Author: Jim Hagarty

By Jim Hagarty
Renowned Terrible Limericker

There was a wee gerbil named Frank
Who got tired of life in his tank.
There was nothing to do
And the build up of poo
Meant his cheap little habitat stank.

By Jim Hagarty

On the farm, a cat or dog would get hurt, sometimes badly, by getting into a vicious fight or being in the wrong place at the wrong time when some dangerous farm machine was bearing down on them.

If they didn’t die outright, they would sometimes crawl away to some hiding place to get themselves out of the range of predators (thus protecting the pack), and to lick their wounds. There is an agent in the tongues of animals, probably humans too, that has healing powers.

We use the term “licking our wounds” almost every day. I wonder how many people don’t know that it came from a real thing.

A person suffering depression often finds a place to hide away from everyone, including members of his own pack, to lick his wounds and try to heal. They are spiritual, mental, emotional wounds, but dangerous to the health of those who experience them.

The people around someone who is depressed and gone into hiding are alarmed. We believe the solution is to end the isolation, get the depressed one out around people again and he will be alright. I used to think that too.

Now I believe the isolation and withdrawal from the world is a necessary thing and trying to pull a person out of that self-imposed state prematurely is to interfere with the process of licking of the wounds.

The wounds will heal. The person will re-emerge. The best we can do is look on non-judgmentally and with kindness and be there when the isolation ends.

I have licked many a wound in my day.

I have spent my share of time in hiding.

I have had the good fortune to be surrounded by understanding people.

By Jim Hagarty

A few weeks ago, I kept an eye appointment I wasn’t sure I needed. I changed my mind after I drove right past the eye clinic and couldn’t find it, in spite of the fact that there were three big signs on the front of the building declaring “Eye Clinic.” Not sure how I missed them.

Today I had a follow-up appointment and it is pretty clear to me now that the medical specialists who work in that building are goofing me for some reason. I had trouble finding the place again (I’ve been going there for only 30 years) but this time, at least I had an excuse. The eye clinic owners had removed, for reasons unknown, the largest of three signs that pointed to their business. That sign was six feet long, two feet wide, and lighted. It said, quite clearly, “Eye Clinic.”

So the game plan appears to be to make it harder and harder for me to find the eye clinic each time I show up for an appointment. That seems to be part of my eye examination now. Each visit, they take away another sign and see if I can still find them. I wouldn’t be surprised to show up some day to find all the signs gone and just a little business card taped to the inside of the front door window announcing, in tiny lettering, “Eye Clinic.”

Seems a weird way to go about eye testing but I never attended Optometry School so what would I know? I probably wouldn’t have been able to find the darned school any way.

By Jim Hagarty

“I was beaten, as a child,
“But it was good for me.”
Said the mean old lonely senior,
Who lives down the street from me.

“My father never spared the rod
“And I knew where I stood.
“I’d go back and thank my Dad
“If there was some way that I could.”

“The kids today they don’t know how
“To work or show respect.
“My Dad would whup them good and hard
“If he saw them, I expect.”

My neighbour is a law-abiding man,
I have to say.
But he’s as nasty as a wolf.
What made him be this way?

He lives alone and never smiles
And complains day and night.
Maybe Daddy’s whackings
Have left him less than right.

By Jim Hagarty

I am a walking encyclopedia with an amazing ability to retain and retrieve facts.

A lot of people have benefited from this skill over the years. I hope that doesn’t sound like bragging. I don’t mean it to be. It’s just a fact, identical to the endless supply I have stored in my very active brain. People at parties, especially, are grateful I am there to enrich every conversation.

I was at such a party last winter and fulfilled my usual duty. Those in attendance were attentive and impressed. After supplying several low-level tidbits to the talk, I held forth when the subject of the movie White Christmas came up, appropriately so at a Christmas gathering. We had watched the movie the night before so I was primed and ready.

“It’s ironic,” I interjected to the 10 people listening carefully, “that the Danny Kaye character predicts the Bing Crosby character (I can’t remember which one was Davis and who was Wallace) will have nine children some day because in real life, Crosby ended up having nine kids.” That is remarkable when you think about it and those who heard me speak were enthralled at this unexpected enlightenment. I was glad to enlarge their tidbits storehouses.

My niece, a geologist and student at a California university who is actively doing research on the first manned mission to Mars (seriously) pulled out her smartphone and a few seconds later announced that Bing Crosby had seven children in real life.

I was surprised that my niece and Google would be wrong about that but I didn’t object. Instead I steered the conversation to other areas about which I am very knowlegeable. We discussed various historical figures and I mentioned being at the house in England where once lived Mary Arden, the mother of George Washington. My fellow partiers’ eyes widened at that morsel.

My niece, who had lived in England for three years when she was younger, narrowed her eyes to help her read from her smartphone.

“Mary Arden was William Shakespeare’s mother,” she said.

This was sad I concluded to myself. If someone like this is working on the Mars project, they’ll probably land the damn rocket on Venus instead. Is this the quality of education California universities are supplying?

My niece disputed several more of my facts with the help of her phone which had been surgically attached to her hand by NASA scientists. I grew quiet. It is important to withdraw your encyclopedic mind in certain low-information environments.

“So what’s new?” my uncle asked me. “It’s raining out,” I said, without having to look at my hand. I was going to talk about the record mild temperatures but my niece was looking right at me. So I decided to switch from holding forth to information gathering mode.

“So when are you going back to California?” I asked her.

By the way, did you know she is flying back to the States on the space shuttle Discovery?

By Jim Hagarty
Renowned Terrible Limericker

A mouse and a kitty were wed
But couldn’t get comfy in bed.
The mouse stole the covers
And they really weren’t lovers
So kitty ate mousey instead.

By Jim Hagarty

A man in Nova Scotia
Was picked up by police
Because he swore in public
And shocked somebody’s niece.

I’m glad they caught the bugger,
The ignorant, foul-mouthed shit.
I hope they throw his ass in jail
And put an end to it.

There’s too much goddamned swearing
Going on around us now.
That son of a bitch needs to go to jail
Where he can swear all day and how.

Yes, the cops in Nova Scotia,
Having solved all other crime,
Are after all the swearers now,
And it’s about fucking time.

By Jim Hagarty

So my wife hid behind a wall and stuck her leg out as I ran by.

The arsenic in the stew had had no effect on me so she had moved on to Plan B.

I fell like a mighty oak against a wooden chair. As I lay on the floor reading myself the Last Rites, our dog Toby rushed to the scene and knew exactly what to do. He stuck his tongue down my left ear and oddly, it seemed to help. Toby’s Wax Removal Service is available for rental. Just Google it.

My wife, meanwhile, finally set down the life insurance policy and then came over to assess the damage. I was bleeding from several wounds on my head. One of them was new, having been inflicted by the chair. The others were just the usual.

My wife said I might need staples to close the gash. She went to the shed and came back with the roof staple gun. I protested as I didn’t want blood on my staple gun. So she decided to treat it.

She ran upstairs and came back with a bottle of cayenne pepper which she sprinkled liberally into the cut. I asked for another helping of her stew.

She then fetched some turpentine, windshield washer fluid, WD-40 and rubbing alcohol and when I wouldn’t drink the mixture, she poured it all over my head.

More stew, I screamed.

Toby moved on to my right ear.

My wife sent our daughter to the shed for some duct tape. She came back with a roll of white Gorilla tape. They use that tape to make repairs on the space shuttle.

Toby is my only friend. I would kiss him but he has a bad case of wax breath.

Help me!