work, you might want to avoid making this mistake.

Our young hero told the manager he had a gun and he was there to rob the place. When the manager informed him that he did not have access to the safe, the young man apologized and then got very upset and left.

Two mistakes: Don’t try to rob your prospective employer. That approach does not usually result in a good first impression. And don’t show too much emotion during the interview. You want to project stability.

The man left and apparently had better luck when he robbed a dollar store down the street and got some cash. He hid in the store and waited till it closed before demanding money from the clerk.

But still no job.

I have always found it is a mistake to hide in a place of business until after it is closed. Above all, job interviewers do not seem to deal well with surprises.

©2016 Jim Hagarty