Month: June 2016

By Jum Hagarty

I remember once being very agitated after I had lost my job. Where was my next meal going to come from? A friend of mine calmed me down. He told me most people think the agent of their supply is the source of their supply. The agents of our supply change from time to time. The source never does. He called the source God; I like to think of it as the Universe. He asked me how many meals I had missed in my life. I had to admit I hadn’t missed many. If you could see me now, you would rightly guess I haven’t missed ANY. His words were a comfort to me. The agents of my supply have been in constant flux for over 65 years. I have had lean times but never gone without. Two weeks after I lost my job, I had a better one that paid much more. I am priveleged, you suggest. Maybe. But my cats and dog have never done a lick of work in their life and they are fatter than me. I am their agent, but the Universe has looked after them very well.

By Jim Hagarty

I sometimes wonder why
I ever watch the news.
A half hour seeing bombs go off
Contributes to the blues.

The only sane thing I can do
In these uncertain times,
Is turn to Spongebob Squarepants,
That yellow guy so fine.

For every bad news item
Can soon be chased away
By watching Spongebob Squarepants
For half an hour a day.

To see that little fry cook
Flip patties on the grill,
Makes me want to quit the news.
In fact, I think I will.

I wish, in fact, that I could leave
My world and move away
To old Bikini Bottom.
I’d go there right away

Oh yes, it isn’t perfect,
And yes, it’s a cartoon
But if I can’t be with Spongebob,
Then I’m moving to the moon.

By Jim Hagarty

I have recently read some interesting newspaper articles which have cleared everything up for me regarding the Taser, the stungun used by police – and, in the U.S., by private citizens – to keep people under control.

As it turns out, the Taser is as harmless as a declawed kitten and is saving lives at rates rivalling the records set by squads of paramedics across the country. Last year in Canada alone, as many as 1,400 lives were saved by this handy little device which shoots 50,000 volts of electricity into the bodies of the people who, as it turns out, are lucky enough to be Tasered, rather than shot with a bullet or two. Even the fellow who got one of those little devils in the eyeball, the body part through which he will never see again, should be happy nothing worse than that happened to him.

I did have a fleeting doubt – if the Taser is so harmless, why do people need special training to use it – but I realized that that is probably just a technicality. Are the people in the U.S. who are buying the private ones, painted in pink or in camouflage colours or Valentine’s Day red (“If you love her, protect her”) receiving hours of in-depth training at a police college? I have decided they are probably not, so this is further proof the thing is harmless.

However, while I am reassured on the one hand and happy to know that I’ll never be killed by a Taser, wielded by private citizen or police officer, an alarming piece of information conveyed in one story I read has me lying awake at night in fear. Apparently, the common doorknob can fire off as much as 100,000 volts of electricity if you touch it after shuffling across your carpet in your slippers. This is twice the power of the Taser and it is now clear to me: My chance of death by doorknob are many times greater than termination by Taser.

Doorknobs, it turns out, are all around me, and while it is doubtful I’ll see a live Taser from one year to another, it occurs to me I can hardly go 10 feet in my house without encountering another knob. Worse than that, in my ignorance, I even installed several doors in my basement over the years and attached doorknobs to them. Like everyone, I have my down days, but I did not know I had such a deep death wish to actually boobytrap my own abode.

In fact, it seems to me, we are all in danger, no group more than our seniors who we allow to shuffle around in slippers in their final years, touching doorknobs wherever they go. Is this not some form of elder abuse of the most subtle, shocking kind?

I have now, I’m afraid, developed quite a fear of doorknobs and as it turns out, there is a word to describe it: knobaphobia. I have sent my slippers to the landfill and I am considering tearing up our carpets so no one in our family is ever harmed by the deadly static electricity waiting patiently for us at every doorway.

The company which makes the Taser claims that in the cases of the almost 300 people who have died after being Tasered, not one death has been directly proven to have been caused by the gun. I am now in full agreement with their position. Researchers need to look further into these tragedies and I believe if they do, they will find that in every case, those unfortunate folks had been in contact with a doorknob, maybe even several – before they were Tasered. The hundreds of thousands of volts of knob power pulsing through their bodies had weakened their systems, obviously, rendering them vulnerable to further shocks. These people are being Weisered, yet do we hear a word of complaint about Weiser, one of the biggest manufacturers of knobs?

Yes, keep the Taser, by all means. Use it more, in fact. Thousands of lives will be saved if it is.

But ban the doorknob!

As it turns out, it holds the key to this problem.

It’s an open and shut case!

By Jim Hagarty
Renowned Terrible Limericker

Don was an little orange mouse
That somehow got into the house.
He scrabbled and pooped,
And wandered and snooped,
But mostly he whined and he groused.

By Jim Hagarty
Hold Me in Your Arms is another cut from the great CD of original songs by the McCullough Girls called Bad Daughter. The CD is not yet available in the General Store.

Hold Me in Your Arms by the McCullough Girls

By Jim Hagarty

It’s been a while since I made a muscle. I am probably afraid to try. Body parts don’t co-operate like they used to, it seems. The longterm effects would have to be considered.

When I was a boy, it was a game and an important test for a boy to make a muscle. To extend your arm, thrust your first in the air, and squeeze with all your will and might to make the muscle in your upper arm pop.

I don’t know who we were all trying to emulate. Maybe prize fighters, maybe hockey players. But your progress as a boy becoming a man depended on the size of the muscle bulge you could muster.

Most of us couldn’t make a muscle very well. The muscles we made were puny but to us, they were impressive. Sometimes we would stand in front of our mirrors and even do a double muscle. Both arms at the same time.

It was not uncommon for someone to come up to you and command, “Show us your muscle!” So you did. It helped if there were some girls around to witness the event and muscle grew in direct proportion to number of female spectators. Funny thing, now that I think of it. The girls never seemed to make a muscle. I wonder if they could.

Of course, there were the star muscle makers lurking about. And even the puniest among us had no trouble going up to those well-endowed boys and asking them to show us their muscles. I believe “wow” was the appropriate response. We weren’t jealous. We just wanted to be like those guys one day. It helped to get a good look at what we were striving for.

I wonder if kids today are still out there making muscles.

I hope they are.

By Jim Hagarty

Whenever I am feeling low,
I feel low now and then,
I hop into my Chevy car
And take it for a spin.

I creep along the gravel roads
And look across the land.
It usually isn’t very long
Till I am fine again.

There’s something in that scenery,
The barns, the fields, the streams,
That calls out to my inner boy
And reignites my dreams.

To see wild creatures scat about
And farmers sowing grain
Reminds me of another time
When things were not insane.

I know it’s temporary.
Good feelings drift away.
But on those days when things seem grim
I love my Chevrolet.

By Jim Hagarty

I’ve been to the banker this week, going over some figures and seeing if it would be possible for me to start up – or buy an existing – variety store, sometimes also known as a convenience store. I’ve always kind of liked the laid-back attitude in the mom and pop shops and I can easily picture myself, broad smile spread across my face, greeting all my loyal customers as I bag up their pop, chips and smokes.

“Have a good day, Mrs. Haverschnoppy,” I’d say on any typical day. “Mind you don’t trip on the door sill on the way out. Say hi to Mr. Haverschnoppy for me. I hope he’s getting over that chronic hangover.”

I don’t much care what I sell in my store – magazines, frozen pizzas, pancake mixes – but I will only go into business if I can be guaranteed one thing.

I simply have to be a certified Ontario lottery ticket retailer. In fact, it is a central part of my business plan.
As far as I can see, though I will admit to being anything but a giant of entrepreneurial insight, pushing those little pieces of papery hope across the counter holds potential for enrichment, for the buyer and, more importantly, for me.

I take as my business model the northwestern Ontario variety store retailer who liked to spend his mad money on tickets and who just happened to win 165 times over the past nine years. In fact, his good luck brought him more than $1.2 million during this time. I’m guessing that amount could be more than he earned through the sale of all the other items in his store over that same period.

Now, the cynical person with a suspicious mind – I feel nothing but contempt for such malcontents – might think this retailer had done something improper to bring about all this good fortune. But I don’t think so and anyone who believes that is way out of line. He or she just happens to be pretty lucky, very often.

The Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp. said it had no evidence of wrongdoing and neither did the Ontario Provincial Police. There will be no criminal charges, nor should they be.

“There was no information in relation to the investigation that would support the laying of any charges,’’ Sgt. Pierre Chamberland said.

Now one thing I will say is that I have known people who have been buying lottery tickets for a lot longer than nine years and they have very little to show for it. Some free tickets here, $100 there. No lottery player I’ve ever met has won more than $1 million buying tickets over the course of nine years. So, this run of incredible good fortune must have something to do with owning a store. I can’t explain it. Those are just the facts.

This is the kind of linear thinking I have always been best at. Buy a store, sell lottery tickets in the store, buy the lottery tickets you sell, win 165 times … Boom! You’re rich!

So, if you see a big sign going up soon: Jim’s Variety and Lotto Centre, drop in. I might even introduce you to Mrs. Haverschnoppy and give you a hangover remedy or two.

No charge.